I decided to take a break from the project for a while. People were giving me all sorts of "helpful" opinions on how the game should be made, and I decided it was for the best to just withdraw until that died down a bit. Everyone thinks they know how the game should be made, but nobody is really standing in my shoes. It gets to be kind of stressful after a while.
I had only intended to take a month or two, but with school, the holidays and a bunch of other things, I didn't return until this week. But, the time away has given me some time to consider some changes. When you come back after an extended leave, you tend to get a fresh perspective on your own projects. This can help you realize what you like and what you don't like.
I decided I didn't like how cluttered the UI was. I felt it needed some tweaking and should be made somewhat simpler.
For reference, here's what it looked like before:
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| Character info and buttons on the right. |
It's not bad. I wanted to squeeze a lot of information on the screen that the player could access easily. But, as a CRPG player myself, I know that all that extra information isn't always necessary, and I can usually just access it from the character sheet. Some of it, I'm liable to remember anyway (like the character's class).
So, I went with a more common approach with the character portraits at the bottom, giving a wider angle of view at the top. It's easier on the eyes. In addition, I have changed the layout so that the buttons don't appear unless the player hits the ESC button. And there are Health and Mana bars instead of numbers:
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| Everything at the bottom. |
The UI is a bit plain at the moment, but it's also a work in progress. I don't have any graphics to fill those spaces right now or any important information to toss in there. So, judge it based on what it can be versus what it currently is. Like all things in the project, it's likely to change.
Well, it's good to be back. I look forward to sharing more updates soon.
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