Tag: UI design

Weekly Update #2: Breaking New Ground

Weekly Update #2: Breaking New Ground

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

Following the development path, this week has been focused on extending the new UI to the other elements, implementing the localization pipeline, and beginning the implementation of new workers!

To start off, the new UI!

I’ve decided to take the UI into a more modern and streamlined direction. Gone is the green/white panels, and in are these awesome new darker panels:

resortRating

In there you can see one of the new features, which is the resort rating. It’s based on the categories as seen in the window. Improving these will increase the rating of your resort, which will unlock new things as well as attract better golfers.

Another thing added were more ingame panels:

buyWindow_newUI

These are for when you wanna expand your resort! You can now break new ground and expand your resort to accommodate more holes. Now, the number of holes you can build is limited to the size of your resort. Need the full 18 holes? Gotta need a larger resort!

Next is the localization pipeline. It has been integrated into the panels, and anything that uses text in the game will be connected to a main localization controller that pulls the necessary data. It’s also very easy to update/add new languages! Big win!

And I’ve also begun adding new staff to the resort. Soon there’ll be janitors and foremans roaming around. I’m also implementing the systems ingame to make those characters needed!

That’s all for this week! These updates will tend to come on the weekend, as that’s when I have extra time to boost development!

See you next Sunday!

Alpha 0.6 is now available!

Alpha 0.6 is now available!

by Gus Martin ♥ 1 Comment

Hello folks!

Without further ado, Boss Golf has been updated to 0.6! Hurray! For a much better experience, go and download it and play it!

Here’s the break down of things new for 0.6:

  • Complete UI overhaul
  • Ability to rename your hole
  • Ability to pick up and drop AI characters
  • AI Golfers will now apply to become members if they enjoy their time at the course
  • You have full power to accept or reject said application
  • Move the AI generation to another script with a better spawning system. Game now spawns 200 AI golfers at the start, and they visit your resort routinely.
  • You can now hire and fire more landscapers
  • Completely new Financial panel, including tons of charts to show you the financial aspects of your resort
  • Ability to set prices for yr resort
  • A marker for the hole will now be enabled while you are playing golf, so that you don’t get lost
  • Improved AI shot creation
  • Made the height stick to the terrain collider, no more ghost hills
  • Increased game speed
  • No longer need to approve any landscaping changes
  • New display for price while landscaping the terrain
  • Several base systems for future expansions

That’s most of the new stuff for 0.6. Over the next couple of days, I’ll go on fixing whatever you guys find broken, and add a couple more small things, and begin tackling bigger things. For 0.7, I want to have the water system back in, as well as a building system, and more depth to the AI golfers and their social relations.

So, go! Enjoy 0.6! Tell me what’s broken!

Oh and if you haven’t already, add Boss Golf to your wishlist on steam!

Wishlist Boss Golf!

Feedback, Insights, and more!

Feedback, Insights, and more!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

Last weekend was great! Demoed Boss Golf at BitSummit and received an awesome reception! It was excellent seeing people playing the game and their enjoyment! More importantly, I was also able to extract several insights by watching the way they play the game, and notice a handful of issues that needs fixing!

So I’ve begun work on getting to 0.6! Which will bring several quality of life improvements as well as a feature for hiring/firing employees! No more will you be stuck with the landscapers you start off with: you’ll be able to bring more!

And also a UI overhaul! Here’s a sneak peek of it!

superUI

Now the price for the tiles you’re laying will be displayed directly on the area you’re laying. And there’ll be no more need for “approving” it: The AI will begin work as soon as it’s laid (providing part of its job is landscaping!)

Clicking on the Tee when you haven’t placed it yet will shift to placement mode so you can go ahead and place it right away. Then the button for “Move” will appear to allow you to move it anywhere else. Oh and if you right click to cancel the move, it’ll snap back to the original position!

Also will be including more visual aids, specially regarding which hole you are currently playing. A brand new Guests panel that allows you to have an overview of who’s on your course at the moment, and what they are doing!

Some fixes in the AI department as well, specially regarding their shooting decisions, and expanding their behavior to have them skip ahead to the next hole if the current one is taking too long! Oh and add the tile angle to the calculations of pathfinding, to avoid the situations where the AI gets stuck at the foot of a massive hill!

And, of course, a panel for management of your staff! There you’ll be able to hire and fire employees, as well as find them in a quicker manner. Too many times people didn’t know where their landscapers were while building stuff around. Now you’ll have your own little big brother system!

So yeah, stay tuned for 0.6!

OH and I’m also super stoked that Destructoid has covered Boss Golf! Woo!

Alpha Updated to 0.54!

Alpha Updated to 0.54!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

Finally released the 0.54 update to Boss Golf closed alpha!

It’s available in the same place as usual. (If you haven’t signed up for the alpha, you can do so here!)

The main focus of this update was getting the new path system in the game, and it has been implemented. Comes with 6 different types of path you can use. Later on, I’ll add the ability to choose the width too.

As well as the brand spanking new UI that I’ve talked about in a previous post! Give it a try, and let me know how it feels!

As always, bugs are to be expected and whatnot. I’d love if you guys could let me know of any issues you find, or features you’d like to see in the game! Our Reddit is a great place for it, so is our Discord channel!

Anywho, it’s here, enjoy making some new paths and the new UI.

New User Interface!

New User Interface!

by Gus Martin ♥ 1 Comment

Hello folks!

Work on the new path is nearing an end for now, with release expected for tomorrow. All that’s left is loading/saving capabilities, and connection with the order system. But it’s working!

Together with it, 0.54 will bring a UI overhaul! The blue was alright and worked well, but the new edition brings a cleaner and more organized look, and also more in tune with the theme. You can see the new UI below!

newUIHellYeah

You can also spot the new Path Builder on the bottom right, as well as some path-building action going on the screen, by placing a dirt path connecting some areas around.

One thing that’s different between the path builder in Boss Golf and in other similar games, is that you can simply drag the path from point A to point B, and the game will figure out the optimal placement for it. Alternatively, you can place your path in smaller stretches, to allow you to customize it to your liking. Either way, you can save time and be sure that the path will go wherever you tell it to go!

That’s all for now, folks. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s release! (Also, my birthday, hurray!)

-Gus

Dev Update #37: UI update finalized!

Dev Update #37: UI update finalized!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

I’ve finished updating the UI to the new system! Hurray!

Now the menus are better, and it’s easier to extend when adding new features. Take a look!

UI_Revamp

Of course, many assets are placeholder. But they do their job pretty well. UI will be more filled up with buttons once more features are implemented.

But now it’s at the state I wanted, you have the same functionality as before but more well organized. Excellent.

Now time to move on to AI! Hopefully by this weekend I’ll have Bob Golf roaming around the course and trying to hit the ball.

So stay tuned!

Quickie: More decoration!

Quickie: More decoration!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

Progress this weekend has been slower than I had anticipated. Finished integrating the UI for the old controls, but still working on the stroke maker. Struggling as well brainstorming the way to integrate it into regular gameplay.

Also spent some time thinking about how to organize the AI system so that I can begin prototyping it. Goal for this month is to have an AI character able to  playtest your course! (probably very poorly, but we all gotta start somewhere!)

So here’s an image of some new trees!

new_Trees

Good thing about this is that the system for adding new decoration prefabs works better than expected! With the added trees, we can begin to see some much nicer looking courses!

That’s all for today, folks!

Expect a proper update soon!

-Gus

Quickie: Prototyping the Stroke Maker

Quickie: Prototyping the Stroke Maker

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hey folks!

I’ve been hard at work this weekend on the new UI system and the new “stroke maker” feature.

Here you can see a nice screenshot of how it is all looking like right now:

shot-prototyping

I’ve also added more icons to replace the placeholder text, as you can see in the top menu. Added a couple new trees for decoration too, which you’ll be seeing more of in the screenshots coming up later.

I think I’ll be able to finish prototyping the stroke maker today, and finish integrating the new UI systems by tomorrow. Since it’s a three day weekend here in Japan, might be able to get the demo updated by monday!

That’s all for now, folks!

Dev Update #35: Customizable UI!

Dev Update #35: Customizable UI!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

With the new UI overhaul, many things were moved to floating menus. So today’s update is about the system that allows you to move certain UI panels around in order to customize them!

You can see it in action below:

uiMove

Simply click and drag on the UI element you wish, and it will lock into the new place. I’ll also make it so your settings are saved every time you play.

I’ve also gone ahead and fixed a bug where the water tile would disappear if you added a water tile > put a tree decoration on top -> placed a water tile again. Now it works as expected.

Next, I’m working on the new Shot menu. It’ll give you better options when making your shot, as well as allow you to add some spin to it too. There’ll still be the current separation between shot styles (Drive, Approach, Putt, Chip etc), but you’ll be able to set the rotation manually to alter the trajectory. Not sure yet how I’ll add it to the shot visualization (the line that shows you the trajectory of the ball), but I’m sure I’ll figure it out!

Shots will also have a section explaining more or less the usage of each shot, and a distance counter to better let you know how far you are shooting.

That’s it for today folks!

 

Dev Update #34: UI Overhaul Begins

Dev Update #34: UI Overhaul Begins

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

Hope you all had a great weekend!

I’ve been busy reworking the UI for Boss Golf in preparation for the next stage. Spent some of this weekend playing my favourite Tycoon games so I could have a good idea about what works and what doesn’t.

I wanna make it look cleaner, and also make it easy to access the things you wanna access. The previous division between “Play” and “Build” was great for prototyping purposes, but would feel a bit broken up in regular gameplay.

So I’m doing away with that, and adding all the main gameplay menu buttons on the top, with an info bar at the bottom giving you the remaining information, and a place for popups to appear as necessary.

Everything will be accessible from the menu on the top, which may spawn other navigation menus or even full on menus with buttons on them, as in the case below:

ui_improvements

When you click on Tiles, now you’ll have a handy panel showing you the available tiles, talking a bit about what they do, their cost, their effect etc. More organized information = great success!

I’ll do the same for the decoration panel, for the terrain editing tool etc.

Later I’ll add more floating panels for things you can click on the course, as well as for the impending NPCs.

Then it’ll be time to add some of the management gameplay, as well as a time progression so you feel like you’re going somewhere.

That’s all for today folks!

May your clubs never slice!