Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Updated Character Screens

Even though the updates to this blog have become less frequent doesn't mean that progress on the game has stopped.  In fact, I've been working pretty hard.  The problem is that there is very little that can be shown.  Working with code and rebuilding systems from the original version of the game is an essential step...but leads to some very boring blog reading.  I'm sure you don't much care to hear how I revamped the item class objects or worked out the steps to make text print just the way that I want on the screen.  It's interesting to me, certainly, but I'm likely the only one who would find it so.

Still, some progress has been made.  I like to show off the progress to keep those who are interested up to date with how things are coming along.  This time around, I don't have a lot of visuals to show off, but at least I have something to prove that I haven't been sitting on my hands the last month and a half.

This time around, we'll look at the new version of the character screen.  But, before we do that, let's remind ourselves what the old version looked like:

The original character screen in all its glory.

The updated version includes all the same information, laid out in much the same way.  But, it looks a lot nicer.  A whole lot nicer.  Let's take a look:

Updated version.

There's still some work to be done.  The "Continue" button at the bottom shouldn't be showing.  When the character panel loads, it should be turned off.  It's not a broken function or anything, I just haven't coded it yet.  Some of the numbers need to be aligned correctly as well.  They look sort of crooked to me.

I'd like to think that the new, more colorful version of the character screen shows that the game is keeping its roots while updating it's look. 

But, there are many things that can't be seen from just this one screenshot.  Since the last posting, I have updated the number of classes available in the game.  We have gone from four to seven (Warrior, Knight, Scout, Ranger, Priest, Sorcerer, Battlemage). 

Decisions are being made about how to handle the combat in this game as well.  I want to increase the tactical options, but still keep it simple enough that anyone who has played games of this nature will be able to pick it up without a manual or a tutorial.  It's not easy, but ideas are starting to form about how it will all flesh out.

So, if you're following the development of the game, stay tuned.  There will be some exciting stuff coming.