Development update March 2022

March has been the most productive month since I restarted to work on Virtueror last December and I am quite happy with the progress I achieved.

In my previous update I had anticipated that I was supposed to work only 3 weeks this month, but I managed to work the full month and that definitely helped doing more than I had originally planned.

New UI

You might have seen old screenshots and updates where the game UI looks like this:



Well, it doesn't any more.

Early this month I worked on a second iteration of the UI and I designed a new, lighter and more colorful style. To be accurate the actual style hasn't changed at all, what changed is the color scheme, but for simplicity let's say it's a new style.

This is the result:



Before committing to this new version I asked on the Discord server what people preferred and the results were pretty clear:



I do believe that the new UI looks much better too, but let me know what you think in comments.

Another good thing is that now game and map editor share the same UI style and that will help making the whole experience more immersive and the development a little easier.

Minimap

A good amount of work this month went into the creation of an important UI element: a minimap.
This is how it looks in game now:



These are its current features:
- 80x80 cells area
- Buttons to navigate bigger maps
- It can show structures and units of any faction, and scene objects (like mountains)
- Current camera view is highligted by 4 markers
- Clicking on minimap moves camera to corresponding location

Another important feature is that the minimap can be closed in order to minimize the area of the screen it covers. When closed it looks like this:



Obviously it's possible to reopen it with the button in the top-right corner or using a shortcut key.

New structure: gate

I created a new structure that can be combined with defensive walls and towers: a gate.



Gates can be controlled with a single button/shortkey, but in the future they will also be automated for own units.

New structure: material extractor

Another new structure will allow to produce basic material the same way solar panels do for energy.



In both cases the production is much lower than the one that can be obtained by mining generators, but at least they allow to get some resources in areas where they are scarce.

Attack range

Now units and defensive towers show their attack range when selected and in attack mode (only units):



I will probably change the graphics of this indicator in the future, but this gets the job done for now.

Map editor progress

This month the major change in the map editor is the new paint mode that makes it easier to set the tiles of a map.



As you might notice, another change is that now secondary tiles are automatically set while "painting".

Just yesterday I have also finished to implement the panel that allows to choose the objects to place on a map, but I will show you that in the next update as the editing part is not implemented yet.

Minor updates

- From now on left mouse button selects objects and right button is for actions (move, attack, etc...).
- Implemented ComboBox widget in the GUI library.
- Several refactories, improvements and fixes for the GUI library.
- Source code updated on GitHub up to today's changes.

What's next

As anticipated in the paragraph dedicated to the Map Editor, I will definitely implement some kind of basic object placement and maybe try to work on something more advanced like defensive walls or faction bases.
It would be nice to start to work on loading and saving of maps in the editor, but to be honest I doubt it will be done in the upcoming weeks.

The main reason is that during April I will only be able to work 2 full weeks (plus some spare days), so I am not going to make any further promise for now.

Make sure to check out the next update to find out what I manage to do next month.

Support this game, add and follow!

If you enjoyed this update and if you want to support Virtueror I would really appreciate if you could spread the word, but also add it to your collections and follow me on itchio to stay up to date with all the upcoming news and updates.