Improve Lix board's subtitle

Started by Simon, October 16, 2016, 03:26:37 PM

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Simon

Since at least 2015:
Discuss Lix here; a Lemmings-like game with support for custom levels and graphics and network or online multiplayer.

Please change into the following, or suggest even further improvements. :lix-grin:
Lemmings-like game with custom graphics and levels, and networked multiplayer.
(Edited according to Proxima's repsonse.)

Reasoning:

  • Discuss Lix here: -- entirely obvious, remove altogether. Discussion is the norm on boards; you'd forbid discussion, e.g. on boards purely for posting content, rather than allow it explicitly where we want it.
  • with support for -- better say "with X" than "with support for X". To have something, you must support it anyway. But you can support something without having it. Thus, "with X" is both shorter and more informative.
  • with custom levels and graphics and network or online multiplayer -- maybe this is subtle, but it's broken English. No matter how you bracket this, it's wrong. Possibility A is "with support for (custom levels, and graphics, and network) or online multiplayer", that says "Lix supports network", which is broken English, and rips apart "networking" and "online", which are close semantically. Possibility B is "with support for custom levels and graphics and (network or online multiplayer)", that's bad grammar and would have to be "networked or online multiplayer".
If you prefer full sentences, please consider Lix is a Lemmings-like game with custom graphics and levels, and networked multiplayer.

-- Simon

Proxima

#1
QuoteLemmings-like game with custom levels, graphics, and networked multiplayer.

In Simon's version of the summary, "custom levels, graphics" should be "custom levels and graphics" so that "custom" applies to both, i.e. one of the selling points is that you can add your own graphics to the game (and it already includes graphics made by the fans rather than the developers). At the moment, Simon's version just says that the game has graphics. All games other than text adventures have graphics. No-one seeing a game prominently featured on a Lemmings forum would expect it to be a text adventure.

For the other boards, either make similar improvements, or at least change the semicolons to colons. A semicolon links two clauses that could each be an independent sentence. "A Lemmings clone based off Lemmix without glitches and with many new features, and the accompanying tools for creating your own content" could not be an independent sentence as it has no main verb.

Simon

#2
Awesome, thanks. Edited the first post.

I would like to point at the editor, too. But I fear bloating the sentence. Custom levels don't imply an editor, and an editor doesn't imply lots of readily-packaged levels. Tricky.

What is Lix in my opinion? Singleplayer and multiplayer first. With levels built by the community. Then the editor, to make level creation bearable. Then custom graphics, because I don't use DMA's copyrighted graphics and players have contributed cool graphics. It builds and runs on Windows, Linux, Mac, is open-source, and relies only on open-source libraries and tools.

-- Simon

namida

If you come up with an exact wording you want, I'll put it on (or geoo or ccx can if they get to it first). It's worth keeping in mind though that not everyone shares your preference for consice, redundancy-free descriptions, and it may come across as off-putting even, when compared to the somewhat more casual tone of all the other boards' descriptions. (But then, it is your project, so if you'd prefer such a description anyway, I'm not going to refuse it.)
My projects
2D Lemmings: NeoLemmix (engine) | Lemmings Plus Series (level packs) | Doomsday Lemmings (level pack)
3D Lemmings: Loap (engine) | L3DEdit (level / graphics editor) | L3DUtils (replay / etc utility) | Lemmings Plus 3D (level pack)
Non-Lemmings: Commander Keen: Galaxy Reimagined (a Commander Keen fangame)

ccexplore

Hmm, the difference in style of the revised subtitle now kind of sticks out a little compare to the rest, but as namida said:

Quote from: namida on October 16, 2016, 08:21:04 PM(But then, it is your project, so if you'd prefer such a description anyway, I'm not going to refuse it.)

So change applied.  This may actually be the first time I read any of the board subtitles. :-\

Simon

#5
Thanks! :lix-smile: The full sentence is good. My itch was the "and network and online" in the 2015 wording.

The conciseness is secondary, but welcome. Ideally, the board title speaks for itself. Since "Lix" alone has no meaning to newcomers, the program's one-line description strikes good balance.

-- Simon