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[TomaLexi]

The context sensitiv icons do look very good, when do they appear? Once you click on an element? If they were there the whole time, the layout would look a bit messy I think. Also, wouldnt this style limit you to only one context sensitiv icon at a time? There probably could be more than one, right?

The lower UI bar clashes with the background too much, its a bit uneasy to view (the overlapping grids of the buttons and the background), the UI probably needs to stand out a bit more if you want to put it into a sidebar.

Still, great progress, keep up the good work

[0x0961h]

The context sensitiv icons do look very good, when do they appear? Once you click on an element?

Sure. That's why they are called context menus.

Also, wouldnt this style limit you to only one context sensitiv icon at a time? There probably could be more than one, right?

Icon will change once you move your mouse over context menu element. Like, you'll see a trash can icon when your cursor will be over "Remove" button or breaking chain icon for "Disconnect" button.

The lower UI bar clashes with the background too much, its a bit uneasy to view (the overlapping grids of the buttons and the background), the UI probably needs to stand out a bit more

The lower UI bar has got a very important goal of "not standing out". This menu is here mostly because I don't want to combine mouse and keyboard controls in a one big melting pot. It's a toxic way of dealing with controls, it's not accessible for ones and terribly wrong for others. My mission with this menu is to give the player an ability to control the game only by mouse or by keyboard, even though it's more tough thing to design (I, probably, will shoot for full gamepad support, rather then full keyboard support, but I'll see...). This menu doesn't have a goal of screaming HEY YOU!! I'M HERE TO HELP UUUU!!!111 CLICK ME NOW!!!!111oneoneone into player's face, it's more like a little sidekick that disappears once you don't need it, it won't pollute your vision by text and stuff when you're thinking, but it always will be ready when you, actually, need it and you always know where to find it.

put it into a sidebar.

I don't like a sidebar concept, because I don't have enough information to put into a sidebar and I don't like empty sidebars with few pointless buttons (windows 8, ahem ). I also prefer horizontal alignment of information, it feels more natural to me. Sidebars also more agressive consumes the screen space and I don't want to turn it into Internet Explorer with lots of plugins installed.

So I think.

[Slader16]

Looking even better than the first time I posted here, keep it up!

[0x0961h]

Looking even better than the first time I posted here, keep it up!

Ha, thank you!

Update #9.1. Labels and Users

Still working on UI, got a little animated update for you:

I think, I should start making videos with gameplay, because I have to turn off background and sacrifice colors to show something via gifs. Videos will probably be more beautiful, gonna try it later.

Here's the static version of current UI state (click to see larger pictures):

[0x0961h]

Update #10. 1080p and 60fps

So-o-o, after few brutal ragequits yesterday, I finally got context menu and all the bottom buttons working. Still need to add icons for context actions though, but it's already a big accomplishment for me.

I recorded a video with few simple operations to test OBS and to show you NeuroIDE at its best, smooth, fancy, with background shaders and without classic gif compression cruelty:

Click to watch video

I'd suggest to watch it in the highest quality available: 1080p and 60fps. You'll really feel how the game looks like now, how I see it during development time. By the way, OBS is waaaaay better at recording videos than Fraps, at least for me.

[Kyzrati]

"Wanted: SFX"

Seriously though, a dev after my own heart with all that polish. Looking excellent, although after watching it at 1080p I feel like you could make the background less annoying and/or cooler. Actually, with a game like this, as you progress what, if anything, changes about the visuals? Only the background, perhaps?

[0x0961h]

"Wanted: SFX"

*sigh* Give me some time to celebrate my vUIctory, okay? :D

Yeah. You know, I actually thought about throwing some tunes to the video, but it was compiled in a hurry for #IndieDevHour, so-o-o it's plain as hell, boring as hell and mute as hell. Will come up with something for the next video, I think.

Seriously though, a dev after my own heart with all that polish. Looking excellent...

Thanks! ^U^

...I feel like you could make the background less annoying and/or cooler.

By "annoying" you mean "this damned glitch effect looks like a sudden game freeze and it forcefully takes my attention"? I think, I'll drop this effect. I mean, it's cool, because there's a weird and awesome formula in a glitch shader for all this randomness, but I guess, it was only cool for small jam game. Now it's really unnecessary and, yes, annoying.

About "cooler", I, actually, thought about making few different backgrounds for different, let's call them, episodes, with ability to force the most favorite and less annoying one via options menu. I still want the background to be as much abstract as it can be, though. So, squares, circles, triangles and polygons will definitely stay.

The one I have in mind, by the way, is one I used for A* debugging (with small circles, remember it?). It can be interactive, I mean, circles can appear under player's cursor and by moving it they can leave a circle trace or something. Background is definitely a point to discuss and change.

Actually, with a game like this, as you progress what, if anything, changes about the visuals?

They become more polish, get some details. For example, there are still no symbols for elements, only bright colored squares, plus I still don't know how to present a story, if there'll be any. So, I guess, there's still a lot of visual and presentation things to think about. But, yeah, I have a solid core now and all visual changes won't be too radical: lil' fix here, lil' fix there.

[Kyzrati]

"Wanted: SFX"

*sigh* Give me some time to celebrate my vUIctory, okay? :D

Yeah. You know, I actually thought about throwing some tunes to the video, but it was compiled in a hurry for #IndieDevHour, so-o-o it's plain as hell, boring as hell and mute as hell. Will come up with something for the next video, I think.

For the videos any kind of ambient sound would do it for now, though ideally you'll have some beeps in the actual UI soon enough. It is a later part of development, though, for once you know what all you need. Reminds me of my other game where the many early videos were all put to some kind of music, and then once I finally added sound effects, that totally changed everything (for the better )

...I feel like you could make the background less annoying and/or cooler.

By "annoying" you mean "this damned glitch effect looks like a sudden game freeze and it forcefully takes my attention"? I think, I'll drop this effect. I mean, it's cool, because there's a weird and awesome formula in a glitch shader for all this randomness, but I guess, it was only cool for small jam game. Now it's really unnecessary and, yes, annoying.

Yep, distracting. But you know that and I think we've talked about it before on Twitter.

About "cooler", I, actually, thought about making few different backgrounds for different, let's call them, episodes, with ability to force the most favorite and less annoying one via options menu. I still want the background to be as much abstract as it can be, though. So, squares, circles, triangles and polygons will definitely stay.

The one I have in mind, by the way, is one I used for A* debugging (with small circles, remember it?). It can be interactive, I mean, circles can appear under player's cursor and by moving it they can leave a circle trace or something. Background is definitely a point to discuss and change.

Sounds interesting. Effects sometimes related to cursor movement could be neat, though again be wary of too much distraction. It's in the background for a reason

Actually, with a game like this, as you progress what, if anything, changes about the visuals?

They become more polish, get some details. For example, there are still no symbols for elements, only bright colored squares, plus I still don't know how to present a story, if there'll be any. So, I guess, there's still a lot of visual and presentation things to think about. But, yeah, I have a solid core now and all visual changes won't be too radical: lil' fix here, lil' fix there.

For story this type of game seems to usually go with some kind of dialogue box that pops up with a portrait of whoever's talking. Add in some effects to the portrait and typing text etc. to keep that bit different-looking from the UI and you can add whatever story you need to.

A more specific interesting idea for an overarching story (and one that gives what you're doing a lot more meaning), is to have some kind of world/area map and what you do has an effect on what happens there. Perhaps there is more than one way to solve a puzzle, or a time limit, or whatever, and based on these factors the outcome on the map is different. I think the game will get a lot more attention if it's not just "puzzle after puzzle," and there's a really compelling way they're all tied together.

[0x0961h]

For the videos any kind of ambient sound would do it for now, though ideally you'll have some beeps in the actual UI soon enough.

Yeah, clicks and beeps would be nice even for me. Having sound feedback is actually a good thing.

Yep, distracting. But you know that and I think we've talked about it before on Twitter.

It start to look awful even for me once I turned it on last time, so, yeah, I'll get rid of it. Too distracting, takes away player's attention and interrupts thinking process.

Sounds interesting. Effects sometimes related to cursor movement could be neat, though again be wary of too much distraction. It's in the background for a reason

Maybe you're right, yeah. That's why I want to create few different backgrounds so player can pick up the least annoying and distracting one. Or, you know, choose "SpaceChem"-ish option and just turn if off.

For story this type of game seems to usually go with some kind of dialogue box that pops up with a portrait of whoever's talking. Add in some effects to the portrait and typing text etc. to keep that bit different-looking from the UI and you can add whatever story you need to.

I definitely want to go with dialogues, because I always felt that having walls of story text is kinda boring and pointless, because only few people will actually read it. Dialogues are way more interactive and less boring. I, actually, like how story was handled in Gunpoint: short briefings in between the missions.

A more specific interesting idea for an overarching story (and one that gives what you're doing a lot more meaning), is to have some kind of world/area map and what you do has an effect on what happens there. Perhaps there is more than one way to solve a puzzle, or a time limit, or whatever, and based on these factors the outcome on the map is different. I think the game will get a lot more attention if it's not just "puzzle after puzzle," and there's a really compelling way they're all tied together.

A-a-and that sounds really interesting, thank you. I need to think about it.

[0x0961h]

Update #10.1. It's alive!

Kept you waiting, huh?© Anyway, here I am. Don't have lots of things to show to you, but I finally came up with idea for new element selection menu:

It's alive... ALIVE!

I think, for now it's the most smooth and fine solution for it. I even have screen space left for some hint text:

Click to see larger picture.

[0x0961h]

Update #11. Flexibility is everything

I'm gonna cite myself:

See? Told ya!

Okay, so, yeah, this week my hard work in the past helps me a lot. Remember, how I was separating data from code? Yeah, there was also a virtual machine involved and all this fancy programming stuff. So, this week I was working on "New Elements" menu. To avoid it being hardcoded I associated every element with so called "menu path". For example, adder for "A+B=C" has the "Decimal > Adders > 2 Decimal Inputs, 1 Decimal Output" path binded to it via data file and so on. This parameter will be determined for every placable element. If you can place it, it'll be in the menu (if only it is allowed on this level, of course).

So, I made a mechanism that takes all the allowed elements and build a menu for them, so it can be accessed later via "New Element" button of "Edit" mode. Here's how it looks:

Noticed something unusual? Yup, it's a new element. Let me introduce to you a Splitter element. It takes the input data and send it to its outputs. So if you have, let's say, "153" and you want to send it to few elements at the same time, you add the splitter, connect it to the element that produces a "153", then you connect splitter outputs to target elements and voilà:

Click to see the larger picture.

After recording this gif I, actually, realized, that it might be a pretty good way
to present and explain elements to the player. Could be even better than writing a big manual
for them to read. I, personally, don't like long texts. >_<

What's great (and why I mentioned data flexibility earlier): I didn't have to touch the code to add this element. I just added a new entry to elements' data file, write a short NVM-program, launched the game and got myself a new element. Totally worth it.

P.S. Here's a little bonus for ya -- an NVM-program for this element:

push rg_in[0]
push rg_in[0]
popd rg_out[0]
popd rg_out[1]

Simple and easy. Once you got the idea of NVM, of course...

[TomaLexi]

Hey, I saw you didnt make a progress post in quite a while. Hope you are still doing fine. Just wanted to let you know there are still some eyes on your project

[0x0961h]

Update #??. Division by Zero

Well, technically, it's not an update.

Well, technically, it's a reboot, restart, refresh, re-whatever-suits-you.

Yeah. I, sort of, began again. I don't have a lot of stuff to show to you now, but, well, have this fancy screenshot with absolutely new ports positioning, new background and brand new autowiring system:

Click to see larger picture.

I can hear you asking about why I decided to restart the development. Well, there's a lot of reasons. One of them -- tons of unsupportable code. Another one -- I didn't know what to do with the game to make it enjoyable and interesting. This time I started with understanding what code I need and I won't start before I have understanding how I want players to experience NeuroIDE. I have many-many ideas about what features I really want to implement, what features will breath-taking and awesome, and how I can make gaming experience closer to what I'd like to play myself. Because first of all NeuroIDE is all about my favorite things: programming and logic. And UI.

And, well, after Zachtronics released TIS-100 and Infinifactory, I have some serious motivation to create more nerdy stuff, you know.

[0x0961h]

Update #??.1. wireswireswires

A little update for #screenshotsaturday.

Click to enlarge image

So, this week I made wires bigger and gave 'em more fancy colours and patterns, so when things are getting messy wires won't be looking like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly stuff. Colors and patterns are configurable, so you'll be able to pick colours that look good for you. But, yeah, there'll be some default colour schemes so there is no need to rush into customization right after you open the game.

Oh, and I also added some volume to wires and some fancy shadows:

Click to enlarge image

[0x0961h]

Update #14. Surprise and wires

608 days later

Hey, everyone. NeuroIDE was brought back from the dead, because I was bored and because I'm still a big fan of programming games. Welcome back to the world of neuroelements, wires and boring coding stuff. Yay.

So. One of the main reasons why I dropped NeuroIDE ~1.5 years ago was lack of understanding what the point of the game. Yes, it was cool for me, I mean, I programmed the emulator thing with a lot of cool wiring stuff, some simple, yet stylish visuals, UI, but the game itself was... empty. I spent few months trying to come up with some "hey, player, that's what you're going to do in this game", but it was hopeless. And that's how NeuroIDE was abandoned and forgotten with a little hope that I ever come back to it again. I had no plans to reanimate it. Until last week.

I felt sudden urge to remake NeuroIDE and make it a game I want to play myself, just like I wanted in the very beginning of this devlog. But it needed some kind of twist, something that make players feel that they aren't doing pointless thing just for the sake of doing it, that they actually place elements and connect them with each other in order to make something work, to see it in action, not just do something and believe that you did well because that's why the post-mission "Good job" message was there. The solution for it is, probably, way too simple and even overused in programming games genre: I've decided that you won't be transforming one set of numbers to another (that's just plain boring and there's absolutely no ways to make numbers manipulating interesting or immersive), but you will make an algorithm for a robot.

Robots are cool. Especially the ones you can program to do something cool. That's what you're going to do in the new NeuroIDE. Robots can move around, they can scan their surroundings, they can interact with things, and you will help them by making schemes, placing elements, wiring them with each other and testing them in various situations.

So far I think this is a good idea, at least I can see how it could be implemented and how it could be interesting for players. And while I'm on it, NeuroIDE will be alive. Good luck to me and welcome to the season 2.

Oh, and for the sake of having a visual candy, here's a not-very-production-ready image from new NeuroIDE prototype I'm working on right now.

Click to enlarge image

Yes. I love wires.

[Pineapple]

programming games are amazing and I would want to play this even if I only got to transform numbers

[Kyzrati]

Welcome back, and I'm sure it feels good to finally have a more specific direction that you think helps give the game purpose! I like this direction :D

[0x0961h]

programming games are amazing and I would want to play this even if I only got to transform numbers

Same.

Welcome back, and I'm sure it feels good to finally have a more specific direction that you think helps give the game purpose! I like this direction :D

Oh, hey! Yeah, I like it too. I will call one of the bots Cogmind and it will destroy walls and other bots, because WHY NOT.

[Kyzrati]

Hehe, if appropriate that'd be cool. (If you recall I've already got an 0x0961h Easter egg in Cogmind--first one I ever added, too!)

Anyway, looking forward to seeing where you go with it. This project already had potential before, but now it's like quadruple potential

[a-k-]

programming games are amazing and I would want to play this even if I only got to transform numbers

Same.

Same here.
I like your auto-wiring system, will you smooth everything in the end or keep orthogonal?