Hooded Horse Wikis
Against the Storm Official Wiki:Style
Overview
The intent of this style guide is to establish conventions that we can reuse to render information consistently, aid in readers' recognition of game concepts and terms, and assist authors in writing.
Although not essential for authors on this wiki, consult the Wikipedia Manual of Style for an excellent set of guidelines.
Keep articles focused, linear, and simple
The majority of articles (pages) should focus on one and only one topic. Suppress the urge to make a page that includes All The Things or make One Table To Rule Them All. Less information that is well connected and easy to navigate is better than too much information all in one place, so err on the side of less.
Be familiar with the "inverted pyramid" or "news story structure." This approach starts with an == Overview == with just a paragraph or two that introduces the most important things and why the reader should care. Then subsequent sections can provide detail—provided the article stays focused. When content diverges, link out. When content gets lengthy, create subpages and link or transclude the content.
Everything on a page should center on that page's topic. Anything related to the page's topic can be included in that article, under an appropriately titled section heading. Anything unrelated should not appear on that page.
While it might seem convenient to try to include things indirectly related to the article, it helps readers to understand the primary purposes of the information to keep the article focused on the topic and its direct relationships. Look for other (or create new) pages where that information might be more appropriate, then add a link.
Headings
Headings should be in sentence case, with only the first letter capitalized, unless it is referring to a special term.
The page title at the top of every article is to be the only level 1 heading on the page. Therefore, when writing section headers on pages, start with level 2 headings, == H2 ==, and proceed to level 3 === H3 ===, etc. as needed.
Make tables straightforward and accessible
To maximize the readability and understandability of tables, follow accessibility guidelines to make tables straightforward, linear, and non-complex. The best way to achieve this is to use MediaWiki's own markup for tables. This markup is limiting in the complexity and arrangement of tables, and these limitations should not be circumvented but treated as creative constraints to challenge you to find the most universally usable format for the data.
- See also: Help:Tables on MediaWiki
- See also: Help:Sorting on MediaWiki doc
Don't use tables to achieve layouts that should be done differently (or not at all). If you don't have headers and data that belongs under those headers, then you should probably be using lists or just paragraphs. If there is no sorting that would add understandability to your content, then you should probably not be using tables, although there may be exceptions to this guideline.
- See also: Help:Lists on MediaWiki
Don't hardcode styles
If you specify unique styling for images, tables, etc., then when we implement CSS changes, they will have unforeseeable appearance problems. Whenever possible, use MediaWiki markup for images with [[File:...]] and for tables with {| ... |} and with as little customization as possible.
The same goes for inserting manual line breaks. If your article contains large image thumbnails, like this: [[File:largethumbnail.png|thumb|400px]] and your text and headers are wrapping awkwardly or placing irrelevant or contradictory content next to the thumbnail, you need to create some separation. To do this, use the Clear template to specify where whitespace should be added to prevent reading difficulties.
Use consistent capitalization of terms
Use upper case for terms with special meaning
When writing about game concepts, use upper case that matches in-game naming conventions when naming concepts that have special meaning to this game. Everything else should be lowercase. This helps reduce the density of capitalized terms in paragraphs, aiding in reading comprehension.
Most unique game concepts should have a dedicated page, so including the link to the page makes the concept stand out even further. However, this is not the sole deciding factor of capitalization. For example, you can have a sentence that discusses when villagers get a bonus to their Resolve, where both are links but only the latter is capitalized.
Use lower case for everything else
Use your judgment to evaluate whether a term is unique or special or whether it means the same thing outside of this game as it does within the game. For example, even though this game has villagers and buildings and they contribute fundamentally to game mechanics, the concepts of villager and buildings aren't unique and have no special meaning, so those terms are written in lowercase. Similarly, referring to the perseverance or resolve of villagers in the face of trials and challenges warrants lower case, but referring to villagers gaining a bonus to Resolve—as the unique game concept—warrants capitalization so that it stands out.
Ask yourself whether the idea could be misinterpreted if you mentioned it to someone unfamiliar to this game. They would understand the idea of villagers, species, goods and resources, food, services, buildings—even farms, camps, production, events, perks, and newcomers. Those terms should all be lowercase. They would not understand or would misunderstand what you meant if you talked about a bonus to Resolve, or the Hostility of the Forest, the Queen's Impatience, Reputation, Cornerstones, Blueprints, Complex Food, Glades, the Hearth, the Storm, Drizzle, or Rainpunk. Those terms should all be capitalized, because those terms warrant attention and special interpretation in order to be understood. This also means naming specific buildings, goods, species, etc., like the Lumber Mill, Mushrooms, and Harpies, since your intent would be misunderstood without those terms being capitalized.
Follow the case written on-screen (literals)
As an exception to the above, when repeating something that is written on-screen, use the same capitalization as seen on-screen. This means that mentioning constructing camps should be done in lowercase, but clicking the Camps button uses uppercase, because that is how it is written on-screen.
It is also a convention in English to italicize literals. (That is, you aren't clicking the camps, you are clicking on the word that says, literally, Camps.) When referring to short, simple terms and words that you want your reader to recognize on the screen, like the text of a button, italics are best. For longer quotations, things spoken, whole sentences, you may choose whether to use double quotes (" " ) or a blockquote for longer quotes. Our preference for blockquoting is for you to use our formatted flavor-text template: Template:Blockquote. In certain situations, you may also use the html tag, which does not have special formatting: <blockquote>Your quote here</blockquote>.
Reference examples
Refer to this table for terms that should be capitalized and terms that should be left lowercase.
| Upper case | Lower case |
|---|---|
| Resolve | satisfying |
| Reputation | points |
| Hostility | trees |
| Smoldering City | settlement |
| Citadel | upgrade |
| The Storm | seasons |
| The Queen's Impatience | timer |
| Blueprints | buildings |
| Crafting Materials | inventory |
| Complex Food | raw food |
| Leisure | goods |
| The Hearth | resting |
| Housing | places |
| Harpy House | house |
| Forest Mystery | modifier |
| Glade Event | penalty |
| Specialization | worker |
| Orders | objectives |
| Alchemy | extra chance |
| Engineering | comfortable |
| Woodcutters' Camp | camp |
| Herbalists' Camp | gathering |
| Lumber Mill | worker |
| Pack of Trade Goods | trade |
| Sahilda | trader |
| Trading Post | trading |
| Farm Field | fields |
| Food Production Buildings | ingredients |
| Hub | decorations |
| Neighborhood | range |
| District | residents |
| Sea Marrow | sacrifice |
| Clay Deposit | deposit |
| Cycle | mission |
| Seal | endgame |
Less clear examples
The following examples are words that could go either way. They represent concepts that are less special than those in the table above. However, when they are used to directly refer to specific game concepts or mechanics, they should still be capitalized. However, whenever it is possible to do so without losing meaning, please use lower case for these terms.
For example, there are many references across this wiki to recipes that produce goods, like the recipe for Biscuits. The idea of a recipe itself is not unique to this game and should be lower case in as many instances as possible. Only when referring to the list of Recipes on the screen, or the Recipe Panel, or another similarly specific concept should the term be capitalized.
| Upper case | Lower case |
|---|---|
| Recipe (the name of the panel on-screen) | recipe (the idea of following a pattern to make something) |
| Farming (the Specialization) | farming (the idea of agriculture) |
| Newcomers (the name of the UI panel on-screen) | newcomers (the idea of new people coming) |
| Services (when naming the concept of needs for Services) | services (the idea of caring for a villager's needs) |
| Embarking (the setup activity before starting a mission) | embarking (the idea of starting out towards something new and distant) |
| World Map (the interactive UI you use to choose a mission) | map (the idea of visually representing territory) |
Italicize literals
Italicize the words that you are reading off the screen to the reader. For example, when giving instruction to click the Options button and click Key Bindings, you should follow the case on the screen and italicize what you both can read: Options and Keybindings.
Use the templates
Numerous templates have been made to create consistent displays of information, to significantly reduce the time it takes to write new articles, to reduce the likelihood of markup errors, and to allow changes to be made site-wide. Please use these templates wherever possible.
See the template's documentation page for full information about to use these templates, variations they allow and encourage, and ideas on how to use them effectively. See this page for a full list of templates on this wiki.
| Template | Example code | Example output or description | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Template:Resource link | {{rl|Berries|large}} |
 Berries
| ||||
| Template:rl | ||||||
| Template:Building link | {{bl|Herbalists' Camp|large}} |
 Herbalists' Camp
| ||||
| Template:bl | ||||||
| Template:Specialization link | {{sl|Alchemy|large}} |
 Alchemy
| ||||
| Template:sl | ||||||
| Template:Species link | {{Species link|Harpies|large}} |
 Harpies
| ||||
| Template:Service link | {{Service link|Leisure|large}} |
 Leisure
| ||||
| Template:PerkGreen | {{PerkGreen}} |
bright green, for uncommon perks | ||||
| Template:PerkBlue | {{PerkBlue}} |
rich blue, for rare perks | ||||
| Template:PerkPurple | {{PerkPurple}} |
deep purple, for epic perks | ||||
| Template:PerkOrange | {{PerkOrange}} |
vibrant orange, for legendary perks | ||||
| Template:ImgS | {{ImgS}} |
Our standardized size of small, line-height-sized icons. Use one of the standard sizes for all images except screenshots. | ||||
| Template:ImgM | {{ImgM}} |
Our standardized size of medium-sized icons appropriate for use in small table cells. Use one of the standard sizes for all images except screenshots. | ||||
| Template:ImgL | {{ImgL}} |
Our standardized size of large-sized icons appropriate for use in large table cells. Use one of the standard sizes for all images except screenshots. | ||||
| Template:ImgH | {{ImgH}} |
Our standardized size of huge icons appropriate for use in the largest table cells with featured information. Use this size sparingly. Use one of the standard sizes for all images except screenshots. | ||||
| Template:Amber | {{Amber}} |
| ||||
| Template:Recipe | {{Recipe|Coal|Kiln}} |
A whole table of the data for the recipe, similar to on the in-game Recipes Panel. | ||||
| Template:Construction | {{Construction|4|2}} |
| ||||
| Template:3Star | {{3Star}} |
★★★ | ||||
| Template:P1Star | {{P1Star}} |
(★) | ||||
| Template:Version | {{Version|0.5}} |
Links to external MediaWiki documentation
- Help:Editing pages basics on MediaWiki documentation
- Help:Advanced editing on MediaWiki
- Wikipedia Manual of Style
Links to external experts on content design and web usability
Thanks for reading! We'll write more soon.
