Early comments on the UI

[elondaits]

Some very early comments on the UI. You probably thought of some or all of these things already:

• Is there a reason why the simulation has a max length? (200 days, currently)
• You'll want to write a small text that explains what each counter measure means. Some are obvious, but some may not (e.g. the actual scope of "Close Businesses", or what "Test and Trace" is) depending on the nationality of the player, or their knowledge. These explanations can be provided through a tooltip (if short) or popup (if long).
• It'd be good to provide some numbers and line graphs indicating the progress of the epidemic beyond the map (e.g. number of deaths, number of infected, etc.)
• For the game experience maybe it'd be good to provide a way to run the simulation in "steps" (e.g. one week at a time) instead of continuously. It'd give a chance to see the effect of the applied counter measures, and evaluate whether to push on or change them.

[andreasdanielmatt]

I add some early remarks also from my side:

• related to point 3 from Eric and connected to the "high score" idea you mentioned when we spoke: I think it is important to see something like a current number and also a final "number" (measuring success/failure) at the end, this could be the total infected/deaths - and some indicator on how many measures were used for how long.
• related to point 4 from Eric: I like the continuous way (it adds some stress to react while things are moving), but a "pause" button would make sense (if you want to think before deciding), maybe both ways to play (continuous and step-wise) can be combined with a "Pause/Play" and a "Next Week" button
• Question: is there a way to add vaccines as a counter measure (or is that not a viable ounter measure?), see also next point
• Maybe too advanced: I like the idea of playing "one year of Covid", something like March 20 to March 21, so maybe days can become weeks (if that makes sense for the model). One run should not take too long, so several runs can be played. The game could trigger/show certain messages connected to the individual months (like "Summer is here, many people travel", "Winter is coming", "Christmas alone or with family?", "Mutation arrives", etc.). Depending on the "flow of months", new counter measures (like vaccinations) could be added.

(Note: you might have considered many points already, I did not check the new version, but saw that you are planning new/more sophisticated counter measures in the other issues)

[FHell]

Excellent points all around, here are some thoughts from me:

• 200 Days is arbitrary. Hopefully by then Vaccinations will be there ;) But really as the parameters right now are not actually tuned to be realistic it's largely arbitrary.
• Absolutely agreed that we want to show several aggregate statistics. The new engine prototype provides the time lines, so this needs to be implemented on the front end. We might need to model more things to show all the aggregates we want (hospitalizations, long-covid cases, etc...).
• For debugging purposes we should also have an option to show the instantaneous model parameters given the current countermeasures.
• On steps I imagine we want several game modes. E.g. sandbox in which you can jump ahead and back in time, or decision maker where you get to change the measures once a week and there is no pause button. :)
• Vaccines as countermeasures: I am imagining Vaccination more as part of the dynamics. There is no reason to toggle it on and off, though once it's implemented we could also provide the option to turn it off.

[elondaits]

Another possible model for the time tracking: The Mini Metro game shows a small clock which shows the quick passage of each day, and offers a play/pause button and a fast-forward button which makes the time move faster. This results in a very minimalist and intuitive UI...

I'd also suggest some messages on reaching certain milestones (e.g. 100 infected, 1000 infected, infected in all regions, etc.) which pause the action and allows for reaction... or some extra delay on each week (e.g. a report on screen that compares the number of infected this week to the previous one), so people can change the counter measures without actively pausing. Done right the flow can be really zen... which is a bit against the subject matter 😬, but still helps with engaging the mind and working with the UI.

[FHell]

Thanks! Mini Metro looks really nice, more puzzly and interactive than what we have though.