FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

As much as I am trying to reduce the amount of graphics and code that run on startup, the reality is that load/connect times can be long.

It would be great to place some images somewhere and have them display as a slideshow during loadtime.

Here's some changes I am prototyping:



These work well for singleplayer. More work would need to be done to show "entertainment" whilst connecting to a server.

What do others think?

Good idea, definitely looks more interesting then the current loading screen.

Well... Actually advices for in-game likely many games have isn't a bad idea. :)

That might be a bit harder since there are different subgames.

The slideshow could be defined at the subgame level I guess.

Something like Skyrim loading screen, maybe? Also, why not a screenshot? :D

Currently I show a sequence of screenshots from the game.

I also experimented with a kind of "whack a mole" (with zebras) game on startup. Unfortunately this doesn't work too well as the load screen isn't refreshed often enough to support much interaction.

just an idea: what about taking screenshots randomly when playing, and show it on next loading time?

There should also be random quotes or gameplay tips on the loading screen.

Maybe the server could provide the images, downloaded on the first connect to it and cached somewhere?