Aboo | DevLog 02

Still slowly working on my little game. Started building the UI…

There aren’t that many menus in the game, but still — it takes time.
Figuring out the UI system and customizing everything for myself feels almost impossible right now... Sometimes I think it’s easier to just use my own simple sprites instead of built-in buttons and containers with all their weird settings.

It gets even harder because I want full keyboard/gamepad control — no mouse.
That means I need to move through the whole interface using arrows or a d-pad.
Main menu and pause screen are not a big deal, but the settings screen... yeah, that one won’t be quick and easy.

Settings screen (still work in progress).

All these tabs, selected states, active buttons… yeah, it’s a bit much right now. I think I’ll need at least one more week to sort it out.

At least I figured out the logic behind the settings and saving them. Localization is also working — and that one was scary! From the more “technical” stuff, the only thing left is game saving.

Next on the list: rework my “dialogue system”. Last time I made it way too complicated — now even I don’t understand how it works. I want to add character portraits to the dialogues, and I need to figure out an easy way to change variables for different events.

Oh, and last week I almost tried switching the game to 3D... I even modeled a few assets and made a character with animations.

3D rocks

The hero in 3D

Idle animation

Then I went back to the 2D version — and felt like finishing it just the way I started.

And here are some location sketches to wrap things up:

Originally written in 2020 — just keeping the vibe.
The original Russian version is here: Gamin.me — Как сделать маленькую игру (часть 2)