Hey guys,
So I've been very busy over this past month working on the UI and starting to implement the new content into the game. I've mentioned a few times on the forums that the aim is to get an experimental build of the rebuild out which focuses mainly on the side activities that I'm implementing. I don't know when that build will be released but it would be without combat, it wouldn't exactly be "playable/fun" but it would be for testing purposes and to show you guys the progress that has been made so far.
All the focus has been on polishing the UI and creating new ones as well, a lot of background work. So let's get into the changes.
First up is the inventory screen:
So the majority of the user interfaces will now all be fullscreen, I feel like this was a very good move as I could display more information and it also makes the text and icons bigger. There is also a slight performance boost as displaying several icons on the screen at once is quite intensive when it comes to items.
The player model is now fully animated too, so it won't just stand there, it was a nice little touch that I thought really upped the fidelity. Another change is that the functionality of the "barracks" has been merged in with the inventory. It means you can organise your combatants by dragging/dropping them into active/reserve parties all within the same screen. In the past, active/reserve management was done in a separate screen and then the position of the combatant portraits wouldn't update between the two screens. It gets confusing especially when you have a larger party and you are sorting out the portraits and trying to say group all your melee in the first row and bowman in the second row.
Tooltips have also had a little reformat and while the text is placeholder, you can kinda see what I'm aiming for when it comes to item descriptions. Inserting bits of lore into all the items I feel makes the world feel more fleshed out.
The last thing is that equipment parts, so like helmets/armors/weapons will all have their individual icons as opposed to a blank box or a question mark, I'm in the final stages of implementing that in. So for example, on the helmet slot you'd see a "placeholder helmet icon" to show you that helmets go on that slot. Again, it's just another nice QoL feature that I feel ups the fidelity.
Workshop/crafting:
The rebuild version will introduce skills and whilst I am not ready to talk about them yet, you can probably get an idea from the interface. All the crafting items that are associated to what you are crafting will be displayed in the menu too, this is a change from displaying them constantly in the bottom left and right hand corners. Again it's a slight performance boost but also makes things tidier.
Let's say you are crafting a sword, you'd pick on an item, (hovering will show show a tooltip) then you'll move into the details page.
Here you'll see the requirements, for say an Iron sword, it would have a weaponsmithing requirement and when crafted would reduce your Stamina by X. This means you can't spam craft and eventually you'll need to rest to recover your Stamina.
Recruitment screen:
Not much has changed here, but I've just spruced things up, made it fullscreen.
Shopping/marketplace:
Mostly the same but a big change is that you can manage your combatants in the same screen, this means you can quickly see who needs what without having to swap between interfaces.
Interaction menu:
This is the menu that pops up when you click on a town or a location, more or less the same too but I just made it more consistent with the other UIs.
Random events:
This one has gotten a big change, although I have yet to hook anything up to it. But the idea is that events will give the player some options to choose from and if all goes well, two options could be linked to skills.
Aside from that, there is the usual art assets still in the pipeline, things are going relatively smooth despite living in a Covid hotspot. That'll be all for now, but as usual I'm around on the forums.
Cheers,
Kevin.