While the old style looked vaguely appealing, it was still fairly poor, and was planned to be a placeholder for new art or layouts when such an opportunity arrived. More to the point, feedback from a couple of people on the practicality of the menus was also poor. The style was supposed to be simple and straightforward, but it proved to be confusing.
In addition to this, making the menus was incredibly awkward. Some degree of animation was to be part of each menu, but since this is all hard-coded, it quickly bloated into a grave mess with just one menu.
So, as a result I deleted all the menu actions code and started anew, and took the opportunity to improve the system itself in the process. Now I'm churning out a menu or two a day, everything's a lot easier, and I don't regret giving up the old stylistic elements at all.
Like I said above, the art is still early. The panes in the menu have been rounded off at the corners and given a darker ending (adjusted a few times due to obscene implications
), and most buttons will get images in them.
I've now nearly finished 6 out of 9 freeplay menus. There's also a new type of refugee, and plans forming for more thanks to some ideas from a friend who has also provided me with my first scenario character.
New menu vid, maybe tomorrow. Fair evening to all.
