Chris Posted November 23, 2012 Share Posted November 23, 2012 Development update time! I hope everyone is excited. I've spent most of the week working on UI designs and am about ready to throw myself off the nearest bridge. Interface design is the WORST POSSIBLE job in the universe, I've decided. That's why I'm typing this while munching on a ready meal by myself in the office at 8.30pm on a Friday night, something that one would hope I'll not be repeating in the near future. Possibly because I've been working such long hours this week, it's been very productive. I've had the final UI design hanging over me for literally months, something I never wanted to start on because it would require at least a week of working 12-hour days to get all the screens done. It's not really something you can do in short bursts because you need to ensure consistency between all the screens and that's something that is lost if you don't do them one after the other (you can even see the different between the screens I did three days ago and those I did today). Also, these will be the final UI designs so they have to be pixel perfect or they might be implemented wrong - I can't just be lazy and use placeholder stuff any more! The good news is that I've completed eight of the ten concepts (subject to the odd tweak to improve consistency) and only have two left, the Geoscape and the Xenopedia. The Geoscape one requires some more art done before we can finish it but I think we've finally worked out how we can improve the usability and make it more immersive / consistent with the other screens at the same time. I'm pleased with how it is turning out, and I'm very pleased with how the completed UI screens have gone too. The combination of the new immersive style and the old-style topbar with updated art seems to have preserved the best of both ideas. I'll post them up for you guys to look at tomorrow, possibly. Next week holds the joys of slicing up all of the graphics for all of the UI screens and writing a document that details all the dimensions of the graphics in / the eventualities of how the player can interact with every UI screen in the strategic part of the game. Yessir, that's what I got into game development for! Though it won't be particularly interesting, it does let the Geoscape coder get to work on finishing that part of the game. I honestly think it'll probably be the most exciting change we'd made to a public release since we joined the Geoscape / Ground Combat parts of the game together. They'll simultaneously look much better and convey much more information, so everybody wins. It also means we'll finally start fixing up the UI issues, rather than just saying "we'll do that once the new UI is in place". With me refusing to answer emails for most of the week, the rest of the team have got less done than they would usually, but we've still made progress. Most notably, Aaron is continuing to power through generating all the Xenonaut Base props and we'll have all the starting buildings done early next week, which means we can do some iteration of the base defence missions. You'll like the base tiles - they look really nice. Speaking of iteration, we've got good feedback on the first map we posted up, so thanks for anyone who helped us with that. We'll release more next week, though the new UI takes priority there. Good news, though - we can now support custom Xenonaut squad armour and weapons for individual missions, so we can do the scenario testing we mentioned a few weeks ago now (read: testing the flooplans of all the UFOs and the alien bases). GJ is also committing some improved AI code shortly, but whether it turns the aliens into deadly combatants remains to be seen - but they should be better than before at least. He's also coded the online stat tracker for the game, which records information when you play the game and sends it to a modified version of Google Analytics so we can crunch (anonymous) numbers to analyse the game balance. Essentially it means we can get feedback from anyone playing the game, even if they can't be bothered to post on the forums - which stops us producing a version of the game tailored only to the super-enthusiastic / capable crowd that tend to be overrepresented in the forum community of a game. Apparently we need to do a bit of work with a code library (or something) to get that working, but it's 99% done. I'm looking forward to that. There's probably been other stuff, but I forget it. It's been a busy week and I'm going home. Enjoy your weekends, everyone - I know I will! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thothkins Posted November 23, 2012 Share Posted November 23, 2012 despite my utter paranoia over Xenonauts being used to track anything, I'm glad you've had a productive and busy week and looking forward to seeing the new UI. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted November 23, 2012 Author Share Posted November 23, 2012 The data is anonymous, it doesn't track who sent it. Just the results of your missions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted November 23, 2012 Author Share Posted November 23, 2012 Although I guess it'll be an interesting estimation of piracy when we sell 20,000 copies at release and have 100,000 unique users playing the game Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thothkins Posted November 23, 2012 Share Posted November 23, 2012 I did say "utter paranoia". I always disable as much of that stuff as possible from apps and anything else. Hey, Is it going to capture all those who save, get a xenonaut killed, and then reload? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skvid Posted November 23, 2012 Share Posted November 23, 2012 Some screens of the new UI would be nice! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erutan Posted November 23, 2012 Share Posted November 23, 2012 I'd actually be really curious at looking at the data (or at least some captured reports) at some point. It'd help us vocal forumites give better feedback. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arturius Posted November 24, 2012 Share Posted November 24, 2012 Chris, have you been able to overcome small fonts problem in the new UI that many users were reporting when using high resoultions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dazbot Posted November 24, 2012 Share Posted November 24, 2012 Any news on Beta, I'm off to the Falklands for 2 months starting in december would be nice to have to help while away the days Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wormer Posted November 24, 2012 Share Posted November 24, 2012 Chris, have you been able to overcome small fonts problem in the new UI that many users were reporting when using high resoultions? Thanks for popping this question, because I believe it bothers quite much people there Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean-Luc Posted November 24, 2012 Share Posted November 24, 2012 That's why I'm typing this while munching on a ready meal by myself in the office at 8.30pm on a Friday night, something that one would hope I'll not be repeating in the near future. Money, power and women come after the release Chris. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thothkins Posted November 24, 2012 Share Posted November 24, 2012 Is it still money then power and then women? Or is it power, then money and then women ? or is it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted November 24, 2012 Author Share Posted November 24, 2012 The "small font problem" is just that those particular bits of text haven't been coded with scaling fonts, so they don't get bigger as the monitor resolution expands. All text will be scaling in the new UI.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FranTorres Posted November 25, 2012 Share Posted November 25, 2012 Good to hear from you Chris. News are always welcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gnarly Posted November 26, 2012 Share Posted November 26, 2012 2013 is shaping up well! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gam Posted November 26, 2012 Share Posted November 26, 2012 Post your address so we can send you a 6 pack of energy drinks... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
irongamer Posted November 26, 2012 Share Posted November 26, 2012 Post your address so we can send you a 6 pack of energy drinks... Or some tension tamer tea perhaps? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xcom Veteran Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 Great base tiles Chris. Super artist. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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