UI Design
Today was a UI day. I spent a good portion of the day trying to figure out how to translate 21 keyboard commands into a user interface that can be used by both PC (via mouse) and Android (via touchscreen). 21 keyboard commands is quite a bit of clutter for the screen, especially with the mental image I have of trying to fit it into the bottom 1/3 of the game screen.
The end result is a 4x4 grid of buttons giving me a total of 16 commands. I managed to pair down the keyboard commands by almost 50%, which is a very good thing! Some of the commands are antiquated and are fulfilled automatically (such as entering towns and dungeons upon walking onto their tiles, thus eliminating the "Enter" command) and others can be dropped into the Player Status screen (such as the Ready and Drop commands).
I still need to add in directional buttons to make the game 100% touchscreen/mouse-only friendly, but there is plenty of room for a 4-way d-pad like button structure in between the Action Button array and the Event Log. Only one of the buttons work at the moment, which is the Status button. I'm actually pretty happy with the window-like effect of the Player Status screen overlaid on top of the gameplay screen and the gameplay HUD hiding automatically upon opening the screen and then automatically reappearing upon closing the screen. It's the small victories in life, right?
