This file must be viewed in Code Page 437 to display correctly (and also use a
fixed-width font while you're at it).

Both this file and lcs_block_font.png are part of Liberal Crime Squad's source
code and licensed under the GNU GPL version 2 or later, and were created by
Rich McGrew to be incorporated in this game.

Here is a block font for small capital letters in newspapers (variable width
of 1-4 characters with most letters having a width of 3 characters, and a
height of 4 characters). It uses Code Page 437 block characters to make big
letters but not as big as the already existing font for really big newspaper
headlines. This smaller font is for names of newspapers. It might also be
useful in other parts of the game, for displaying stuff big but not too big
(e.g. if there is not much text on the screen and it's an important message to
grab the user's attention).

You can also find it in a graphical form in lcs_block_font.png.

Anyway, it is better than the current block font used for names of newspapers
(most notably THE HERALD, where the E in the left part has the middle -
missing and looks more like a C), but it needs to be implemented in the game.
I haven't quite figured out exactly how to do that just yet so I am making
these 2 files for the time being until that is implemented. The current block
font used for newspaper story titles, on the other hand, looks very nice the
way it is, I'm not suggesting changing it.

This only implements 26 letters and the single apostrophe, exactly the same
characters as the other, larger block font. Implementing lowercase letters is
not very feasible with such a small font (not enough pixels for them to look
even remotely decent, especially considering lowercase letters that hang down
below such as g, j, p, q, and y, and lowercase letters that are a bit complex
in a small area like e, s, and z), but numerical digits could be added along
with other punctuation marks if necessary (punctuation marks like the period,
comma, colon, brackets, parentheses, exclamation point, question mark, dollar
sign, etc.). Well maybe not the comma, it hangs down below most letters, just
like the lowercase letters g, j, p, q, and y do, and if you raised the comma
up vertically to make it fit, it would look a little weird. Actually we could
implement all those characters, even the lowercase ones, if we really wanted
to, it would just look weird for some of them and their vertical placement
would look wrong.

It might also be useful to have a slightly smaller version of the really big
block font used for headlines... same width but shorter vertically. This
would be for news stories where there are 2 rows of headline. I haven't made
such a font yet, but that'll be the next one to do after this one's
implemented and in the game to replace the current one for names of newspapers
(including the Liberal Guardian, which has the widest name). Stories with 2
rows of headline leave almost no room on the bottom for story text, so this
would fix that problem. The big block font for headlines is 5 characters wide
and 7 characters tall, with an 8th blank row underneath, and it's fixed width
unlike the font in this file. I'm thinking of making a shorter block font that
is 5 characters wide, 5 characters tall, with a 6th blank row underneath,
which would likewise be fixed width and look very similar, just shorter. This
would add 4 more lines for text underneath 2 rows of the headline (which would
actually take up 12 rows of the screen, rather than the current 16).

Also, there may be some letters in this font that could have alternate-width
versions, since it's variable-width after all. So at the bottom I have some
variant-width versions for most of the letters. Some of those could be used if
the name of sometihng is really short, since most of the variants are wider.
The 2 characters where the ones I picked are wider than their variants are
K and V, because the 4-character-wide versions of them look much better than
the 3-character-wide versions. But for long text, like "The Liberal Guardian",
we don't want characters to be too wide or else it won't fit on the screen.
All characters are available in width 4 although it isn't the default one I
picked for most of them; this allows for creating a fixed width font, although
the purpose of this is to make a variable width font, I am just keeping our
options open. I am a little disappointed that it seems to be impossible to get
the letter X to look nice using only a height of 4 block characters. Most of
the characters look nice though, and X looks OK, at least in my opinion.

This font would also allow us to have a wider range of newspaper names. We
already have "The Times", "The Post", "The Herald", "The Daily", and
"The Globe". Some others we could add are "The Picayune", "The Gazette",
"The Journal", "The Press", "The Dispatch", "The Chronicle", "The Courier",
"The Sentinel", "The Tribune", "The Sun", "The Star", "The Examiner",
"The Independent", "The Review", "The News", "The Bulletin", "The Reporter",
"The Record", "The Democrat", "The Register", "The Leader", "The Citizen",
"The Weekly", "The Enterprise", "The Review", "The Ledger", "The Inquirer",
"The Republic", "The Courant", "The Mail", "The Bee", "The Blade",
"The Beacon", "The Intelligencer", "The Telegram", "The World", "The Nation",
"The Mercury", "The Union", "The Pioneer", "The Express", "The Advertiser",
"The Republican", "The Patriot", "The Eagle", "The Pilot", "The Messenger",
"The Monitor", etc., as well as ones that randomly combine 2 of these words
(e.g. "Daily News", "Sun Times", "Review Journal", "Star Tribune",
"Post Gazette", "Herald Tribune", "Union Leader", etc. - those combinantions
are all real newspapers in the United States). My own local newspaper has an
amalgamated name using 3 of those words: "The Press & Sun Bulletin". But using
3 words is probably 2 much to fit. Oh, and we won't use "The Guardian" for
other newspapers, that's reserved for The Liberal Guardian. And it would be
fairly simple to code in a check to make sure 2-word combinations aren't too
many letters to fit on the screen.

OK, now that I've come up with all this, the only thing left to do is actually
implement it in the game itself. I'll just leave this file and the
corresponding .PNG file that displays this same font graphically (you'll need
to zoom in on the image to see the details, obviously). That image has a
checkerboard color pattern so you can tell where one character ends and
another begins. Remember, each character is sorta like 4 pixels in a 2x2 grid,
but you're limited in the number of possibilities for those 4 pixels... only
6 out of the 16 possibilities you'd have in a graphics mode are available.
Here are those 6 possibilities for each character:


Characters used: Space:            " " (0x20)
  (from CP437)   Full Block:       "" (0xDB)
                 Lower Half Block: "" (0xDC)
                 Left Half Block:  "" (0xDD)
                 Right Half Block: "" (0xDE)
                 Upper Half Block: "" (0xDF)

Character widths:
A,B,C,D,E,F,H,J,L,N,O,P,R,S,T,U,X,Y,Z = 3
G,K,M,Q,V,W = 4
I = 1

Here is the official font (there are variants later on but these are the
versions I think are best for using in the game).


 

 







 
 



 
 










  


  
 


 


 






  
  
 


 
 
 
 

  
  
  







 


 


 
 




 
  


  
 





 


 
 



  
  
  

 
 
 


  

  
  






 


 

 

  
  


 
 




 
 

Those are the 26 capital letters in order, followed by a single apostrophe
like this one: '

Now are some variants that are different widths than the ones I chose for the
main font, just as other possibilities.

Thinner variants of K and V (3 characters wide instead of 4):

 


 

 
 

  

Wider variants of I (2, 3, or 4 characters wide instead of 1):







  
  



  
  


Wider variants of A, B, C, D, E, F, H, J, L, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, X, Y, & Z
(4 characters wide instead of 3):

  


  







  
  



  
  










   

  


  

 
  
 
 

   
   
   


 


 


  
  




 
   




  


 
 



  
  
  

  
  
  


  


  

  

  
  


 
 


Wider variants of M and W (5 characters wide instead of 4):

 

  
  

  
  
  


G and Q don't have variants, they don't look good at other widths besides 4.

Neither G nor Q can be done with width 3 or less, and width 5 is quite
excessive for any letters other than M and W, given how short the characters
are (limited to a height of 4).

All characters are available in width 4, this means it is possible to use this
to make a fixed width font, although I think variable width is much better,
because fixed width is a waste of screen space and limits how many letters you
can fit on the screen.
