next »

[vdapps]

Still working on 0.1.1 update, should be ready soon.

- meanwhile, revamped my webpage a bit (https://vdapps.net), where Universe Quest can be accessed. I'm not web dev, just started to learn pure HTML5.

- added support for Spanish and Slovak languages to Universe Quest (also did some translations already)

- added 'Mission Details' page (screenshot). There's more info about mission than in 'Missions Table' plus larger preview image.

- adding missions and rockets for year 1960 to encyclopedia.

[vdapps]

-= Universe Quest v0.1.1 =-
[download link here]

Hi All!

New version of Universe Quest is now accessible on my page. There's more juicy info about historical space missions and rockets plus one brand new screen. Here's short list of what's new:

- added missions for year 1960 to 'Missions Table' screen
- added rockets for year 1960 to 'Rockets Table' screen
- added new screen: 'Mission Detail'. It contains more info about mission, the most juicy one for me is apogee / orbital parameters of mission. This I want to re-use later in mission visualization. From this screen also 'Mission Gallery' will be accessible very soon.
- added support for Spanish and Slovak languages
- row highlight plus clickable element highlight
- nice subtle animation when entering 'Mission Detail' screen

Attaching some screenshots (missions table + rockets table, mission detail is in my previous post)

[JobLeonard]

Nice nice

[vdapps]

Thx!

I know it's lot of texts now, with not much visuals, so it's mostly for rocketry and space launches nerdies and enthusiasts, but yeah, more visual stuff is yet to come with upcoming releases.

[JobLeonard]

With these types of projects I think chipping away at this slow and steadily until it's nice and polished is the way to go

[vdapps]

Yeah, that's the plan!

[Rogod]

If I might offer a suggestion for polish:

"Centred text doesn't always look as good as we think it will"
(Not to mention it's harder to read a paragraph that is centre-justified too)

Just something to keep in mind
(I personally think the columns in the tables would all look much better left-justified)

[vdapps]

Good suggestion thanks!

For texts, I'm not sure, I have to try. As you can see, there's limited window for it. I somehow intuitively thought that centered both horizontally and vertically will be the best. I have to check how it will look, justified left and centered vertically, or justified left and not centered vertically (starting from top of its limited window). Also I have to refactor a bit my justification code to support all cases (now if it's center it's in both directions). When I'll do it I will left some shots here for comparison.

Other story is tables. Here, I have no doubts that it can look much better justified. Maybe I would justify numbers, dates and physical values to the right though. But you're right. Maybe I can add also subtle vertical separator lines.

[Rogod]

Paragraphs are harder to read when centre-justified because your eye has to keep finding the start of the line each time you end one; we'll find the start of a left-justified line much easier.

(I feel like the only places centre-justified is permitted is in quotes, button labels or poems )

[vdapps]

Yep, probably you're right. Anyway I should enhance text justifications possibilities in my engine, so I'm placing it into TODO list. For me centred texts was not design decision just lazy shortcut (I had it in my hand and it worked best in small limited windows). But I can't live with that forever, it should be enhanced for sure.

[JobLeonard]

Relevant to your interests?

https://www.supercluster.com/astronauts?sort=&ascending=false&life%20form=human&

[vdapps]

Nice!

I checked it and it's quite cool. Mainly launches section is of my interest. I can use it as source for "Modern launches" section of Universe Quest, when I'll get to it.

Currently, I'm feeding encyclopedia only with historical events but I want to interleave both historical with modern later. Historical, I'm adding from oldest to newer, and modern I can add always newest plus track back to older ones. One time, I can meet at one point from both directions having all relevant space exploration missions.

Currently, I'm tracking launches on spaceflightnow.com but supercluster.com looks definitely nicer.

[vdapps]

Hi All!

Working on 0.1.2 update. Today, I made 'Release history' box (can be seen in animation) to track back changes, so if user jumps into Universe Quest after some time he can find out what was added meanwhile.

One of the main features of Universe Quest (even if in this early phases it's just encyclopedia) is UI fluency which has to be always game-like 60fps constant. Plus, I try to almost always use some kind of animation when displaying something, switching between pages, etc.

I was not able to showcase UI fluency before, because due to nature of what's displayed in UQ, resulting animated gif or animated png size was in tens of megabytes and I don't want to use YouTube for short anims. However, I was playing with webp image format recently and it gives great result for such gif-like animations. My today's capture of UQuest UI (apng of 80MB), it compressed to respectable 8MB (with some lossyness of course but anyway).

So, finally I'm sharing first animation from Universe Quest, showing UI in action.

[JobLeonard]

Woah, tig images support webp? That is really cool

Also, looks smooooooooth

[vdapps]

Woah, tig images support webp? That is really cool

I don't think it's matter of TIG. It's matter of HTML5 and browser support. As far as I know, from major browsers, only Safari on OS X is not supporting WEBP. (But I couldn't care less, Apple was always blocking progress of open source technologies. Anyway, starting from OS X Big Sur, finally even Safari will support it).

Also, looks smooooooooth

Thanks, I'm happy. And anim you see is still downscaled to 30 fps, so in reality it's even better. (I wanted to save file size, plus Screen2Gif, which I use, was not able to capture full 60fps on my dev device (which is crappy 15W 2C4T mobile Skylake)).

[vdapps]

-= Universe Quest v0.1.2 =-
[web page]

Hi All!

New version of Universe Quest is now available. Short list of what's new.

- 'Release history' box implemented in game to track back all changes done in Universe Quest
- added new 'Rocket details' page (screenshot)
- added missions/rockets for Q1 1961
- missions/rockets up to 1957 translated to Spanish and Slovak
- detailed rocket stages info for rockets up to 1956

Enhanced also Universe Quest web page a bit. E.g. added link to TIGSource.

[vdapps]

Not related to development itself, but probably I can post it to Devlog.

I have social networks accounts for my 'old' 'Universe Quiz' game. To post stuff regarding astronomy, rockets, space exploration, etc., but also news regarding game, like new version announcements or promotions.

As my main focus is now 'Universe Quest', I'm re-branding those pages from 'Universe Quiz' to 'Universe Quest'. Should not be problem for existing followers as theme is absolutely similar.

I started migration with my Instagram account. So if you would like to follow me, please find the link below. From time to time, apart from space related content, I post also something from personal life.

https://instagram.com/universe.quest

Next to migrate are my 2 'Universe Quiz' FB accounts (one in English, one in Spanish).

[JobLeonard]

This forum is for discussing all aspects of game dev so yeah, that's definitely still on-topic for a devlog

Sounds like a perfectly sensible move, I doubt any of your followers will protest

[vdapps]

Thanks! You're right, seems that no one is protesting. So far on Instagram, no un-follow, and 1 new follow.. someone with initials J.L.V.. Who can that be..hmmm..

Today, I finished migration of my 2 FB pages, one is English, another in Spanish. So from today 'Universe Quest' is now also on FB officially.

English:
https://facebook.com/UniverseQuestEN

Spanish:
https://facebook.com/UniverseQuestES


Side note:

I have also YouTube channel under 'Universe Quiz' brand. In my short 'Youtuber' career, I made 10 videos about beginnings of spaceflight. They're in Spanish but there are English subtitles available. Was fun to do it, I liked it, but I think I'm better programmer than youtuber, and I can't sit on 2 chairs, so I stopped.

For now I'm leaving the channel as it is. Maybe I will convert it to 'Universe Quest' later, when I'll be sure I will also upload 'Universe Quest' related content (e.g. gameplay videos or explanatory videos). I don't want migrate it now, 'cause I know I will not add content there anytime soon. Would be strange 'Universe Quest' channel with all videos containing only 'Universe Quiz' branding.

In case of interest to see my super-duper videos, here's the link. Certainly, not Carl Sagan or Neil deGrass Tyson, but I put piece of my heart into those videos.
https://youtube.com/UniverseQuiz

[vdapps]

It's time for Universe Quest to have some brand logos and images.

I'm anything but artist, so I'm really not sure about results, but I guess, it's better than just 'Universe Quest' written with some font.

Above is 'poster' image, in full scale version can be used like 'hero' image. It looks way better in full-scale, however there's quite limited horizontal space here on TIG. Below is product logotype, something I want to associate with product in general.

For the first time in my life, I worked with something better than just Paint or Pixelformer. I used Krita to put together those images.