Conviction Chronicles blog post #29 - Ui updates

 This is only the first part to it, but I want to release it in an update now.

Shop update

The shop now as the ability to be set to randomized or a normal shop where you can choose what items to buy. Randomization keeps everything the same price, but with random outcomes. Normal shop shows each item and every item can be chosen. Gives more control to the player and such.

Fast Travel

There needed to be some sort of fast travel outside the elevator. But also having it being too powerful would break many gameplay systems. Instead of being able to teleport to someone's location at any time, all you can do is to teleport to a chosen floor, along with the option saying what floor is what. Only in the daytime. The last map system was very dogshit due to showing a badly rendered layout of the map terrain without any objects. So this is much better than what was before.

The biggest problem with the idea of having the ability to teleport anywhere is the concept of collecting evidence for someone being in certain locations like the furnace becomes moot when the player would have the ability to check the map every single moment. Fast travel of any kind is good to make it easier for the player to move to certain areas.

This is why the player can choose any floor. I might update it some more to select specific locations instead of coming out the elevator depending on certain tweaks on how to control it's gameplay balance. Since I do have to keep in mind it's existence will be exploited if it has a weakpoint or a gameplay advantage outside saving time with movements.

Crafting/dismantling update

Instead of cycling though options for every item you want to craft, you get a menu which has color coding, tells you what the cost/reward is, and a description. Makes it so much easier to update the system too if I wanted to add more. I also added a song that plays during this menu to increase the tension of crafting.

Overall it's much better, faster, easier, and has less bugs.

Gifting update

Gifting is done with the gifting menu which shows all of your items in your inventory you can gift along with it's icon and such. Before you had to cycle through each item, which is fine for more specific options, but for something more broad you want to view more overall. I also fixed a major bug/exploit that existed for almost a year hidden with certain character's gifting code when giving certain characters a Jade Ring or an Unknown item (spiked water). It's much better now.

Anything else?

I'm publishing the update soon, there is still more I want to do to polish the UI. Specifically I want to redo the reference menu to actually be a menu instead of what it is now. I also want to change the "character status" UI to be more stylish and to incorporate information about each character instead of having it in a submenu. Along with trying some stuff out with the Backlogs. Backlogs might be a little annoying since it's stored in it's own directive and showcasing certain information depending on the backlog and what variable was active during it might be hard if not impossible without heavy editing. 

I'm also realizing I need to add certain more ideas to the game. It means more dev time, but it's all things the game needs. Part of this realization was I left the original idea for the "solitary confinement" on floor 1. I have the feeling I should repurpose it for events so it can transform to become different things across multiple playthroughs and tie it to the cafe for starting those events with their own events. Would allow for some more "traditional but dynamic" murder mysteries to spice the gameplay up, along with it being a space that could be used for special types of trials that have additional rules before the trial begin. It's more how do I do this and how much does it need to be worth doing. It's more of an idea, but it's the best idea for the space I've thought up that offers the most to the gameplay.

But everything shall be done with time. How much time everything will take is long with making it right, but I feel it may be worth it in the end with adding more things to add/adapt and change. I think the intro speaks for itself how much better it's all become with all of the new changes since I started making the prologue alone. There is frankly so much I could do, but I don't want to overscope and to focus on what needs to be done right now if possible. 

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