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[eyeliner]

What about those of us that think that LttP is the best Zelda game?
Is your creation telling us we are not going to enjoy it fully?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

that's difficult to predict, and depends on *why* zelda3 is their favorite. games are made for a specific audience, but often other audiences can enjoy it too. in this case, the game is made for people who enjoy non-linearity and desolation (feeling of loneliness) which zelda1 exemplified. so, for example, if someone liked zelda3 because of the non-linearity of the dark world, i'd expect they'd enjoy SD, but if someone liked zelda3 the most because of the linearity of the light world, or the village, or talking to all all the npcs, or all the clues and guidance sahasarahlah gave the player, they might not, because SD doesn't really have npcs at all (it has them, but there are even fewer of them than even zelda1 had, to emphasize the feeling of being alone on an alien world)

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

anyway, there are now 49 tasks remaining until SD is feature-complete. one of those tasks is what i've been working on for the past few days, the visualization of the skill tree. this is what i had so far yesterday:



the branches were sort of designed to be in the shape of a fern, and they move around in response to the mouse (i wanted to give it a feeling of being alive to fit with the game's themes). ignore the title screen stuff, i'm just testing it by having it appear on the title screen, in the actual game it won't have that 'continue / new game' stuff covering it up

previously it was just a 10x5 grid (10 branches with 5 skills each). you unlock new skills by finding statues in the game (3 small statues or one large one allows you to unlock one skill, and the statues are hidden across the world). the bonuses at the tips can only be unlocked as you unlock the bonuses at the base (so you can start with any of the first 10 skills, and then start on another branch or move towards the tip of any branch). each skill is actually two skills (one for each of the game's different modes)

i plan on improving its visuals a bit more before i continue on to the next task

[eyeliner]

I assume you draw them circles at runtime, yes? They are quite sharp, I'd prefer them aliased a bit, because it contrasts with the chevrons, though that might be on purpose...

Is the background animated?

[ANtY]

I agree that those aliased lines look a bit amateurish

@eyeliner: the proper term would be anti-aliased a bit, since aliased lines are the sharp ones

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

sadly gm7 doesn't have anti-aliased shapes. i believe they added anti-aliasing to studio but i'm still working in gm7. the workaround is usually to pre-render the circles rather than draw them with gm's circle shape, as i did in immortal defense, and which i'll do later on after i finalize their size and so on (i said that's what i have so far, not final -- this is a devlog, so of course i'm going to anti-alias things like that, that kind of goes without saying)

[eyeliner]

I agree that those aliased lines look a bit amateurish

@eyeliner: the proper term would be anti-aliased a bit, since aliased lines are the sharp ones

Yeah, I know, just had a mixup when posting. 

sadly gm7 doesn't have anti-aliased shapes. i believe they added anti-aliasing to studio but i'm still working in gm7. the workaround is usually to pre-render the circles rather than draw them with gm's circle shape, as i did in immortal defense, and which i'll do later on after i finalize their size and so on (i said that's what i have so far, not final -- this is a devlog, so of course i'm going to anti-alias things like that, that kind of goes without saying)

Of course, I believe you perfectly know what you are doing, but seeing as that screen has a lot of work devoted into it, I just had to ask. Even being obvious that you were to smooth the lines out, I just had to ask, after all, It could have some meaning...

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

yep yep -- worked on it a bit more today. should be able to finish up the looks of the skill tree tomorrow or the next day.

[Ouren]

what'd you guys do for your five year development anniversary?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

nothing, since i'm basically the only one working on it anymore (most of the rest of the team either stopped working on it or mostly finished their roles and have nothing further to do). well, me and eva (eva's still doing the promotion stuff and the site design) i guess. part of the reason it's taking so long is because i have to do a lot of the work other members of the team said they'd do but never got the time or motivation to do

i also don't know when the precise date is that we began the game. the earliest mention is around june of 2007, which will make it 6 years next month

[aberrantmind]

crazy, well the concept is cool and the trailers I've seen looks solid. I'm looking forward to playing this game soon.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

okay, i fixed the aliasing issues and made other improvements; here's what it looks like now. there's still room for improvement visually but it's good enough for now, since i've spent about 5 days just working on that i'm eager to go on to the next task -- which is actually finishing up the skill tree's skills

[eigenbom]

Looking good dude

[eyeliner]

I'd prefer the circle inside the circumference be a wee bit more transparent, but looks good indeed.

[Uykered]

Looking nice (aside from the text of course), will be cool to see it move around with the mouse.

[ANtY]

It looks much better now, I'd only rethink the colors but that's only IMO

[rundown]

Nice and indeed allot better than the previous one.

[Irock]

I realized that I've never posted in this thread so I'm gonna do that now.

I love immersive nonlinear exploration games so much. Saturated Dreamers is honestly one of the most unique and interesting looking games in development that I know of and I'm looking forward to playing it.

[ink.inc]

okay, i fixed the aliasing issues and made other improvements; here's what it looks like now. there's still room for improvement visually but it's good enough for now, since i've spent about 5 days just working on that i'm eager to go on to the next task -- which is actually finishing up the skill tree's skills

really cool but there should be some sort of layer that darkens the background; visually noisy atm. kerning is a little weird too.

[randomshade]

I really like the skill tree visuals too. Agree with Sandoval that there's too much competing for attention though and his idea to darken the bg is a good one (might use a grey color to keep the contrast high with the unused skill tree slots.)