In this update, the UI has been completely overhauled. There is now more things to do when the game starts so people will not be bored and confused before their Craftsman job gets started properly. Characters can also be customized with different hair styles and clothing.
Over the past month I've been steadily improving two large issues with The Last Craftsman.
The first issue is the UI. I was originally just kind of winging the designs and, let's face it, they weren't that great. There were too many colors, none of them matched, and it lacked any personality. There was no thought put into it other than it's direct function. In v1.1.0, the entire UI has been updated to have a cohesive style inspired by classic monochromatic LCD screens of the late 90s. On top of a new style, significant parts of the UI now also have animations as they are interacted with, which makes the whole game feel a lot more alive.
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The Old UI
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The New UI
The second issue was early game aimlessness. When starting a new game, I intended for players to have a few in-game days of free time to explore and figure things out on their own. Instead, I just created a meaningless period where new players got lost, confused, and bored. So I reduced that time and I added a few objectives and puzzles that can be solved through exploration. With any luck, players will stumble into these secrets and it will give them some tangible objectives to complete on their own while they learn how the game works.
On top of these issues, I've made a lot of general progression with new items, new features, customizable characters, and bug fixes.
-CHANGELOG-
Features:
- When starting a new game, it's now possible to customize your character's appearance
- When starting a new game, players can now skip the intro and dive right into the gameplay
- Players can now unlock new clothing for their character (currently just hats though)
Improvements:
- A massive UI overhaul with better user interactions
- Refinement machines now use a more intuitive recipe system
- Several time-insensitive objectives have been added to the game
- Several puzzles to unlock secret hats have been added as well
- Eating meals now shows the energy that it will restore
- Eating meals that provide no bonuses will leave the window up to continue eating
- Several new food buffs have been added
- New music
- Updated sprites
- Players can now jump in the hot spring (but it doesn't do anything yet...)
Bug Fixes:
- Plants will no longer continue growing past their maximum
- Grass and Flowers will no longer grow in strange places or on top of each other
- Ghost furniture will no longer appear briefly when loading a game
- Items now make sounds when they are dropped into a machine
