Hi everyone,
Testing has mostly concluded at this point, and I have not found any substantial further bugs. Any major issues I would like to improve on will likely already be fixed by things I am planning for 0.9, so I have decided to do some more polishing by improving on the UI.
UI has been a bit of a difficult task for me since the start of the game. I am by no means very knowledgeable when it comes to the design of UI and UX, but I certainly enjoy using well designed systems. As such, I often go down a rabbit hole of wondering what might be a “smart” way of designing something. Making it intuitive to use, visually appealing, and well-set within the universe. This rarely works out. As a result, UI decisions often take a long time, until I finally decide to simply implement something that gives the user the basic information I would want, and the basic interface to control the functions they are engaging with.
I think this has mostly worked, but there are some notable exceptions of systems I implemented quickly and without a specifically design UI, and I strongly rely on the tutorial to teach new users that these features exist and how to use them. One example would be the “follow” functionality of soldiers. It is possible to tell one or more of your barracks to simply have their soldiers follow the commander until they get new orders - but this is currently only implemented through a hotkey that users learn during the tutorial - which is far from a good user experience.
I am therefore currently trying to go through the various functions of the game, and to add missing UI elements and tooltips where those may be needed. Ideally, this will get the game to a point where new users don’t necessarily need to be going through the tutorial in order to learn how to play, and where interacting with the game becomes more intuitive than a learnt behaviour.
I will keep you updated on the progress as usual, but as usual, please reach out to me if you have any thoughts or suggestions.
Until next week!