For years, I have had the goal of allowing QONQR players to help me create skins for the game. The things that have held me back are:

1. Are my images the correct size to start with?
2. Do I really want to expose so much of our intellectual property to just give away all the images?
3. Building a site to allow community asset management is alot of work.
4. Is this a smart use of my time.

• I did some checking on #1 today. For the most part, we did get the images sized about correctly, so down sampling is not too significant. I know it isn't perfect everywhere, but I can't worry about being perfect.
• I'm not as concerned about #2 as I used to be.
• I'm not doing #3. If someone wants to make a skin, it will be a manual process for me to trade files with them until the manual way becomes too much work.
• #4 we all need something fun right now. I'm going to throw this out there with only a few hours invested. We'll see if anything comes back.

One year for April Fools, we created the "Cheese Pirate" downloadable skin. That laid the ground work for additional skins. If you want to make one, and you do a pretty good job, I'll add it to the app. Here is a list of every image in the app. I currently manage almost 3000 image assets for just the mobile app, for only iOs and Android. It takes about 485 to completely replace every image in the app, for a single resolution.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PowmH6m1epHLgMSWtZ98x-BM7y7...sp=sharing

Here is a zip file of the images that are most commonly used for most iOS Phones. These are the "@2x" images, plus a few misc images I never made upscale versions for. If you are going to build a skin, I recommend targeting this image size. It is a good compromise between download size and quality. If you are a photoshop wiz, you can setup exports for every possible size (in the google sheet doc) and we can make multiple skin packages.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/f6m8c4wwwmtsabu/QONQR_Images.zip?dl=0

The Cheese Pirate skin was achieved by applying a color tint to the standard QONQR blue images, then replacing a few dozen specific images. We can try that for your theme if you want, check with me before you replace every single image, if you think tinting might work.

If you are forced to be home for the next few weeks or months, and are looking for a fun project that finally gives you a chance to learn Photoshop or some other graphics tool, let's talk. If you are willing to put in the time to make a skin, I'll do what I can to support that. This could be a fun project where a whole group of people work together crank out some images.

If your wondering what happens to them long term, who owns the copyright, etc, etc, etc. Let's chat. For now, I'm happy to just see what the community wants to do.

If you plan to use this project as a way to understand how to create a complete image set for mobile apps, it can be a challenge. Here is a list of links I found helpful.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/android/app-fundamentals/resources-in-android/resources-for-varying-screens?tabs=windows

https://medium.com/@hugh.potter/designing-smallest-mobile-first-320px-or-375px-discuss-6cff79bce939

https://ivomynttinen.com/blog/ios-design-guidelines

https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/ios/icons-and-images/image-size-and-resolution/

https://www.pixplicity.com/dp-px-converter

https://developer.android.com/training/multiscreen/screendensities

https://www.whoishostingthis.com/resources/dpi/

https://www.wintellect.com/understanding-native-image-sizing-in-xamarin-forms-apps/

Is there anyway to test the skin to see how it looks before it's submitted back to you?

I don't think there is a way to test skins without violating the preamble or §4 of the eula.

You may not use the Service [...] in connection with any other software. Attempting to play the game QONQR with a modified client, or manipulating the communication of the client and server is not allowed under the License, and is a violation of this Agreement.

By agreeing to the terms of this agreement you, the player, agree you will NOT:

[...]

4. modify data files or cookies used by QONQR software

My plan for "testing the skin" back when I first build this feature was to have you upload your images to a skin admin portal that owners would have rights to, then download and try them, like downloading a normal skin. To keep the effort low, I may do this same thing manually to start, then once I can't keep up, start building this admin portal. Hopefully, because you have the original images you will be able to modify them and layout won't be an issue. Most of the images are a fixed height/width in the app. So you will need to replace them with the identical size in most cases. Some images only have a fixed height or width in the app, and can stretch the other way. Until I have a site where you can do the uploads yourself for testing, I recommend sticking to the same pixel size.

[To install this skin, go to Settings > Skins and enter "white"]

Merry April Fools! QONQR is white now.

Use cases:

• Spend the 20 bucks you were going to shell out for those fancy blue light filtering goggles on face masks
• Better visibility when you're outside despite the quarantine and the sun makes your display hard to read

Not useful as an april fools prank, but it might make for an interesting alternative look. It also contains other fun stuff like crosshairs that look better on the now mandatory bright map and 20% transparency on all pins so multiple zones in one place are easier to see. Please note that I made this with my WQHD+ (3120x1440) screen in mind, hopefully nothing looks weird on lower-dpi devices.

Thanks AgentConDier! I will try to get a skin put together on the server side (for download) later this week.

In my last post I said that I would get that skin posted on April 1. Then the robotics team I coach started 3D printing face shields 60 hours a week 2 days later. Things finally slowed down the beginning of June and I got back to work. I was burnt-out and needed a fun project.

AgentConDier inspired me to expand the the skin feature. In the next release, Elite players will be able to create a personalized skin. They can change all of the colors in the app, and be able to tint any image to a different color. I've taken AgentConDier's concept of removing the color and applied that to all 475 images in the app. Now you can choose an base image set for your skin that is only black and white, and apply a color tint to the images.

It is also possible to completely change the map colors by creating a google maps theme. This site has many pre-made map themes that you can just copy and use. https://snazzymaps.com/

There isn't currently the ability to substitute in a custom image, as is done with the CheesePirate skin, but the features exists. It is currently a manual process I need to do.

For now, only elite players can make a personalized skin, but they can opt to share that skin with other elite players and subscribers. I opted to make this an elite feature because it was recently pointed out there wasn't much special about being elite. This may change in the future.

If you are interested in creating a public skin, for all players, including image substitution, please email support. I've laid the ground work for the community to create some very interesting themes. We will see what is created.

Update heads-up: My white skin should now work with the new skin system. I added a dark map theme, which is a slightly edited version of https://snazzymaps.com/style/48277/black-gis and changed the crosshairs to white accordingly.