Progress Report 2021.08.27

Hi friends,

Sorry for the radio silence this month! The UI update has taken a lot longer than I originally anticipated. The design work is completely finished (aside from a few minor tweaks here and there that I fix as I go), but the process of actually implementing it is quite time consuming and tedious. Basically, I have to edit every existing passage and edit the HTML individually to get one of the effects in the new design. There are almost 2800 passages across 4 story files (plus the separate Codex file), so I’ve got my work cut out for me. I’ve finished editing the New Game pages and the Prologue, but I’ve still got the bulk of the game to edit.

The new UI design includes a bunch of features that weren’t a part of the original. Some of the new parts of the UI include:

• Dark mode / light mode toggle, with the light mode version preserving the original colour scheme of the first UI. Dark mode also switches out all images/icons so it matches the colour scheme, but you need to reload the page or visit a new one for the images to change.
• An opacity toggle that makes transparent passages opaque and easier to read.
• Improved letter script toggle for the codex letters (it now changes the script automatically when you toggle it, rather than waiting for you to reload the page)
• 3 serif fonts and 3 sans-serif fonts
• Completely new design for the Exploration page that is (hopefully!) more streamlined
• Tweaks to the Journal, Codex and Tutorials page layout
• Image popovers for codex entries (if there’s an image, you can now click on it and a larger version will properly resize for your viewport)
• Map inserts for all location codex entries (Artanis, Arsenia, the Coveran Republic, Vestra, Farandor, and Calantha now all have maps as part of their entries that provide a zoomed-in view of their territories)

Most importantly, the new UI is fully mobile compatible. It is optimized for portrait mode over landscape, but landscape does resize well enough (there’s a slight issue with double scrollbars, but it doesn’t make the game unplayable, you might just accidentally scroll past the passage box and need to scroll back up).

Games hosted on itch.io do not open in portrait mode on Chromium-based browsers. I’m not sure why this is, but something between itch and Chrome forces all browser games to open in landscape. This cannot be overridden. If you want to play in portrait mode, you will need to use a non-Chromium browser like Firefox.

A new feature I'm playing with is the ability to change your character's surname to your mentor's surname. This change will occur between the Prologue and Chapter 1 and it entirely optional. This feature exists for roleplaying and story purposes; you do not need to select it proceed to Chapter 1. 

There are two things to keep in mind with this feature:

• If you change your surname, you will be locked out of story events and flavour text related to your origin’s family. If you adopt your mentor’s surname, you will unlock unique story events and flavour text related to your mentor.
• The game tracks the surname change and it will remember what your original one was. At certain points in flashbacks or during interactions with specific characters, your character may be referred to by their original surname.

I’m hoping to have the UI completely transferred by Monday, but it is a lot of work and it needs all of my focus. I’ve been saving the Chapter 1 public launch announcement until this process is done because I want to have a week to focus on promotional posts and such and I can’t do that while I’m working on the UI.

In the mean time, here are some progress screenshots of the new UI! 💗