Game Journal #48 - Leveling Up, Inventory, Shops

Hey hey! How's it hangin'? I've got another update for you guys today. Not the longest update, but a pretty good one, I think. As the title suggests, I worked on leveling up the party members! It was a lot easier than I thought it'd be. So, that's what's in store for ya down below!

Before I get into the nitty gritty, I'll hit ya with an obligatory life update. For the past few weeks I've been looking tirelessly for a job. You know that thing you've heard about there being a worker shortage, and that "nobody wants to work?" Yeah, not true. TOTALLY not true, dude. Every job I've applied to has tons of other people that want the same position, and half the time I don't even hear back. It's not the high end upper jobs either, I'm talking about entry level manufacturing stuff. Well, I got sick of applying and applying, so I decided to become more qualified. How, you ask? By going to trade school. Yeah, seriously.

I like working with my hands (as I'm an artist, you can probably tell) so I decided to go for welding. There's tons of welding jobs out there, and they pay pretty handsomely, so why not? I think it'll be pretty fun. What's great about this is that I can take the courses alongside my college class, and it only takes two semesters. So early next year, I'll be qualified to get a stable job in the welding industry. 'Ery Nice! You might be wondering, why'd I go for art if I didn't want my career to be in it? Well, I do want my career to be in it, but I want to work for myself. The thought of toiling endlessly and being micromanaged to draw a company's assets makes me want to cry. So, I'll get my stable job in something that has a lot of demand, and keep the art for myself and my games. Yes, "games," as in "plural." I've already got ideas for Joe Maverick 2 and 3, which will come out pretty quick (I'll already have the code, so I just have to write it.) Maybe a year for each. I'm going to go Cawthon Mode™ and really crank 'em out.

One thing though... I was considering making an otome spinoff. For those of you who don't know, otomes are visual novels where you play as a girl and have a bunch of guys that you can date. Making a visual novel is really easy (I've done it when I was a kid) so yeah. But I'm pretty sure my audience will mostly be men, so it wouldn't sell very well, I think. Or maybe it will, who knows. Then again, it's hard being an otome maker nowadays. I played one recently, and LITERALLY all the review comments for the developer were "Can you make an 18+ version?" Seriously. WTH is this society's obsession with sex? Someone even left a bad review because there was no sex! Seriously! Man... well, if I did make an otome spinoff, it'd probably be free (or super cheap, like 99 cents.) Most players are teenage/tweens, so not much income there. Plus, I know, I'm also the type of person that sorts by "free" on Steam. Don't worry, I know, I know. There's seriously a lack of non pretty boy otomes though, (if you're looking for one, Pub Encounter is 100000/10 good) so I think if I made one, it'd stand out somewhat.

One more thing: I discovered that my tarantula is a male. Noooooooo!!! Whilst normally I'd prefer having a male pet, for tarantulas, males only live about 7 years on average. Females, on the other hand, live around 30 years. Yeah. That's a pretty big gap... oh well. I'm still very happy that I have him.

Ok, life update over. Let's get into the changelog!

7/15/22

• Sketched rest of party menu portraits

• Added side bumpers when game is not in standard resolution

• Creation of Inventory struct

• Creation of Messages struct

7/19/22

• Addition of Max Limit to items (for inventory)

• When you scroll down on the stats screen, it'll automatically scroll back to the top when switched.

• The sub party doesn't show up if you haven't unlocked more than 4 characters.

• Inventory widget set up

• Set up of Shopkeeper widget

7/20/22

• Further addition of variables and design to shopkeeper screen

• Inventory icons and cleanup

• Game can't be paused when in a shop

7/21/22

• Shop Icon updates depending on which one it is

• Level Up Screen setup

• Added Level Up portraits to character struct

• Level up widget animations

• Changed Stats to Array for class change stats

• If you have less than 5 characters, the sub party options are grayed out.

Yeah. If you've just seen my journal from last time, you might think that this list is rather short. Actually, this is the usual size of my weekly changelogs. The last list was just really big because I didn't make a journal in a while. Anyway, here's the video!

I used a lot of inspiration when making the level up and inventory screens. Here's just a few:

When making UI, using references is super important. Nothing more informative than seeing what's worked in the past!

Stay tuned for the next game journal as usual. Hoping to have a working battle system next time... we'll see.