Takara Cards
New version: b74
- Added ability to "force" Reputation on pilots (ignores "swap" Reputation UI).
- Changes in some events and systems that give Reputations as game dynamics (Giant Debt and others). Now, they don't "ask" if the pilot wants to change Reputation.
- "booty_cargo" and "frequent_kustomer" reputations can no longer be randomly earned in some cases.
- Fixed bugs where reputations that trigger upon finishing a JUMP had stopped working (like some Rich Reps).
- Small improvements and bugs fixed.
New version: b73
- New effects indicating the gain of Cards, Reputations, Credits and XP.
- Various minor interface improvements.
New version: b72
TAKARA Cards - Beta 0072:
- LOG now shows Searched Cards when accessing the Search menu.
- "Empty" Reputation slots are now represented as Innocuous Karma.
- New characters already start with some minor karma.
- Pilot gains a little more Karma when responding to Events.
- Chance to generate Cursed karma when taking damage.
- Duplicated "Shop" events: Now they can appear more than once per adventure. The karmic magnitude of the duplicates is greater.
- Updated LOG images (they are more colorful!).
- Some improvements and changes to the Game Text to improve cohesion.
- More improvements and minor bugs fixed.
New version: b71
TAKARA Cards - Beta 0071:
- Basic tutorials of the COM and STG Menus implemented.
"Search" system also has basic instructions.
- Updated semblances with warmer colors.
- Some improved Attribute Panel descriptions.
- Other minor improvements.
New version: b70!
TAKARA Cards - Beta 0070:
- More revisions and improvements to Tutorial Text.
- Pilot gains more minimum Karma when responding to Events.
- Tavern detection improvements.
- Fixed zero price bugs for cards related to certain Reputations.
- Small fixes and tweaks.
New version: 69!
TAKARA Cards - Beta 0070:
- More revisions and improvements to Tutorial Text.
- Pilot gains more minimum Karma when responding to Events.
- Tavern detection improvements.
- Fixed zero price bugs for cards related to certain Reputations.
- Small fixes and tweaks.
New version: 69!
TAKARA Cards - Beta 0069:
- New Reputation Exchange System and UI: When you have 5 reputations, you can exchange one.
If the gods have Mercy on your Karma, the reputation to be exchanged will be a Curse.
- Some Improvements in the Character Creation Tutorial and Introduction texts.
- Attempt to fix bugs related to Tutorial and Hull of the ship.
- Base Karmic Magnitude of Reputations is now 5 (was 6).
- Events now give more reputations, overall.
- Events give "more" karma overall.
- New events.
- Intro event now has more responses per Karma.
- Event System can now GIVE a random Reputation, by type.
- Mines now correctly show how much Damage they deal (if they don't have energy).
- Some minor improvements.
New version: 68!
TAKARA Cards - Beta 0068:
- System of influence of Equipment Cards by Attributes Implemented. Several Equipment Cards are now influenced.
- Overhauled Jump Turn Generator: Max number of turns is now 7 and THREE turns is now possible (previously never rolled).
- Destiny System (samsara) now gives preference to events with Magnitude greater than 3.
- New jump transition! :D
- Relative Corner Tavern implemented: There are three events focused on Search cards, initially.
- It is now possible to earn broken Wanted Equips.
- Income tax events.
- New Intro Events!
- Fixed bugs in function to win Search cards (in events).
- New tutorial slides, inserted based on test feedback.
- Improvements and changes in the Tutorial texts.
- Fixed some bugs related to the Mouse on the grid inside the tutorial.
- Manual is now accessible at the end of the Tutorial and in the Persona Creation Screen.
- Introduction Message in Character creation.
- Attributes Screen now informs what each one means when hovering the Mouse over it.
- Manual now remembers the page it was on.
- Various other minor improvements.
New screenshots and Steam NextFest
Hi!
A quick update:
The game has come a long way since our last post here, so we've decided to update the game screenshots on the Steam page. These new screenshots show some of Character Creation, Navigation and events!
Also, we would like to announce that we are going to participate in the next Steam NextFest, in February! :D
We are very happy with the the game and looking forward to getting it into the hands of players. :)
Thanks to everyone who added Takara to their wishlist!
Creating the Board Interface
The design development started with a Layout mockup created by Filipe Dilly, game designer of the game.
From this concept I created a series of "mockups" images of the finished interface. These images already brought additions of some features that were being discussed in our production meetings.
In the first version I placed two wide margins to suggest a ship cockpit inspired by 80's and 90's movies and anime, a small progress bar between the ship and its destination at the base of the interface, in the lower right corner a music visualizer and a dialog window in the upper right corner. All these elements were removed for good reason: Some were moved to other parts of the game and some didn't add to the game experience.
In later versions the progress bar was replaced by a concept of "links" that we have in the current version of the game. These connections serve to show which elements influence the board or have some connection. I've tried to keep the dialog and music viewer interface, but you can see that these elements make the interface cluttered and distracting and have been removed.
In the following versions I inserted a preview of the cards and made a general adjustment on the position of the buttons and elements for reading the ship's state on the left.
After some versions, which received another cleaning pass on some of the excesses, I felt the need to create a small animation demonstrating how these elements would work within the game. I even added some sound elements:
All these versions of the interface design were done in Inkscape, a vector drawing program, with it exporting each interface element to Blender and creating an animation was a very agile process.
With the animation done, Dilly felt confident enough to proceed with the interface design within Godot, the game engine we are using. This same process is used to create and refine all the rest of the interface.
I hope you enjoyed this look behind the production. We still have a lot of work to do before launch. We have other posts planned about the interfaces that the game requires, and I also want to talk about my work modeling and animating the ships and effects.