MaxDe - physics based game for Linux (64-bit)

[SilverWarior]

I think that is punishment for me being lazy and selecting the predefinded color clBitBtn instead of figuring out the hex code for the desired light gray I wanted.

There is nothing wrong about using predefined colors. You just need to use Delphi or in your case Free Pascal predefined static colors and not system defined colors. How do you know which ones are static and which defined by system?
You can find out this simply by typecasting the color value to an integer. If it is positive then it represents Delphi/Free Pascal defined static color. But if it is negative then it corresponds to a specific system defined color that can be changed on system side through UI settings or UI themes being used.

Here is a few examples:

clBlack = 0
clBtnText = -16777198
clGray = 8421504
clGrayText = -16777199

I have no plan for the white text right now. Got to see if there is some solution.

Not sure if this is same in FPC/Lazarus but in Delphi you change text color through Font property. Default font color is set to clBitBtnText which is a system defined color (as shown above it has negative value).

[Jonax]

@SilverWarior : Thanx for yet a piece of instructive and useful feedback.

I have to look into those negative color values. As you say this may be one of the cases where Lazarus and Delphi differ slightly but either way the situation got to be addressed somehow.

Meanwhile I have made color changes which I hope will be readable for both dark and light themes.

The start screen is also changed so the first thing the player must do is to chose difficulty level (keys 1-5)

I hope the game will behave better now and be interesting despite the slow pace and low action.




^ Start mode. Select difficulty with keys 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5


^ Ongoing

[SilverWarior]

Meanwhile I have made color changes which I hope will be readable for both dark and light themes.

I liked your previous color choice more. Current button colors are to vibrant and thus stand out to much.

The start screen is also changed so the first thing the player must do is to chose difficulty level (keys 1-5)

In order to make choosing of difficulty more intuitive I recommend you make use of the RadioGroup component. Ant to make radio group horizontal just make sure that you change its column property to the number of radio buttons that it contains (5 in your case).
You could still keep keyboard binding for choosing desired difficulty quickly and add two more with left and right keys increasing and decreasing the difficulty respectively.

[Jonax]

Indeed the current colors are a bit strong. I obviously liked the paler type of color from the earlier version. This is more of an attempt to make the captions and text more readable for the dark mode users. That white font on pale background is not looking good, as pointed out by Ñuño Martínez.

I still haven't tried/managed to force the font to black so this is a mitigating attempt.
The hope is that though the colors may be a bit strong at least most user can read the letters and better see what's going on and what's to do.

Using a RadioGroup for selecting difiicutly is an interesting idea. I generally like using the available Lazarus components, when possible. Why invent the wheel again when so much userful stuff is already available?

[SilverWarior]

I generally like using the available Lazarus components, when possible. Why invent the wheel again when so much userful stuff is already available?

I gathered that much already
As far as I know RadioGroup is a standard component that comes with Lazarus. That is also why I recommended it

[Jonax]

I gathered that much already
As far as I know RadioGroup is a standard component that comes with Lazarus. That is also why I recommended it

RadioGroup is standard in Lazarus too. Very useful, them standard components

About the keys 1-5 for selecting difficulty I actually got a special reason for chosing them.
Why? It's for the benefit for younger users who may learn/confirm a tiny bit of knowledge from this.
That is the number (of balls) is 2^(selected key-number). 2¹ = 2, 2²=4, 2³=8, 2⁴=16 and 2⁵= 32.

Not much but this is a game and not a physics and math lesson.

[SilverWarior]

About the keys 1-5 for selecting difficulty I actually got a special reason for chosing them.
Why? It's for the benefit for younger users who may learn/confirm a tiny bit of knowledge from this.
That is the number (of balls) is 2^(selected key-number). 2¹ = 2, 2²=4, 2³=8, 2⁴=16 and 2⁵= 32.

That is interesting. But using RadioGroup would not deviate from this since RadioGroup buttons would also be marked from 1 to 5.
Now using of RadioGroup also has another possible advantage. And that is giving you an option to make whole game being controllable by just mouse or perhaps even through touch screen interface (not sure how good is support for these in Lazarus). Modern Delphi versions provide touch support right from the start without any additional code necessary (that is unless you are interested in special.gestures).