Hello again Folks, It’s time for another Patch! I have been very busy improving the Game over the last couple Weeks. I have still been primarily addressing feedback and trying to get the HUD to a more finalized state and it has been some work! Quite a bit more than I thought actually- partly because I made more changes that I was originally planning, but also because HUD work is time consuming.
Seeing other people play and the feedback I got highlighted how the HUD had some problems and information in some places was vague, hard to read, in need of a background, or in some cases misleading; I saw how, in being the developer, there are things that are obvious to me (because I made the Game), but aren’t obvious to other people. I thought a lot about how I could make important information more plain to see and straight-forward to access, how I could make the game more intuitive and easier to play and I made the changes that needed to be made. That thinking eats up a lot of time which I still forget to take into account! The Game should just plain be easier to play.
There are still some smaller things I want to improve about the HUD, but I believe that this may be the first 1.0-worthy version of it. I was hoping to get the High Score system in this update but I really wanted to nail down the HUD. I am hoping that the next patch will be about 1 Week from the release of this patch, give or take a day or two. I’m about half-way done with both the High Score system and the new Tutorial. I hope to get both of these out by then, but things never go %100 according to plan. Or maybe things go faster than expected, an earlier than expected release would be nice. In any case, there's still a lot to do, expect updates regularly for the next few months.
Anyway, I've added 4 new screenshots. I hope that this newest version is to your liking! Thank you all for your help, your opinions are Gold to this project. Please tell me what kind of changes you think could make this game better! Take care everyone!
v.0.05.42 Changelog-
-After 3 upgrades (Level 4) you can convert your Tower into something better. The Archer can convert into a Fire Archer, Crossbow or Ballista – the Sentry Gun can convert into a Shotgun, Machine Gun or Sniper. The Cannon and Blaster have their own conversions as well. It was not made clear to the player that this mechanic has been in the Game since the beginning. Before, the buttons to convert into these Towers were hidden until you had upgraded the Tower to Level 4. Now, they are visible any time you select the Tower- if your Tower is at Level 1-3 the unusable version of the button is visible and if you mouse over the button it will give you information about the Tower and it tells you in clear Yellow text that you need to Upgrade to Level 4 before you can convert the Tower. The buttons always being there for the player to investigate and the information you get from trying to use them should make this mechanic much more obvious.
-HUD has seen many more improvements. Smaller tweaks may not be listed.
-All In-Game text now has backgrounds which should make all of the text much easier to read.
-New Font: Dosis- the old letters were all the same width, for example- an 'i' took up just as much space as a 'W', which gave an odd look to certain words depending on their spelling and made words longer than they need to be. The new Font varies in width, so an 'i' takes up less space than the 'W'. Words are a bit shorter and some text required some editing. *I may not have caught everything yet; Some text may not be perfectly placed but this should be rare. The new Font also fits more in with the vision I have of the Final Product, I hope you like the new look better!
-This allowed me to shrink parts of the HUD further.
**Font has only been changed for the HUD/Gameplay, Out of Game Menus still use the old Font- this will be updated to match at some point as well.
-When hovering over one of the Buy buttons text would appear above it with information about cost and a description. When you couldn't afford something it would tell you what you needed, but it was hard to read and was easy to miss/ignore. This information has all been moved to the right side of the screen, a background has been added and descriptions revised. When buying something it should be much more clear what you are getting. And when you can't afford something it is easier to tell why- it highlights what you are short on in red if you don't have what you need to build something.
*Houses and Walls also said they required Population, they don't and never actually did- the description was wrong. This has been fixed.
-The buttons on the left side of the screen have been changed. Before there were 5 permanent Menu/Options/etc. buttons that were always there. Now there is just one button that accesses the others. when selected the others appear and you can exit the game or return to the menu. 'Escape' also toggles these Buttons and like everything else, right click can cancel these Menus/buttons.
-Food, Population, Warehouse Limit information has been made a little bit smaller. These and the Resource Bars that are under them have been moved to the right, giving the player yet more screen space.
-The background behind 'Wave:#' in the top middle has been made even smaller to account for the new Font.
-When starting or loading a Game, you would need to hit the space bar twice to Pause, though clicking the Pause button has always worked properly. Now you don’t have to double tap the space bar the first time to Pause the Game.
-When anything you have built is selected the information that pops up in the upper right corner of the screen has been made smaller, giving *drumroll*… more screen-space!
-If you want to upgrade a selected Tower or Mine and cannot you are either short on Gold, Resources or Population. It always told you how much of each is required, but gave no clear signs what you were short on; now it highlights what you are short on in Red.
-When placing your Headquarters the round Preview marker now changes colors depending on what resources are in range of the HQ, this should help Players find a Good spot to place the HQ. This isn’t listed anywhere in-game yet (just one little thing I haven’t gotten to yet): Red = no Gold or Wood in range, Yellow = only Wood or only Gold in range but the other is not, Grey = Wood and Gold are in Range but Iron is not, Dark Green = Gold, Wood and Iron are in range but Coal is not, Bright Green = All Resources are in range. Grey or either of the Greens are likely good starting spots.
-The Laser used to go through Mountains/Terrain Obstructions. Lasers are stopped by them now.
-Many Tower/Building/Mine descriptions have been edited/revised, giving more useful information and explaining things more clearly.
-Main Buy Buttons along the bottom have been shaded to match the Button's border. This makes it a little bit easier to tell the different groups apart. Hopefully you will agree that it also just plain look better.
-If you right clicked while hovering over a Tower Conversion button or Target Priority you would no longer be able to select any of what you have built (though buttons were still usable). It was caused by a simple code order issue. This has been fixed.
-In the beginning of the Tutorial it tells you the menu is the Save button- shrinking the HUD moved the side buttons up but i missed moving this reference to it. Fixed.
-There were some obvious grammar errors in the Tutorial that I thought were fixed for the last update but they were not (which I am a little confused about). In any case, I have gone through the Tutorial and fixed everything I found, though there may still be small imperfections (New Tutorial coming soon so I'm only worrying about the big mistakes).
-In certain circumstances there may have been a crash when clicking on an unusable upgrade button. This is fixed.
-The Game may have been Pausing automatically when placing your Headquarters- it does not do this anymore.
-When upgrading sometimes the selected tower/wall/mine would deselect. This should no longer happen
-Added preview to Out of Game Options for the Transparency Level. You could adjust it before through the Menu but since it only applies to in-game HUD backgrounds there was no way to see a preview before.
-There have also been a lot of other general small fixes/tweaks.
