Desktop Improvements pt.2 | Patreon Poll #27

Hey Patrons!

With the beta of v1.2.0 imminent, I’ve been thinking of further improvements I could make to the game for computer players. A few polls ago I asked for your help in determining the priority of desktop improvements, so I thought I’d do it again!

These choices aren’t going to be added in v1.2.0, but some of them might be worked on as early as a v1.2. patch.

The strength of support for each option will determine how I prioritize these improvements!

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Please vote for all the options that you like, not just for your one favourite! I allow multiple votes as it means that a higher proportion of people will end up voting for the winning choice.

All patrons are encouraged to share their opinion by commenting and voting, but currently only the votes from Golden+ Supporters are counted when determining a poll winner. Votes from Shattered Supporters are worth double!

Radial Menus

One major drawback for controller players at the moment is that there just aren’t enough buttons for all of the game’s actions. The right-stick cursor input also isn’t ideal as a substitute. Radial pop-up menus would be a big improvements to both of these, allowing for things like selecting any quickslot or any inventory item by pressing just one button and then quickly moving an analog stick.

Button Navigation for Menus/Windows

Whether it’s a mouse, touch, or the controller cursor, some sort of pointer based input is currently still required to navigate all of the game’s interfaces. It’s very common for game to let the player use the arrow keys or the left stick to move between highlighting different interface buttons. This is something I’d like to add to Shattered, it would enable the game to be fully played with just a keyboard and would let controller players more quickly navigate menus. It’s worth noting that this is probably the most technically difficult of these changes.

Better Secondary Game Screens

The main game interface has been improved for desktop screens, but several other interfaces are doing nothing to take advantage of the bigger space. I’d like to make some adjustments to screens like rankings, alchemy, and game select, so that these game screens can also take advantage of larger displays.

Top-Left Enemy Info

This is something that I talked about earlier in the development of 1.2.0, but decided to defer until later. Currently there’s nothing going on at the top-left of the game screen, and I think that would be an excellent place for more detailed enemy info. This would mean having a little infobox for each enemy, showing their health and any buffs/debuffs affecting them.

Better Controls Tutorialization

Shattered on mobile has one interaction for everything: tap on it, so there doesn’t really need to be anything that introduces the controls. Things are a bit more complex for computer users, so it might be nice to think of a way to better explain the controls, instead of just dropping them into the game and expecting them to figure it out. This could be simple, like a little controls screen in the pause menu, or it could be a part of a more detailed guided tutorial.