Tuesday 14 April 2015

Upcoming UI changes

Hello everyone.

I think I'm done with almost all the UI changes - just the week planner and main menu left to mess around with, and that's just a matter of moving the text box around and resizing buttons.

Here are some screenshots. From the comments on the last few posts, I know that people like different things and I'm sure these won't be perfect for everyone, but unless there are any really critical issues I'd rather stick with this set for 0.3.1. I'm a bit behind schedule after some issues with the outfit screen, so I think I'd better finish off the UI work so the release won't be delayed too much.

Scene UI, as you can see it's influenced by mugunghwa's mockup:


Although the main text window might look a little short, you can resize the window and the text area will resize with it, so you can make it longer if you have a big enough monitor.

The main menu. I'm not entirely sure that the button bar looks good. Should the button sizes be standardised perhaps? Also, check out that Help button. From the next release, if you can't figure out what button to press to Load a Game then you can click Help and it'll tell you.



The outfit screen. Marvel at how it looks pretty much like the old version. The layout code has been almost completely re-done, so it took ages to get it looking like that.


And a teaser of the new 'advanced' character creation tab for patrons. There's only a few cheat options there so far, but I'll add more in future versions.


There you go. Shouldn't be too long before you'll get to actually play with these screens yourselves. Hope you're all having a good week :)

26 comments:

  1. Completely unrelated to this^: how do I get another job? I've tried multiple backgrounds with different types of women, and every single time I get a job as a saleswoman. Is there anything else?

    Thanks, and keep on trucking Splendidostrich.

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    1. For now sales is the only career.
      I will eventually add other ones - probably a total of 3-5 different careers.That's not going to be until after 0.4 though.
      When I do add other careers, there'll probably be a "find a new job" action that you can take as an alternative to going to work.

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    2. Are you planning to add any career in "entertainment" ? Like stripper/model, etc?

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    3. Probably not as a full career, but there'll be an event chain for modelling when the fashion skill gets some love.

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  2. Will there be any changes over the course of a game from picking a female start, or does it just skip the lab accident at the beginning?

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    Replies
    1. There's a different intro and endgame. Both of which will be a bit shorter than the gender-bender ones, at least at first.
      Aside from that, there's pretty much no content that's start-specific - just that you shouldn't see any lines that mention you having been a man if you start female. You also start with high femininity if you've spent your whole life female but don't get the feminine/unfeminine options, and you can choose to not start the game as a virgin.

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    2. When female NPCs are introduced I hope that female start players get a chance to meet some of Ivy's other lady friends, like a young virgin who's new in town and for some reason wears Ivy's hand-me-downs.

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    3. How's that supposed to help me when what I really want is instant gratification?

      I'd settle for a post about a bunch of previously unannounced features that are in the pipeline. They don't necessarily have to be real ones, mind you, but they should be exciting.

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    4. Fine. Coming soon - Newlife: Action edition!

      - Start a new life... as a badass she-pimp!
      - Match wits with Murderin' Mervin and his Railroad Gang!
      - Jump through a window!
      - Shoot a Bad Dude in the head!
      - Arrange a shady drug deal with deadly crooks!
      - Risk everything by double-crossing said crooks!
      - Go to prison!
      - Get killed and lose the game!

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    5. Well that didn't go how I expected at all.

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  3. I hope there is a Font size increase option because the text size for larger monitors is just awful.

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  4. Scene UI looks pretty damn sweet, boss. :3

    Main menu was actually fine as it was, methinks. But with the alternative start coming in, it would probably be too many buttons for the old layout. The horizontal layout could work here, but I'm kind of confused why "Exit" (the most useless button) is placed in the "sweetspot" while "New Game" is placed in the "Don't mind me, I'm just sitting over here" spot.

    (The exit button is kind of redundant, I think. People don't exit from the main menu, and if they do they usually close the app with the X in the upper corner.)

    And hot dang diggity, I'm looking forward to the advanced creation.

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    1. The buttons are arranged from left to right in approximate order of priority. You think the other direction would be better?

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    2. A lot of games lead off with the continue from a saved game button. Swapping it with "New Game" would keep every new game option together as well.

      Although with so many new game options, it would make sense if there were just one button on the main menu, and pressing it popped up another menu with all of the new game options presented. It would also mean more room for additional start options, like the one you get in the intro for randomly picking traits.

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    3. When you read your eyes follow a "Z" shape, meaning that the bottom right corner will always be the final resting point for the eyes. ^^

      It's a natural spot for the new game button to be, for the same reason "Take action" is in the bottom right.

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    4. That does make sense. I don't think I'll have time to change it this release, because it's running a bit late already. Definitely one to look into though.

      I haven't forgotten all your suggestions on Patreon either. I had some of them on my list for 0.3.1 too, but they mostly won't be making it into the next version just because of time issues.

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  5. ...truly sir you are a genius... The story is one thing but the gameplay is so new...(sounds like I'm a hipster) but seriously its so great how you put it together. In fact I'm an aspiring programmer my self and find this game to be a great inspiration. I understand that doing it on the computer is one thing but if you could somehow port your game to a mobile platform(please not apple...I have my reasons) you'd make a lot more money to continue to do the things you love doing(or are just really good at doing) anyway keep up the good work and sorry for the essay long comment

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    Replies
    1. Thank you :) Glad you're enjoying it!
      Porting to android probably isn't realistic. The UI would need to be completely redone - a massive task. Then there'd probably be a ton of other issues like saving and so on. It'd be far too long without new content or game improvements.

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  6. I am loving the growth of this game. Definitely one of my favorites and can't wait to play the next update.

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  7. Hope the new update comes out soon

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    1. Same. I'm getting desperate D:

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    2. I was hoping to get it out today, but it still isn't close enough to finished even for a late-nighter. Hopefully tomorrow.

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    3. Will you do a spanish translation?
      If is too much work for you, I could do it (free)...if you want :)

      Greetings

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    4. Thanks for the offer. While I like the idea of having the game translated in theory, in practice I don't think it's realistic at the moment.
      When I started Newlife I wasn't planning to release it publicly, so things like translation and modding are not supported at all and the writing and code aren't separate at all. Considering that I don't intend to release the source while the game's in development, it isn't possible to have it translated.

      I did have a short look at auto-translators, with the thought that I might set it up to automatically machine-translate the main text window. However, I wasn't able to find a good free translation library that I could package with the game.

      Once the final version is released and I've moved onto whatever my next project is and am no longer relying on Newlife financially, then I'll think about releasing the source. If I decide to do that, then that would be the time when translators who are also proficient Java programmers could work on foreign-language versions.

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