Hey hey people. The time is near.
And now back to your irregularly scheduled programming.
A year has passed since my last log. Economic collapse. Existential dread. Last year was abominable. My genki spirit cracked in a week. Perhaps I’ve become desensitized. Now I spiral into a pit of insanity as I attempt to design and build a wacky, lewd RPG. Seasons have come and gone. Arc now speaks Korean. And in recent months I’ve been back on the horse, working on the character creator and menus for Arkavite. Let’s talk about that.
Truth be told, my initial plans were to use the main menu I built for Harahel in Arkavite. It was fairly simple, and already existed, But after some deliberation, I decided against that. Long story short, Harahel’s menu isn’t the most optimized, and I figured I could make something that not only ran better, but looked better too.
It’s been a long journey filled with trial and error, but I feel I’ve landed on something pretty sweet. It fits into that vibe of magical arcane technology. Below are some early prototypes / progress shots of what lead to what you saw above.
Early Prototype: Designed a simple logo. I wanted to keep the falling cube field from the Harahel menu but fit it into a band in the background and have sparkling cubes flow in both directions. I toyed with having spinny things behind the logo and experimented with this “pulse grid” in the background. 
Late Optimized Prototype: Tore everything out and rebuilt it with sprites. Threw in these “connecting threads” that are masked to only show up in the pulse grid panels. They slowly drift around as if suspended in a liquid. 
Made some minor tweaks to the logo. It would later have a sword added in place of the “T”. Messed around colour schemes a bit. Decided I wanted to bring back the spinny thing behind the logo. 
Current Design: Added some glow, post processing, overlays, lighting, touched it all up. And this is what we have for now.
I’m currently on the third iteration of this main menu (hopefully the final iteration). I’ve spent a lot of time trying new things, gunning to make everything more optimal, and establish a consistent workflow for menus as a whole moving forward. As for trying to make the menus actually look good, my methodology has been to design something that is aesthetically consistent and “flows” between screens with cool animations.
On the main menu, we have a Play, Settings, Credits, Support Us, Extras. While most of these are self-explanatory, and functions can probably be inferred from the images above, I will touch on some details.
Extras will contain some additional content. I’m planning on throwing in concept art I haven’t really had a chance to show off. I will possibly add some special dialogues of conversations between Arbiters and various other things. A cheeky bit of teaser lore here and there in the run-up to the main game. Additionally, when I get around to porting classic CYOA stuff to Arkavite’s CYOA system, and open CYOA building to modders, that content can live here.
As seen above, Play currently takes you to a sub-menu with the options to Load, Continue, and start a New Game. For the time being, Load/Continue will remain deactivated. These may come into play during sandbox development. As for the New Game sub-menu, the only available option for the time being will be the Character Creator. No surprises there.
The Support Us page is about what it says on the tin. Many have expressed how they wish to assist me in my endeavours, so I’ve gone ahead and set up a SubscribeStar. I don’t plan on ever paywalling game content or the ability to give feedback. I feel as though that’d be a detriment to the quality of the user experience, and piracy is stupid easy. Plus, the more people who can play, the more constructive criticism I can get, which in turn should lead to a better game. So if you genuinely like what I do and want to see it go further, I’m putting the option out there. Admittedly, this is a pretty solo project right now, so anything would go a long way in accelerating development.
This is just a short little log. I will be returning SOON with a run through the Character Creator and estimates concerning when it will be ready for public testing. There is a lot more to talk about there. If you want an early look, I have been posting updates/fishing for feedback in the Discord fairly regularly.
I am busy with moving this month, which should hopefully improve my living situation a little. I guess I have that to thank for my melancholy subsiding. Getting into it. Life still be wacky as fuck, but hopeful looking a bit more up.
Till next time.
the main menu looks great. I think you should look up ‘hyper light drifter’ if you haven’t already, it’s got a similar pixel art style to what you’re making and also has magic and technology blended, perhaps it can offer some inspiration.
Thanks! I love Hyper Light drifter. It’s sword/gun play is killer and it is a really pretty game. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t take any inspiration from some of its aesthetics. Its world design did give me more of a post-apocolypse sci-fi vibe than magitech. I will be aiming for something more dungeon-punkey / trad high fantasy in terms of my own world design. And as far as player sprites go, something HLD-ish plus a silly amount of customization.
I’d love to achieve combat gameplay on the level of HLD and Akane. Course, I will also be throwing magic into the mix on top of swords and guns. Should hopefully make for a fun concoction.
I’m glad to hear that! I’m looking forward to play Arkavite!
OwO
Every time I think you disappear you pop up a week later
Heh, I am still alive, lol. And I’m hopefully here to stay now. I am making good progress. That next log on character creation should be ready this weekend. I’ve actually improved the character creation UI a fair amount since this February log.
Should be interesting ^-^
🐙👀🐙