Event Text Boxes

One of the things I struggled with a lot while working on this game was how to present the event text to the player.  I tried a couple of different ways, including...

A) A style similar to the old Gold-Box games in an alternate version of the game:

Nice borders, though.

B) A "floating head style that made it seem like the NPCs were standing in the scene:

Cool head, lady.

C) A floating picture box that seemed disconnected from the text:

Weird.

I liked some of these approaches, but I started thinking of better ways to present the text to the player during the course of the game.  What I came up with won't necessarily please everyone (very few things do), but I like how everything is combined into one unit, making it easy to use and manipulate.  Here's what it looks like now:

Different.

I think it still needs some adjustment.  It isn't centered in the screen the way that I want.  Overall, though, I think it works.  Just like the bar at the bottom, it's functional rather than pretty.  It might be plain, but it works.  It offers me a way to present the player with text and images that move the story along, offer them choices and gives a sense that things are going on in the world.

Hopefully, once I've worked out the placement kinks, it will move this project one step closer to being completed.

Fonts - A Return

After spending several weeks messing around with different fonts (and even settling on the Gold Box font for a while), I've come to the conclusion that the best font was the original one.  Some people don't like it, but they'll have to get over it.

Honestly, I've never passed on a good game because I didn't like the font (unless it was so ridiculously unreadable that it killed the experience).  In this case, the font isn't unreadable...it's just not "medieval" enough for some people.  I think it looks fine.

It's not like it's hard to read.

I'm not going to change it again.  Little things like this slow down my progress, and it got so bad when dealing with the whole font situation that I almost put the project aside to start working on something else.

I'm several years in on a project at this point, and it keeps getting knocked backwards by people complaining about the dumbest things.  So, I'll likely stop listening to those little complaints and keep going.  The best advice I got recently was to "build the game you want to play."  That's what I always did in the past with my other projects (in both Unlimited Adventures and Neverwinter Nights), and I'm going to do it here.  If people want to knock it because they don't like the font, that's up to them.  At least I'll have something finished.

Triggering Events

One of the benefits of building a game for the fourth of fifth time is that you can reuse some of the code that you had previously developed.  Luckily, I had already taken time to work out a decent event system all the way back in early 2012 when the first version of the game was in development.  Transporting that into Unity turned out to be fairly simple.

So, the game now has a method by which it can trigger events.  These events can include text messages to the player, encounters with hostile creatures, ways to do damage to the party, etc.  Here's an example picture of an encounter with an angry goblin:

He looks upset.

As you can see, the game is progressing in bits and pieces.  Now that I've gone back to the original vision I had for the game, I have a clear path to get the game back to where it should be.  Instead of needing to reinvent everything, I'm finding ways to improve what I already figured out several years ago.

Once I get a couple more systems in place, I'll probably be ready to tackle the combat system again.  I've already tried it twice, but can't get it the way that I want it.  I'm sure it's just a matter of time, really.

Fonts, Fonts, Fonts

Things have slowed down a bit; because, I have to put a lot of work into studying for my Oracle Java Professional certification.  So, I haven't had as much time the last few weeks to put into the game.  That's not to say that nothing is getting done, though.  I still poke at it and work on new things a couple of hours a week when I'm not doing other things.

Here's a work-in-progress screen with an updated font.  A couple of folks thought that the game needed a more "archaic" looking font.  I'm curious what everyone thinks about this one:

Different from the original.

It needs to be readable.  I'm hoping that it is.  Anyway, I await feedback, as always.

EDIT:
I could also attempt to pursue a font that looks exactly like the one that was used in the later Gold Box games...

Strangely hypnotic.

EDIT:
Actually, the Gold-Box style font is working out quite well.  Here's a revised version of it, looking more like an actual Gold-Box game might have looked:

Gold-Box Goodness