Hey everyone, we’re back again with just a small slice of what we’ve been up to the past few months. Much of the recent progress has been in the backend but we thought we’d change gears and share some of visual design progress this time. Introducing a new UI menu: The Journal!
Disclaimer: This is a design mock-up, not rendered in-engine. All visuals subject to change!
While an entire post about something as mundane as a “game history” view might seem excessive, the journal actually represents one of the most complex menu systems in the game. Not just in terms of design but in the under-the-hood mechanics as well. Recording and displaying all the relevant data for all our various game modes and for each player is a tall order! Detailed stat breakdowns are something we value as players ourselves and we wanted to be sure to build it right (it also represents the first big test case for our own servers and Medley ID data management!). It should feel and look nice to browse your own game history, and not just to admire your achievements and earnings, but also to save replays. (Did we mention we’ll have replays?)
Now that you’ve seen the current draft for the journal for the PC build (still just a mock-up, a lot could change in the final), below you’ll see some of the VERY rough drafts that got us here. Everything from sketches to alternate screen sizes (like the mobile view)
The very first draft, before we decided to put replay controls in a separate “expanded” view.
That same first draft but imagined for mobile.
Second draft, adding some basic color, an expand button, and removing the replay controls (look at all that new room for loot!)
Third draft, simplified even further by removing redundant text and truncating the amount of “loot” shown. This gave us more room for “featured stats” in the center of each entry (which change depending on the game mode)
Draft 4: oh hey real graphics! But still many placeholder art pieces.
A quickly-made and very distorted version of the 4th draft for mobile on the smallest screen we’d support.
And here’s the near-final 5th draft, with an added sort button and temp navigation buttons at the top.
So that’s the journal! Something simple in theory that ends up taking many many sessions of discussion and iteration with the team. And you’re probably looking at some icons wondering what they are but I’ll leave that a mystery for now. Also the expanded view, with the full complete stat breakdowns - including things like how many of each type of chain and combo was made per game - is something we’ll share at a later date. Hopefully when we actually have it running in-engine!
Our next update will likely be a technical one, breaking down some of the major developments in the backend, so stay tuned for that! Thanks again for keeping up with us, we know updates have been spaced out pretty far this season but we’re always happy to share updates when we have them. While we still experience busyness in our personal / work lives, we’re still in it for the long haul and appreciate the support thus far.
Can’t put a date on an actual beta release just yet but we’re hitting some big milestones and we’re closer than ever!