Designing the Token Display

The combat token system is a fairly complex thing, so it demands a fairly complex user interface...at least by this game's standards.

I've gone back and forth on this design for months, sketching layouts, making changes, considering trade-offs, and refusing to settle until I felt that the design was "just right". Well, I think I have a design that's "just right" now.

Below is a rough mock-up of what I have in mind.

This is what is going to happen when the user clicks the Tokens button on the button bar.

The three buttons at the top will allow the user to choose the unit type for whom he/she wishes to view the inventory of tokens.  For example, if the Captain button is clicked, the captain's tokens will be displayed.

Just below the buttons are the counts of how many Heal Tokens and Grenade Tokens are in this unit type's inventory.  Only Troopers have grenades, so this value should always be 0 for Captains and Officers.

Next is the Combat Tokens area. Regular Combat Tokens are stackable with counters, and will be displayed with their attack values in red, their defense values in blue, and the count in the lower right corner.  The Attack and Defense buttons will cause the tokens to be sorted by their attack and defense values respectively.

Below the Combat Tokens is the Power Tokens area.  If the display is sorted by attack, then only the aggressive Power Tokens will be displayed.  If sorted by defense, then only the defensive tokens will appear.

Right under the Power Tokens is a text area that will marquee-scroll the descriptions of the Power Tokens' effects when the mouse hovers over a Power Token.

So this is my plan. Hopefully by the end of the month we'll see it in action...and see how closely the final product ends up matching this low-fidelity prototype.