dicecloud

Health Bars - Retrospective

Added 2019-01-17 08:25:55 +0000 UTC

As you may or may not know, DiceCloud is getting a version 2. It's an almost complete rewrite of the app, and once it's done and tested, all existing DiceCloud characters will be migrated to the new version. Development is still very much underway, and a beta only going to be likely near the end of 2019.

What a new version does do, is allow me to look critically at all the components that make up a DiceCloud character sheet, and really decide if they are doing everything they can to make interacting with them fun and effortless.

Today's component of interest is the health bar:

This is what DiceCloud's current health bar looks like. It has some nifty features:

If someone else edits the bar, and the bar's value is decreased, it leaves behind a red trail of how much health is lost
You can drag the current health around, which shows a thumb tack of how much damage or healing is being done
You can edit the value of the health directly

There are some problems with it though, particularly once you start reaching higher levels

The distance you need to drag the health around for small amounts of damage at high levels is way too small, particularly on mobile, making it a pain of carefully trying to get the exact right pixel
You can't see you maximum hitpoints
Editing the current value directly means doing the math in your head

In the next post I'll explore the current state of the new health bars in version 2 which try and address these problems, and make life a little easier at the table.