Interface gives me a headache

[pikeoff]

I like to play with a zoomed-out view but the game keeps wanting to zoom in and re-center after anything happens. I feel like I'm constantly fighting with the "camera" as it jerks the view around. It makes what should be a nice chill game nearly unplayable for me.

[p99999]

There's a suggestion to remain zoomed out here https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=213932 that you can vote for

[Cwali]

The player tableaus tiles are shown as large as possible in the player tableaus frames (once 5 tiles in a row/column or so is reached).
To make the info per tile (like the needed landscape and the victory points at animal tiles) better visible so that you don't need to zoom/enlarge much (especially for phones but for laptop screens helpfull too).
At the moment that you must choose the spot for your new tile, all available spots are shown (by dotted lines), so that adds a tile space at each side in the screen, so at that moment all tiles are smaller. Normally you know the spot before taking the tile from the market, so normally you don't have to zoom during the 'placing phase'. (We had the idea to show the optional spaces for the new tile by dotted-line half instead of complete spaces, but that's not possible to program at BGA.)
So I understand what you mean about the different sizes, but we focussed long on making the gameplay relaxed and using screen sizes well and keeping tableau(s)&market&goals&turnscounter&yearscounter visible in one screen as much as possible, I think this way is the most comfortable.

[p99999]

My perspective is that if you offer a player the ability to zoom their game board then it's unfriendly to ignore the zoom level the player has chosen and reset it each turn. The game should respect the player's zoom preference (or don't offer it in the first place).

[Cwali]

I think a player's zoom level of the "tableau-squares" (not the tiles) at laptops at turn-end is the start in the next turn and other HABITATS games with the same number of players.

At phones all players' tableau-squares get shown as large as possible and the tiles in it from the left to the righ edge of the phonescreen (sometimes from top-to-bottom of the tableau-square and that size depends on the player number, ideally the game could be programmed for each screen type and each number of players independently but we didn't do that (all(?) games at BGA don't do that btw.) and we chose the best tableau-square-size-ratio (high/wide) per player number for laptops mainly).

That's separate from the fact that in the place-your-tile phase the player's tableau has to be zoomed out to make space for all the possible spots to place the new tile.

While your tableau grows, ít stays complete visible in your tableau square. So tiles get automatically smaller during the games. So that you don't have to scroll or shift your tableau and it makes that you see your tiles as large as possible in your tableau square. To make the game comfortable to play.
In many games at BGA you must scroll and zoom in/out and shift a lot and then still can't see everything you want/need to see in one screen. So we tried to counter that issue. Works great IMO. Only at 4 and 5 player games in phone screens the market and own tableau sometimes don't fit in one phonescreen, in that case you can shift your tableau further up in your tableau square. Making that even happen automatic would be nice but for that the UI had to change a lot and would have negative effects too, we didn't do that.

[Ori Ori Ori]

Link to bug/suggestion isn’t working. I 100% agree with letting the player control the zoom, for real tho. It makes me nuts.

[p99999]

Not sure why the link doesn't work any more but if you search for Habitats in the Bugs section it's called "Stop the player area resizing itself after each action"

[brizsett]

I concur, I actually stopped playing it because of this.

[Cwali]

Played and seen many HABITATS games last months.
During the alpha and beta phases we improved the visibility of the tiles in the player's tableaus, finally made them as large as possible and whole tableaus visible in each case/phase.
So we didn't spoil space for a possible later extra tile at the North and South and East and West side of each tableau. That made a huge difference, it makes the demand-icons per tile well-visible at normal laptops and phonescreens. Earlier versions, without this, weren't comfortable for this game.
In solo games everything is visible well enough anyway, so for solo games this wasn't needed, but it's programmed the same for each player number.
We could add a different option, but adding an option which we had before and know it's not good (for most types of devices/players) doesn't feel great, but maybe.
The market&goals layout in combination with player(s) tableau, is okay in solo games and 2-player games, could be better in 3/4/5 player games. Maybe we find time to improve that. The market method is the coolest with the most players so I hope to improve that visibility.

[harpwn]

Added a user pref for this now but you will have to enable it.