26th of March 2024
Good morning!
I was thinking about how to give the player some feedback on when the controls are blocked, so that one wouldn't keep trying to move the gems around even tho there is stuff happening around. My first idea was to modify the whole board in some way:
The effect is subtle, yet still somehow distracting. If you make it more evident, it's definitely distracting, and if you make it more subtle, it doesn't really work. So hmm. Other ideas? Maybe just change the color of the time progress bar when it's inactive:
I mean hmm sure I guess? Just make the color transition a bit smoother, I guess it could work... it feels a bit boring tho.
How about just an icon?
Hm. Not sure I like that. The icon would need to change at at least. And feels a bit lazy. But in the end better than nothing I guess?
How about instead of just color, make an image/effect to overlay it? Like, you know, it's frozen?
Hm. Maaaaybee? I'll try out some or all of these 3 ideas after the work day. Currently I'm leaning towards the "frozen" time, either with color, image, or maybe eventually some juicy effects. The icon and board darkening feel both distracting and/or lazy, tho at least both of them would be better than nothing. But I can get the time progress bar color change implemented just as quickly as the board color change, so I'll probably start there.