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[wazeau]

Quick addition to the UI

Here's all the building icons for the construction menu. I'll name them all later, cause some aren't final anyway


I'm also adding a little color update based on some feedback we got! The right icons are all mouse pointers, the floating icons above the dude are status icons  
The icons at the top will toggle information screens like the villager screen you see in the screenshot, building info, boat info, quest log, survival guide (this is like a tutorial -> info of everything in the game you encountered) and settings/menu

I also wonder what you people prefer: all building icons in 1 menu like in the image above or split up like we have it now, with a bar with categories down below. Right now they are split up in utilities (walkway, lights), boats, housing, food, water and crafting.
Other feedback would be welcome too. UI is hard you guys.  

[JobLeonard]

Octo and Crabby are totes adorbs

[oldblood]

Haven't commented on this in awhile... just checking in. Looks like you guys are making some really great progress. Really awesome work...

[wazeau]

Another quick update of the UI. I'm testing out the inventory and icons. We're dividing stuff into categories like food, living animals (for breeding) and building materials, so that's why we need the background colors for them.
The icons on the right are buttons for toggling the inventory. Not sure which one to pick yet.

Any preferences between 1-4? And tell me if there's an icon unrecognizable please   

[JobLeonard]

So, as a guy with protanomaly, I'm a bit wary of colours-only labeling . But I'll get back to that.

I prefer the coloured icons (so 2, 3 and 4) over the black-and-white one, although that's very personal. Makes them feel more alive, from my perspective - especially if they match their in-game model. However, if the in-game models vary a lot in texture (crabs in different colours and such) then maybe the black/white option is more fitting.

I think 1 and 2 are too "busy", because they're a patchwork of colours, although that might also be a matter of being unsorted: 1 and 2 are not, 3 and 4 are.

That said, I don't like the external numbers of 3, and the border of 4 is a bit too subtle for my tastes (colours also are harder to read for me with thin lines compared to opaque blocks).

Are all materials in one category "equal", or is there an implied hierarchy? For example, does one fish and one crab give the same amount of nutrition? Because if not, maybe you could so something like option 4 with a number of coloured dots in the box to indicate how "nutricious" a food is? Apply to other types of material with similar logic: more dots = more "value", or more "rare", or higher "tier".

If you go with that, you can also have different shapes per type - so food could get round dots, materials get hexagons. That way the colour-blind can also read the material using shapes (and the non-colourblind benefit from this too).

Have you tried borderless icons? How does that fit into the overall look?

[SafetySnail]

I vote 1, most easily readable at a glance IMO.

[Mattie]

I'd go with option 1 too.

[wazeau]

@Jobleonard Damn, colorblindness, forgot about that.
I think the colored labeling isn't that important in the end to be honest. You'll be able to filter categories with the top buttons. Apart from that I might try just separating the categories altogether with different tabs or grouping.
If there's still an issue for colorblind people we will of course fix that with a colorblind mode or changed icons.

As for the nutritional value of each food item. Tooltips will show these, either in the restaurant building where you cook them or just when hovering over them in the inventory. I don't want to clutter the icons with too much stuff.
Note that these are just mockup icons for stuff that isn't tested yet too.

Borderless icons are a possibility I guess, if we either color each icon in the right color (might be unreadable) or avoid a color altogether. I'll test that! I'll try 4 with thicker lines too.

@Mattie and @SafetySnail Ye I like 1 the most too Thanks for the input

[wazeau]

Hey fellas, thought I would share a quick little sketch I did for inktober.
It features a botanist trader that could visit your base Enjoy

[michelmohr]

Cool stuff!
I'd knew I'd seen this game on tigsource somewhere when it came by on our internship fair presentation!
See you on Friday in The Level.

[Juwdah]

Hey everyone,

For SS, here's an update on the modularity of the villagers.
Going to take a look at adding different sleeves on each piece of clothing to get a "recycled" look.
And tackle the hair color changing soon as well.

Here's a gif of the new clothing/face pieces.

And sketches to go with it

[wazeau]

Update time!

We've been making the first bigger boats these past few weeks. Here's what they look like now ingame!
You'll be able to craft these at the shipyard, but visitors might use them as well. We'll make some more boats later to differentiate between them more easily of course.

These boats will allow you to collect floating scrap more easily, as well as haul up scrap from the ocean floor once you upgrade them with a crane or diving gear.

[JobLeonard]

They look good! Did you change anything else? It feels a bit different from before somehow.

[wazeau]

Hmm, there's an simple edge shader and some ambient occlusion in there now, maybe it's that . We still need to do a lot of lighting changes and add a better water and foam shader.

[Juwdah]

Further update on the modular clothing sets.
Sleeves have been cut now, dresses also possible (albeit still random and work as two seperate pieces).
Shorts now combine with leggings for extra survival flavor.

Still thinking of going Right/Left shoe as well. (or possibly, no shoes, one shoe,..)
And still in progress: Hats, Gloves and extras.

[Juwdah]

Got some Amy Winehair here.



Seriously though, if anyone ever has funny ideas, you can always pass em along

[The_Observer]

For this weeks screenshot Saturday we made a small compilation of some of our environment artwork.
There's some new stuff in it as well. We'll likely highlight that in a later update.

Feedback's still welcome!

[andreadst]

Looks fantastic!
The debris really make it feel alive now as opposed to the clean look the game had the last time I saw it!
Also, the boats (one of the previous boats) look very interesting.
Will you use them to start new settlements as well? (like some old school rts did)

[Juwdah]

@andreadst: Thanks!
We're using the liferaft as a starting point to start settlements for now and seeing how that goes


Bumped on some problems, maybe people here could offer some fresh ideas.
While testing some characters, it's noticeable that they heavily blend into the environment. They really need to stand out of the environment to enhance the game experience but it seems to be harder than expected.

Here's some examples
(don't mind the test UI)





Adding saturation or changing values don't help enough to completely pop them out.
Going to look into the lighting and keep tweaking values until we get it right, did anyone here ever come across a similar problem (and or solution) ?

[andreadst]

Don't know how this would look like with a cell-shading look but a rim light worked great on a game I worked on a while back.
You can see it on the pic very clearly on the enemies