Update 14 New UI and More

Hey everybody! It's been a week since I released Update 13 to you all. I hope those of you who have had a chance to play it enjoyed it. 

I made some changes behind the scenes on that update with removing the affection numbers and date points and all of that. Basically streamlining the game to feel less grindy. 

New UI

Now I'm making some more obvious changes. For a long time, I've been wanting to redo the UI. With Update 14, I'm finally doing that. You can see in the image above a little preview of what I'm planning. 

Instead of a map screen, you're going to have these polaroids of different things you can do with the characters you're following. Only the events that you can actually do at that moment are shown on the screen. So it's very easy to see what options you have available to you. Also, you'll notice that some of the polaroids are pink while others are white. The pink ones mean that there is content available there that you have not yet seen. In my testing, this has made it EXTREMELY easy to go from one bit of content to the next with very little reference to the help screen, or trying to figure out what to do during a given time.

Finally, the big polaroid on the right is always in the same place. So, whether you're skipping forward to the next time increment, you're going to bed, or you're skipping through your work day, you only have to put your mouse in one place and click. It makes skipping through events that you've already seen very easy. 

My testing with this new UI has been a real game-changer. I think it improves the game IMMENSELY and I really think you all are going to love it. 

What else is in Update14?

Short answer: A LOT.

Update 14 is going to be the biggest update by far that I've done, both in terms of amount of content, overall improvements to the game, and the plan for the release. Out of all the updates so far, this is going to be the biggest jump towards a completed product. 

Besides all the new content that's going to be in the Update, I'm planning on going back and redoing some renders and animations. I've learned a lot of new tricks since starting the game, and there is a lot of renders towards the beginning of the beginning of the game that are not near as good as the later renders. I've been replacing bits at a time, but I plan on doing a large amount more in this update, especially with some early animations. 

To help me do this, I've set aside some money to buy a new video card. I'm going to be trying to get it next week, but we'll see how that goes. They're always so hard to get your hands on. But I'm going to get one as soon as possible, which should speed up rendering a ton.

In addition to all of this, I'll be adding new date outfits for both Whitney and Kendra. 

When will Update 14 release?

I don't know. When I finish the roadmap, I'll have a little better idea. I'll break everything down into days and hopefully see how many days it will take me to finish, then give a rough estimate then. Right now, I'd expect February to March. 

It's a bigger update than normal, plus happening around the holidays, where family and friends are going to want to do things, so I'd expect this one to take slightly longer than normal. But hopefully the new video card will help with some of that too. 

Final Thoughts

There's a lot more to talk about with Update 14, but I'm going to save that. I have not finished the Roadmap for the Update quite yet, but I'm very close. I'll post it next week. 

I hope you'll stick around for it. This update is really exciting for me. I'm nearly done writing it and can't wait to move on to the renders and get this thing going.