Hey guys let’s do some GUI!

One of the best blog post titles ever 😀 (no not really)

For those who don’t know what GUI is, it stands for Graphical User Interface, and in practice you see it every day when you use any operating system. It’s the windows, buttons, arrows, scrollbars, etc artwork.

In games, in particular in strategy, simulations and RPGs, GUI is very important. It must be nice to look at, but also it must be user-friendly, since players are going to use it A LOT.

So this week I worked on Seasons Of The Wolf GUI. I have yet to finish redesigning the skilltrees, but having a graphical representation of the character screen will help me, get me the inspiration.

The character screen is composed of two static parts: one on the top, showing all the party members with the “classic” HP/SP colored bars on the sides, and two buttons to close the screen. And one on the left, where the currently selected character is shown in big, along with his basic info: HP/SP, Name, Class, Level, Experience Points.

On the right instead the content changes based on the active “subscreen”, which can be one of the following: attributes, skills, inventory & quests.

attributes
The familiar attributes seen previously, with a quick help on the bottom of the screen

itemcomparison
The inventory screen, which I need to redesign unfortunately…

The attributes subscreen is done, the inventory is at good point but I need to re-arrange the layout. In the screenshot above it seems to work fine, but the problem comes when you examine an armor: there isn’t enough space on the bottom of the screen to display all the armor stats, which are more than the weapons 😀

Luckily I can just rearrange the various windows/buttons, so while is still quite some work, is not like I need to redo it completely  from scratch.

I plan to finish it this week and begin working on the skills next Monday… I think it will keep me busy for at least two weeks though. At least after that is done, I’ll be able to start putting all the content in, so I’m not too far behind schedule! 🙂

 Other news

I got last scenes for Jeff’s path of Nicole otome dating sim, so we need to work on the mystery scenes and add some last minute art. It might be finished by end of this month as I hoped 🙂

As you know if you read the forums, decided to get another writer to help Aleema with Planet Stronghold 2 so she can begin working on Loren next game already. Since is a big game, this way might be ready in a not-too-distant future!

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