Game Journal #75 - Art Contest Win, UI Updates, Settings

Hey all! Got another game journal here. This time I FINALLY started glamming up the Settings menu, which I'll show in the video. I even figured out how to change the game input buttons. Turns out it was a built-in function the whole time! I also worked on some more UI updates in general too.

First, life update. I'm not sure if I posted it here, but I entered an art contest a while back for the Epic Battle Fantasy Collection. If you don't know what that is, it's a JRPG game series created by Matt Roszak. Epic Battle Fantasy 3 is my favorite JRPG of all time, and it's pretty much the reason why I love the genre in the first place, so when I saw that there was an art contest I decided to join. Unfortunately, the third game wasn't in the collection of games eligible for the contest, but the second one was. I actually never had completed the second game, so I bought and played through it just for the contest. It was fun (but 3 is still the best lol.)

Anyway, I came in fourth place in the contest. Not bad, huh? There were over 50 entries, so yeah, not terrible. I won some money and two free games from it. For my entry, I wanted to recreate the final boss fight from Epic Battle Fantasy 2. Here it is in-game:

...and here is my rendition.

Not bad, eh. I got a lot of attention for my entry. In fact, someone even asked me to sign it for them, which was pretty cool. I will say though, I much prefer being a nobody than having fame. Even the small amount I got from my piece here was somewhat overwhelming. Yeah it's cool to have people say "That's amazing!" but at the same time it makes me stand out way too much. Suddenly everything I say has weight, suddenly people actually look at what I post. Ugh. I don't like the feeling of being viewed under a microscope all the time, so I'm glad my 5 minutes of fame are up.

But on the plus side, Matt got to see my art and actually liked it, so y'know, that's pretty friggin' awesome. He's only my #1 game dev role model, pshhh, it's nothing! To put it in perspective, I even put his art on one of my inspiration slides during my senior thesis lol. So yeah, it was a pretty big deal for me. I don't know if we'll ever cross paths again, but if we do, I hope it's because he takes interest in my game and plays it. If that happened, I'd be okay with dying right then and there because my life couldn't possible get any better.

If you're interested in the other entries, check out the link here: https://kupogames.com/2023/06/13/epic-battle-fantasy-collection-contest-winners

Ok, now for the game update. I actually didn't do any 3D this time. Don't worry, I'm about to go on vacation, so I think I'll do some in my free time. But for now, I wanted to work more on the UI, so that's what I've been doing.

Choice UI is pretty much done

Placing in the EBF art contest made me want to paint more. Even though I think my art's pretty good, I don't really have any fans. There's just so many good artists on the internet that it's really hard to stand out (which is both a blessing and a curse.) But seeing all the people that liked what I made was really nice.

Like I said before, I also worked on the settings menu. If you want to see, check out the video below: