Since the last public update I've been making a great deal of progress on Defragmented. In the last post I talked about implementing a basic UI to inform the player on numerous aspects of the game in a simple format. I've since reworked the basic UI that once was and expanded it to a fully-integrated feature. Since the UI is such a key feature to the game, you'll notice various aspects of it in almost all screenshots throughout this post.
As you can see in the screenshot above, UI elements help quickly break-down what is going on at a glance. Health, Level, and Experience are visible in the bottom-left, while Ammo, Mesh Bombs, and Credits are seen in the bottom-right. Since the player is standing over a piece of loot (a gun in this case), they can easily see quick stats on every aspect of the item. This allows players to inspect items before committing them to inventory or equipping them.
Like I had mentioned before, many items are color-coded based on rarity. The green piece of loot that the player is looking at in the image above is an uncommon weapon. This means that, on average, it has higher stats than common (white) items of the same level.
To accompany the plethora of loot and UI changes, I've also added additional containers. Instead of simply relying on chests and enemy drops to acquire credits, ammo, and items, the player will find numerous lootable containers in each level. In the screenshot above, the player has opened 3 lockers containing ammo and credits to assist them moving forward.
While a large amount of the changes in this update are behind-the-scenes, one other noticeable thing stands out. Enemies will now award experience in addition to their previous item drops. Leveling-up, as you'd expect, increases the player's base stats and will provide further bonuses as development continues.
All-in-all, this update encompasses a large amount of progress on Defragmented. Next up on the docket is the in-game menus. Inventory and equipment are key features that will also require a significant amount of time to fully flesh out.
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Really like the colour coding system you have implemented and the level work as a whole, great progress guys.
Thanks! Things can get quite hectic while playing, so a good visual identification system was top priority.