Weekly progress: more UI updates for the glory of Dr. Destructo

I’m not doing anything spectacular here, but I guess I have an excuse to show you some more updated graphics of the game. So I’m gonna go ahead and do just that.
First off, I have removed export options from Achievements screen. I wanted them to be an alternative to social networks integration: a way to share your experience of the game. The idea was that you could export a formatted PNG file with all your unlocked achievements and then post it wherever you like: a forum, a Facebook timeline, a Twitter feed… But would anyone bother? If you’re a social media addict, you probably would just be dismayed by lack of direct ingame integration, and if you avoid most social networks like me, you probably wouldn’t care about sharing anything about your game progress with anyone.

So, export options are now gone. If you want them back, well, write me, and I’ll think about it.

But I have done more than removing some functionality! Achievements menu can now be used with mouse or with touch. You can click (or tap) on any achievement to get its description. Also, in this screen you can see the new achievements’ icons, made by Oleg. They are, of course, far superior to drawn-in-paint images I had here before.

The new Achievements screen.
The new Achievements screen.

If you have played an old version of Return of Dr. Destructo already, then you know it has those little text messages during levels, where various characters natter at you about things. Previously, they were just a semitransparent black panel with the picture of a character and text. They also appeared and disappeared instantly. Now that the rest of the game is shaping up graphically, it was time for this messages to get a facelift too. I reused some art from the main menu to add some character to them, and also added a fade-in and fade-out phases, so now they should look much better.

New in-level message example.
New in-level message example.

Lastly, I updated after-level statistics & achievements display a bit. Here, once again, the new font provided some problems, but it seems I managed to overcome them.

After-level statistics and achievements (unlocked via debug code, of course :) )
After-level statistics and achievements (unlocked via debug code, of course 🙂 )

That’s all I wanted to clean up with respect to already finished pieces of UI for now. Next week, I’m going to add a big new feature: support for gamepads. If everything goes according to plan, you will be able to use keyboard, touch controls and gamepads across all supported platforms and your convenience, for example if you have a tablet with a keyboard (like ASUS Transformer), you could play using it instead of touch controls if you want.

I'm a video games programmer. I have worked in game industry since 2008 on MMOs and mobile games, but now I work for Owlcat Games on great old-school RPGs. In my free time, I like to play rock'n'roll on my guitar and travel.

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