Use the Landscape, Luke

Just like the last time, I decided that I have to change the screen orientation mid-project. This time from portrait into landscape. Here are the reasons:

attack graphics looks odd upside down
I want to provide hints how damage is calculated, awkward since all the enemy cards are upside down.
Thumbnails used to pick units from your deck are too small on phones.
YouTube videos are landscape.
Desktop version of the game (if I ever release any) can use larger resolution.
I can test larger resolutions on my monitor instead of having to run it on the Android devices.
Players will sit next to each other, so they won't have to put the device down on a table to play. You can play it with a friend on a bus or on a train.
Much more available screen space for unit stack and enough space for additional user interface. See how everything is crammed currently and a lot of space is wasted sideways:

Cons:

I have to redraw some of the graphics
I now need horizontally flipped unit graphics which will almost double the memory consumption of the game (I cannot simply flip the whole card, as it contains pregenerated text as well)
The drafting screen cannot use the rotations to indicate current player

To conclude: unless the game is meant to be played like Flappy Bird (using the same hand that holds the phone and having only one command: “tap anywhere”) use the LANDSCAPE orientation.

read more... Tweet to @bigosaur Bigosaur, 2014-10-12