AeroMogul Settings UI - Sneak Peak (v0.0.0.1)

Greetings everyone,

I expected to give you all an update on AeroMogul's progress Monday (15th), but unfortunately, I caught COVID instead. Progress has been slow the last ten days or so as a result. 

Since the game is UI-heavy like GearCity, figuring out the layouts, themes, and UX up front should make feature development faster and improve the UI of the game all around. With GearCity, I developed the UI as I went along, and that was a factor in many heavily panning the UI.

So over the coming weeks and months, I am implementing the entire Main Menu system for AeroMogul. The Main Menu is a great staging ground for the core of the UI because it uses nearly every UI widget we'll need in the actual game.

Anyway, here is a sneak peek of AeroMogul's UI. Please note that this is an extremely early build of the game. It's filled with Programmer art and doesn't fully represent the final project.   The main focus here is the UI and the noticeable departure from GearCity's style and UX.

(The video is linked at the top on Patreon, unlike our forums!)

Please do not share the video link. Remember, these updates are a part of the perks of being an FBS contributor. 

Here are a few highlights you may have noticed.

-AM's UI has animations. GearCity had none.

-We're able to make use of shadows on components.

-Panels are translucent, thus allowing you to see slightly behind the background.

-AM uses a "modern" fixed panel and card system. GearCity's free-floating Windowed system was considered outdated and cumbersome by many. 

-Checkboxes are switches

-Menu hides unnecessary settings if you're using preselected options.

-Hotkeys are mappable. 

I hope that gives you a general idea of the UI's direction. I've got a lot more to do, such as implementing UI color theming, finding a good font, tidying up some issues with combo boxes,  implementing the reset of the Main Menu, and adding a quality background scene. Once I get all of that done, I can move on to making a dummy stage for the main graphical/UI portion of the game.

If you have any questions, comments, or criticisms, good or bad, feel free to let me know. Earlier things are fixed, the fewer problems they cause down the road.