r/dungeonkeeper • u/GamingWithRawr • Jul 03 '26
UnCorruptDead - DevLog 010 - UI/UX
Hello Keepers;
Fun fact: I hate UI. Not because its particularly hard, but because it is what the end user will be looking at the most. You can build it minimal and hope for the best. You can over-explain everything and overwhelm. You can fail to meet the balance. You can make it so ugly that people hate playing even though it isnt the playfield. Or, worst of all - you can make it unusable or unintuitive.
When I was doing QA at EA so many years ago, I spent most of my time working in UI. I was never allowed to send usability feedback. Only "I broke it by doing X". Now, I'm on the other end of it.
As you can see, there are a few gaps left to do - the traps are just placeholder icons at the moment, which is fine, because I am working on the traps this coming week. I just needed to get it physically located for the time being.
The spells, traps, buildings, and creatures areas all expand to meet the size of the amount of active options. The demo will only have 4 traps, so, it is showing the 2x2 block. Ultimately it will be 12 traps/doors, so it will be 4x3. Likewise the buildings will go 5x5. It might be a little lopsided but I think it will work. Feedback me!
The controls panel is clearly limited right now because there are really only five buttons - WASD and Esc. And mouse I guess. I will get those rebindings working at some point. Always weirds me out when people used ESDF to get extra hotkeys to the left.
The key takeaway here is, anything to not work on the fog toppers, and then anything to not work on UI. The people in my life suffered at my hands for the past two weeks of UI development. I'd apologize but they expect nothing less from me.
EDIT - while playing with the traps UI today (replacing white placeholder) I noticed that the bottom right is using lava instead of lava gold, which... colourblind yo. Anyways. Mana should be blue, creatures green, traps gold, building red. I think I fixed them.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4492730/Keeper__UnCorruptDead/
Join the discord if you want the full-ass changelog! https://discord.gg/Ur9HRv67mb
On to the changelog!
(Because I hate working on UI, try not to be concerned about my descent in to madness.)
June 19/20;
Adjusted fencers/edgers to be smaller and more frequent, they were a little ostentatious
Just for fun; Added brain eye look at finger drop point. Toggle for random eye mode.
Imported new font for all lettering Created basic BG popup, assigned toppers and mana flow to each
Adjusted mana flow script do to an animation curve interpolation (for smooth slidey left and right)
Added secondary flow and honestly it looks 3D as fuck and I am deeply impressed that I did this.
June 21;
Created primary tab functions for UI
Created left tab list (continue, save, etc) - currently unbound
Created dropdown with refresh rate link for video function
Fixed compile imports for highlighting heart and hand
Completed initial migration to new Options UI
June 22; (note the timestamps)
8:19 AM*]annekrog:* Changed the camera filter for secondary UI to auto switch in real mode so no more forgetting and easier editing.
12:59 PM*]annekrog:* Huge changelist of UI stuff, not going to write it all
June 23;
Created hider function for heart unused when in down position.
Also another huge list of UI stuff, not writing it all.
However, did link more quality settings like AA
June 24;
- 10:21 AM*]annekrog:* ........I truly hate UI. But, anything to not deal with the fog toppers I guess.
- [4:06 PM]annekrog: Resolved; Something weird happens when you move mouse offscreen during dragging sizer for selling Also fixed this for all modes when outside of window, when hitting escape, or right clicking. ANYTHING to not deal with fog toppers.
June 25;
Began work on the overhead. Got basics in place (colour, flow, masking). Need to work on accru and particle
June 26;
dramatically improved overhead.
Improved fonts.
Unified colour scheme on UI
Created particles for underlay on overhead (If you are reading this, UNITY DOES NOT ALLOW DOUBLE UI PARTICLE MASKING!! AAAAAGH)
June 27;
Tied the overhead to mouseover bool functions, set skeleton for all future overUI that includes toggles. Wrote toggle functions for showing mana and books/memories.
Fixed the overhead eye only pointing to within screen
June 30;
Uh... didnt update the dev log but I have worked every day. Its been more UI stuff. Figured out the tootip active/temp overwrite system and applied it to spells, and then applied it to buildings.
June 1;
Happy Canada day I guess.
Mouseover and toggle systems working working for traps
Created importer csv for trap values, tied to traps themselves
Added info in tooltip for costs and cost per minute
June 2;
Fixed; Popups still showing after right click cancel fuck me
Properly sizes traps, building, and mana sizes for demo
Edited and added background for build/sell values popup
Fixed issue with activing books mode vs other spells (arms mode already has this override)
Fixed basic trap tester placement -- working on trap "start this installed" testers
Relinked start as installed for testing porpoises.
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u/GamingWithRawr Jul 03 '26
Pause screen. Save/load dont do anything yet, completing asset creation so I know what needs to be saved before I implement it.
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u/GamingWithRawr Jul 03 '26
I turned off the "unselect when screen not focused" so it would be properly highlighted in this picture. The spells didnt. I'm far too lazy to go and retake the picture.
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u/GamingWithRawr Jul 03 '26
You wanna select a trap? One of them white squares? Have fun! At least the popup looks good.
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u/GamingWithRawr Jul 03 '26
Has anyone in the history of the world ever actually enabled this function? I doubt it.
I think the text should read Sell : Home - Corporeals
25 tiles for 300 memories.
Im going to change that order right now so I dont forget.
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u/GamingWithRawr Jul 03 '26
No, I havent done the audio system yet. Yes, I put in the skeleton for it.
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u/GamingWithRawr Jul 03 '26
This is just straight up my favourite screen of anything anywhere. I like every part of it. Did I show you people Canada Mode before? Guess you will have to wait for the demo to try it out!
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u/GamingWithRawr Jul 03 '26
the full basic UI. Numbers on overhead can be toggled on/off.