UI, gameflow & the week ahead

As mentioned yesterday, in today's post I'll briefly talk about the UI and game flow. Please note that even though this is going to be pretty close to how the game will appear in 0.1.0, I may make some minor changes between now and release day. In fact, as I was proof-reading this post, I noticed at least 2 minor UI elements that are definitely going to be changed.

UI

As promised, first I'll show you a couple of screenshots of the UI in action. The first screenshot shows the initial dialogue when you open your inventory. At the bottom left, your inventory is shown. The second screenshot shows the tooltip that appears when hovering over items in your inventory (the mouse isn't shown in the picture, but it's hovering over the Maid's dress icon).

As you can see in the UI's text panel, the game uses a choice selection system to progress from scene to scene. In the screenshots above, there are 4 choices you can make, each with a corresponding number. One of the core concepts in this engine is that every action must be accessible if the player is using only a mouse or only a keyboard. The choices can therefore be selected by pressing the corresponding number key on the keyboard, or by clicking on them. The information shown in the tooltip can be accessed by keyboard users by choosing "View equipped items"->"Examine your Maid's dress". In this way, the player can use whatever input device they prefer (or a mixture of both).

Game flow

As I was typing this up, I realised that the best way to show game flow would be to create a .webm or .gif. I'll do that some time this week, and talk more about how the game is played when I post them. For now, the very basic premise is as follows:

Move around the randomly-generated world map (to explore or to visit places).

• Chance for an encounter in each tile (different tiles have different encounters):
• Encounter results in combat. Resolve combat (and post-combat sex scenes).
• Encounter results in event (such as finding an item). Resolve event.
• Visit a place on the world map
• Each place has unique options that can lead to quests, combat, sex, or events.
• For now, places are a series of dialogue options. Interior maps will be implemented in a later release.

The week ahead

This week I'm going to:

Finish creating all 0.1.0 clothing and weapons, and polish related descriptions and dialogue.

Finish sex-related engine work and core scenes. (I'll describe how it all works soon.)

Apply final polish to combat-related engine work.

Complete all drafts related to the main story and all major quest chains.

Work on the list of bugs that have been accumulating over the past 3-4 weeks.