Game Journal #65 -UI Transitions, Battle Rewards, Dialogue Improvements

What's up guys! I finally got back into working on my game. Playing Persona 5 gave me a lot of inspiration, so let's get right into it!

Firstly, life update. I'm going to a Guns N' Roses concert in August. If you don't know, they're pretty much my favorite band! So as soon as tickets went on sale, I snagged a nice front row VIP seat. Woot! I'm pretty excited for it. Of course, I'll take photos like I did with the Iron Maiden concert. That's why Slash is in this entry's thumbnail, if you were wondering. Dave Mustaine is there too, just because. I don't think I'll ever stop simping for great guitarists.

Speaking of, another great guitar inspiration I recently found is Marty Friedman. He was the lead guitarist for Megadeth in the early days. It's a little confusing because Dave also plays solos, but he's considered the "rhythm guitarist" when it comes to titles. So for the longest time I thought it was Mustaine playing all the solos, but in actuality it was a mix of him and Marty. Anyway, I looked into his career and it turns out he played on Sonic and the Black Knight's ending theme "With Me" as the lead guitarist. ...Which blew my mind, because I listened to that song SO MUCH as a kid, and here I am now as a diehard Megadeth fan. Absolutely crazy! Also, he knows Japanese, and left Megadeth to play in Japan. I think that's soooo cool. Makes me want to keep studying Japanese for all the opportunities it can bring!

Secondly, game update. I've officially decided to retire the old TestMap level I've been working on since... well, forever, I guess. I've gotten a good enough foundation where I can just make the game itself, and update the individual gameplay functions as I go. So that's what I'm going to do! Of course, it might make showing you progress a little more challenging, but I think it'll be conducive. I'll only show the first chapter or so. Good? Okay!

Lately I've been feeling as though I'm running in circles with the test level, so I'm just going to move on to the actual story. Just by doing that, I got a ton more ideas for stuff to add! Cool, huh? The full game is finally starting to take shape!

Here's the changelog. Sure has been a while since you've seen one of those, eh?

3/4/23

• Added Transitions for UI menus.

3/5/23

• Added Skills to Pause Menu

• Came up with Exp formula (base exp*(1+((monsterlvl-1)/100))

• You can get money, exp, and ap from battle.

3/8/23

• Created Background widget for dialogue screen.

  • Panning, animations, etc are now possible based on dialogue row.

3/9/23

• Created Chapter intro widget.

3/12/23

• Enhanced Dialogue selection screen w/ portrait of Joe

3/13/23

• More work on the dialogue selection screen

Did you notice that the changelog looks better than normal?! THATS BECAUSE ZYRO FINALLY ADDED SUPPORT FOR COPY-PASTING BULLETPOINT LISTS! THANK GOD! I swear, this webhost gets better every single day. I do not regret my purchase in the slightest.

Here is my video explaining the changes, as usual.

Dave Mustaine and Marty Friedman (love those hair goals!)

Not bad, eh? I'm finally getting back into the swing of things. What do you think about the new additions? Let me know in the comments below!