SC2Mapster

Dialogs are troublesome for most users, at least initially, but once one gets the hang of it, it becomes fairly easy. There are libraries available on this site intended to help manage the complexity of working with dialogs; as a galaxy scripter, I just write my own utility functions that streamline the process of creating and configuring dialogs to a few lines of code. Before implementing dialogs or using libraries to help manage them, you should practice and tinker with them and all of their properties in a separate map. Panel dialog controls, for instance, are an incredibly useful container for other dialog controls, and help group related dialog controls together.

Changing a dialog frame texture in GUI is done with an action along the lines of "Set Dialog Background" or some such; use the asset browser to find a texture formatted for frames or make your own in Photoshop (with the Nvidia dds plugin for the 32-bit build) or Gimp. Ideally, you want textures with thinner borders, so you don't waste so much screen space. I have attached some .psd files that demonstrate the layout of frame and button textures, in case you're interested in making your own.

I expect there are a number of tutorials on this site concerning dialogs and particular implementations, such as dialog-based score/leader boards, so I'll avoid lengthy exposition on that subject.

Mozared and others on this site are known for their terraining prowess and for guiding others, so you might benefit from reading terrain-related tutorials and looking in the relevant forum for topics concerning design.

Core gameplay can be thought of as the baseline of player activity, the minimum set of actions involving the player at any time. I say that optimal unit positioning (the micromanagement dimension) and upgrading (the macromanagement dimension) are the core gameplay mechanics because that's what players are doing between everything else, like when unit abilities are on cooldown or their situational value doesn't call for their use. That there are other options, sub-optimal or otherwise, does not change the core gameplay mechanics; they are additions to it, decidedly not core mechanics since abilities are not the primary set of options defining play.

EDIT: To be clear, that's not to say more abilities is better; players are managing multiple units simultaneously, and giving them more abilities to manage only serves to increase the difficulty in decision making or may result in some abilities being neglected altogether. Rather, additional qualitative differences between abilities would add more tactical depth. Would you rather have two dozen different tools or a few situationally versatile tools? Good design gives you less, and allows you to do more.

Thanks, in that case. I wasn't too bothered by the UI myself, and I had never really heard complaints from the people/friends I play the map with, so thanks for bringing up the UI issue. I'm not sure how to go about redoing the interface, could you give me a few tips? I know that I should make a dialog... but what types of dialog items would work best? labels?

I'm personally dissatisfied with the terrain as well. The map's story isn't really the key point, so to me the actual terrain aspects outweigh the visual/narrative aspects. On terrain features, is there a guide somewhere on how to make a "good" terrain? I'd like to read up on it sometime.

The core gameplay is certainly more than that, at least judging from how the people I play with seem to play the game. Setting mines, using abilities (especially domination, I've noticed. I personally like dominating the infested marines and moving them to a cliff edge, which slow down the fire rate of nearby enemies) , killing important targets like overseers and cliff-seer units, etc. Recently, I've been working on getting melee units to be able to compete with ranged units, and as of now both melee units, for example, have two abilities each (although both if the dark templar's abilities already exist. The zealot has unique ones).

I jest, but sincerely.

Explicit timers are dirty design, to say nothing of the interface clutter. The wave window is an enormous waste of screen space, taking up 2/5 of the screen's width and height, especially since it's displaying empty rows for inactive player slots. You could conserve space, reduce clutter, and increase the overall quality of the interface if you would convert the leaderboards and timers and counter to dialogs and integrate them into a single toggleable frame, preferably with a custom texture so you're not wasting 50px on their thick, stylized frames.

The terrain is primitive, but mostly functional. In its current state, there is little tactical depth to the terrain besides what is already provided by the standard cliffs, and doodads sprinkled about do nothing to improve matters. Good terrain has both tactically significant features (chokes, flow breakers, basins, hazards, los blockers, destructables) and has a narrative quality to it that informs the player about the setting, its history and its present.

The core gameplay appears to consist of moving units into position, jockeying for optimal placement from which to attack oncoming mobs, and upgrading their capabilities. This makes it only slightly more engaging than a tower defense, which tend to alternate between active building and passive waiting phases. You need to give players more interesting options besides stand-here and increase-these-numbers, give the units abilities that are qualitatively distinct and add tactical depth through their manifold situational value.

Haters gonna hate :/

Between the leaderboard and timer windows and the standard UI, you almost can't see the repetitive infested terran grinding and numerous actor errors.