Art Update: UI and Cyberia Progress

Today we wanted to go into detail on what type of changes you can expect with this new inbetween UI/Improvement Update before the Cyberia Update! One thing we really wanted to address today is why things have been going slowly. Personal life events with our artist slowed down a lot of new asset production which led to us focusing on different aspects of the game to keep things moving. Obviously art is extremely important, and the great thing is next month our artist will have a lot more time to work on the game, and we're hoping to get a very large amount of assets done and get some major progress on the Cyberia Update (writing and gameplay is still on track tho!).

New phone interface with buttons for each app (objectives, pinup gallery, scene replay and shop)

In terms of UI what we've done is completely overhaul how the game functions based on the feedback we received. The progression will stay pretty much the same, but stuff like Objectives can be seen within the phone rather than its own button. We consolidated the UI and added three buttons to the top right of the screen while removing the drop down for the inventory. While some people might not like the fact that we removed the drop down, the issues we were having with it affecting gameplay as well as slowing down movement when it comes to the panning backgrounds (if you hovered over the game would pause), we felt it made much more sense to create a dedicated backpack button. We've also made a grid based layout for items to keep everything consolidated, as well as proper as an easy way to access them. 

Not final but you can get a feel for the difference (also included current money here)

A big focus for us is trying to incorporate each of the improvements in a worthwhile way, and not just simply adding things for the sake of adding things. With the new phone interface we tried to make each button worthwhile, as well as improve how players figure out what they're supposed to do when they get stuck. We've moved the objectives button that was on the previous version into a dedicated button on the phone. We're hoping this will streamline the experience a bit and remove the text floating on the screen. We're also going to be renaming the objectives to be more quest like, so you'll see a bit of a difference going forward with how we name stuff in the future. The other three buttons on the new phone are the pinup gallery, scene viewer, and shop. Both the pinup gallery and scene viewer are very similar in function, but the main purpose was to give players the ability to replay and enjoy the content they've found/experienced without having to make a whole new playthrough. Those new bits of UI need a bit of work, but we've also been messing with the new shop interface a ton.

Also not final but the main point is to show what you can and have bought (This will be filled with cool stuff once it's ready!)

And now for a bit more than just a UI preview: the first preview of one of the new Cyberia backgrounds!

This was a bit difficult to show without cutting up, but it's the length of 2.5 normal backgrounds! (you can see the scale of it with the little person by the cabin)

We don't want to go into too much detail on this background, but let's just say you'll have a new landing area on Cyberia with the entire ship landed and not just a smaller lander. You'll be able to pan across from the ship to the new cabin area, and be able to explore the little bits of the environment. A big thing with this is we want it to feel to scale rather than just a static background. We felt the feeling of being able to pan across it would help you feel like you're actually exploring a whole new planet. Since this is the first time we've tried something like this we'll be needing a bunch of feedback overall. This background is still in the sketch phase and needs a ton of work, but we're definitely looking forward to showing you guys as soon as it's done! This isn't the only background we're planning, and we can guarantee you'll be able to explore the inside of this cabin with the update. 

That's it for this preview and we hope you enjoyed! We're still hard at work on the update but we're hoping to have at least the updated UI in the smaller update much sooner, as in next month if all goes to plan. And if all the art is in the right place we'll be giving patrons the Cyberia Update as soon as it's technically ready!