Looking Better
Improving the user experience and look of the game with both big and subtle changes has been the focus of recent work on Critias Empire, the details of which are covered in this update.
Water World
The water graphics in Critias Empire were created many many years ago, to the point that some people were commenting that the game has a retro feel. Whilst the game was never going to compete with the latest AAA graphics, the visuals of the game were not supposed to look that old!
Rather than reinvent the wheel, I decided any one of the many water graphics packs that are available off-the-shelf would be a significant improvement on what was being used before. After some experimenting, I eventually found one such water plugin that I liked (and works with the technical limitations of the game).
Are You Experienced?
The UI is finally starting to improve in line with the plans I've had going back months. The visual upgrade is nice but, more important are the user-experience "UX" changes. No longer does the game try to bombard you with every single stat it can at every opportunity.
Instead, the game is more streamlined in its approach to information - giving you just the important "headline" stats that you need for making the decision immediately before you. The detailed stat breakdowns are still there for advanced players, and I've been careful not to hide away access to them too deep into the UI. They're just no longer clogging up screenspace when they're not needed.
What's Next?
The UI / UX revamp still has some way to go, but already the game is looking and more importantly, feeling much nicer to play. It's also having a nice side effect of making it obvious where there are balance issues.
Looking further ahead, the trailer and screenshots on the Steam Store page are now more than a year old. I want to update them to show off all the progress made since then. The plan is to do this to coincide with (finally) releasing a demo, which I anticipate will be around early to mid May.