Hi All,
Past month UMes were working hard, to prepare for the next game update. Today UMes finally managed to push a small update to Steam, version 0.0.8. It contains various small changes and fixes. But it wasn’t without new bugs, which are still lurking about. These will be addressed in the near future, as development moves forward.
So what is new?
First main change is an overhaul of the main menu. The room was designed by my lovely GF. Also UI has evolved accordingly. But not entirely happy about the current state of it. There was a bit of experimenting and moving back and forth. While still not ideal and future iterations will be moving on, the difference is significant already. Hopefully for the better.
Next thing that has changed is, UMeFate added a submission form inside the game, to allow players to send report bugs and the feedback. Reports should allow us to collect issues and be able to address these early in development. These will be visible in the discord. Semt form allows to collect game screenshot, player comments, and technical details of the report, i.e. hardware specs and game log. That is, if the player confirms what to provide.
Game outside the main menu itself had few major changes. Complete rework of UI, with for now flat design of icons. This is an initial framework for UI, for the future expansion of features during development. Tooltips are supported.
As part of UI rework, a short tutorial has been added. Since controls may be a bit hard at the first go, tutorials should quickly explain the concept and things hopefully will become intuitive.
Camera system has been completely reworked. Previous system became problematic and hard to work with. This should allow for more player friendly controls.
Made more intuitive building walls and placing furniture systems. These however still suffer for various bugs to be fixed.
While no new mechanics have been added, there are other core changes, which are not as visible, but necessary to allow expanding features to move forward.
Plus some extra small cosmetics here and there.
Why do small game updates matter?
It is all about work culture, organisation and keeping own deadlines. Idea is to be able to push regular updates, even if these are small. That enforces a certain way of leading UMeFate project. It ensures that the game actually works. Even if it is buggy and it lacks features right now, writing code and making something actually functional, can be very apart. There are many things that can break at any point.
When for example focusing on a specific task, it is easy to overlook other aspects of the project. As a developer, there are range of things to be done. But missing bits happens.
Therefore, making playable small updates, enforces to test and making sure that things work as intended. If not, these are to be addressed and fixed.
Another aspect is smaller iterations. These are easier to be managed and follow changes in between updates. If something breaks, it is easier to find ot, when and where thing broke.
Also, making smaller polished updates, ensures logical integration between game systems. And this allows to test, if things are actually moving into right direction.