Inventory Windows | Patreon Weekly #139

Hey Patrons!

Firstly, this weekly has an audio Q&A in it! Go and give it a listen if you’d like. You can find audio timestamps at the end of this weekly, sorry for forgetting them last month.

In this weekly I’m sharing more info on the upcoming Next Fest demo, including UI work and an early look for some Patrons!

Finishing up the New UI

Since last week I have now fully implemented the base desktop UI! The new inventory panel is working well and so far has held up to my testing. In fact, after playing with it for a bit I’ve already thought up several ways to improve it. Here’s a picture of adjusted item windows, which now appear right on top of the inventory pane. It’s much nicer this way, instead of having to keep moving your mouse around.

I’m considering further integration of other UI elements with the inventory pane as well, such as moving item selection into the panel, having other relevant windows appear above the panel, and letting you autotarget from the panel like with quickslots.

The new UI also works on mobile devices if there’s enough screen space! Here’s a picture from my phone running in landscape, roughly scaled to match the phone’s display size (assuming you’re viewing this on a ~100 ppi screen):

As I mentioned before, the inventory can be hidden and re-shown again, and there’s a ‘mixed’ UI mode in the settings that lets you get the new layout but with the old window-based inventory. There are some rough edges to running the full UI on phones, which I’ll fix after the demo releases, before the full 1.2.0 release.

Right now, here are the things I’d like to still do for the UI, ranging from high priority to nice-to-have but not essential for the demo:

• More streamlining of item interactions with the new inventory panel
• Tooltips that appear when the player mouses over interface elements
• Two additional quickslots for 6 total (plus concepting for how I’d support them on mobile)
• Duration numbers in the larger buff display instead of fading icons
• Enemy info panels in the top-right of the interface
• Right-click menus

Other things such as controller support are still planned but won’t be ready in time for the next fest demo.

Demo and Patreon Releases

Steam has their own review process, and also shares any demo ready by Feb 10th with press contacts, so I expect I’ll be submitting an initial demo there very soon. The demo will become public on Feb 10thso press and eager early players can give it a try. As I mentioned before the Next Fest demo will be limited to floors 1-10, and I’ll likely further limit it to 1-5 or remove it entirely once the game fully releases.

I’m also planning to let Golden+ Patrons give the new desktop UI a whirl in another day or two! Expect another post then, visible to Golden+ patrons, which will include a link to download a desktop .jar with the new UI improvements to try out. Gameplay-wise this build will be identical to 1.1.2.

Audio Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction and Month Summary
• 2:30 "What does inspiration mean to you?" - Ivy
• 4:20 "What's a pet peeve of yours?" - Ivy
• 6:35 "What is your favorite marsupial :>" – Ivy
• 7:15 "With there being dwarves and such, will you add more fantasy races like elves, orcs, kobolds, etc?" – FranRedStar
• 8:30 "After the release of the Duelist and Cleric, will there be more classes afterwards?" –      FranRedStar
• 9:19 "Would weeklies have their own mechanics? or it will be just options existing in normal runs?" - Trashbox Bobylev
• 10:07 "Where do you see yourself in ten years?" - Zrp
• 11:25 "What's your greatest weakness?" - Zrp
• 12:23 "How did you meet your contributors (Kristjan, Komitov and Celesti)?" - Trashbox      Bobylev
• 15:08 "What inspired you to start work on Shattered Pixel Dungeon?" - Viri
• 17:16 "Are there any plans/thoughts for an endless mode? Maybe each floor past 25 is from a random region (sewers, prison, etc) and has stronger versions of their enemies." - Yasutora
• 18:50 "Is mayonnaise an instrument?" - Yasutora
• 19:04 "Any thoughts on making more levels? like up to 100?" - Dashmoo
• 21:33 "Is there any chance the game will be released on even more platforms?" - Fcelon