Indie Game Devlog - Making the Main Menu
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- Опубліковано 4 гру 2023
- Devlog video about "Homegrown", a casual farming game I'm creating using my own engine.
Support the channel on Patreon and get access to the game & code for Homegrown, the city-builder, and Equilinox:
/ thinmatrix
Play my previous game "Equilinox":
store.steampowered.com/app/85...
You can follow the progress of the game on my social media:
Twitter: / thinmatrix
Instagram: / thinmatrix
Facebook: / thinmatrix
Trello: trello.com/b/W3zkIJTM/farm
Email: thinmatrix@gmail.com
Background music by Jamal Green:
open.spotify.com/artist/50jTM...
#devlog #Homegrown - Ігри
Great progress! You have a wonderful eye for UI design, everything seems to match the aesthetic of Homegrown very well. Everything you do in this devlog reminds me not to take these pre-made components for granted in the game engine I use! PS - I needed the Rufus update, thank you.
Hello Godot game developer
Hey I watch your vids too! Small world!
My two fav game devs 🎉
We*** need the Rufus update!!!
You should make the pause menu background to be a view of the garden through a window from within the house. Like the player character would be just idly having a coffee and watching their garden grow
Awesome idea! A cup of steaming coffee/tee would take user mmediately to the idle relaxing mood 👍🏻
I think from a UX perspective it would be nice to have buttons like Quit or Delete be painted in red or some contrasting color so that it's clear they'll have consequences.
Also that chili looked delightful
Also, the play/load button should probably be to the right as it is kind of a 'next' action. I can see myself hastily clicking Delete all the time. I also like double-click to load immediately as an option.
This does make sense for many uses but is often ignored for video game menus (in my experience). Minecraft for instance uses the simple silvery grey stone color for all buttons. Edit, delete, etc etc
I never comment on videos, and I never check the comments, but decided to do so this time...
This comment section just made me realize the entire community around your channel are as wholesome as your videos. Basically every comment is a positive one, and a lot of them are positive feedback, which makes whatching this videos even better, knowing you have a lot of consideration for your community and it's feedback. Just love to see it.
Keep it up, because every single thing tou add to a game, or every little pause you make in your video script just fits perfectly with everything else
Thanks a lot for the nice comment! ^^
Wow, that last design you showed looks really slick!
One bit of feedback I'd like to throw in is to add a "Master" volume slider as well as mute buttons for each individual sound category. I always like being able to quickly mute music, for example if I wanna listen to Spotify instead. Or quickly mute the game without having to remember what volume level I had it on.
Agreed! Sound controls are much more important than many developers realise.
8:40 can we all appreciate how gorgeous that transition is, these videos are amazing
Minor issue but I noticed the kerning of the font isn't displayed correctly. This is kind of difficult to explain but kerning is basically an adjustment of the gap between certain letters, for example with "Te" the letters, or rather the rectangular areas each letter is in, have to overlap slightly so the gap doesn't look unnaturally big. This is usually included in fonts and most text editors are able to display kerning. On the "My Farm" button for example the gap between the F and a looks really big. In the mock-up you made in gimp it looks normal because the kerning is displayed correctly. Not a huge issue but I thought I should point it out
and lastly ofc thanks for another great dev log :)
I didn't notice it at first, but now that I look again it's very strange looking.
Yeah, I never implemented that into my text rendering system. It's on my to-do list, hopefully I'll get round to it soon!
@@ThinMatrix great to hear! me and the other typography nerds appreciate it
I would love to see you do a game jam sometime, your process seems to always be so thought out and planned and meticulous, which of course makes sense when you're doing a big project. But I think it would be interesting to see what you could make if you have the limit of just a weekend to make a game.
i fully agree, but just be sure you don't put too much pressure on yourself.
I stand guilty of procrastination and that's when I know it is time to see Thin Matrix. Since I am myself making an open-world farming game, your devlogs serves as a boost of motivation and inspire me to carry forward. All the best for Home Grown and Tnx for these devlogs man. Keep them coming!
Looks great! For the audio settings tab, I’d recommend to add the “master volume” slider which controls both the effects and the music.
And youve also switched to Jetbrains IDEA away from Eclipse. Love it as well :)
eyy, you've finally upgraded to a nice mechanical keyboard! love it
Wow, you've done a tremendous and high-quality job. I also need to create a menu and UI in my game, but it seems I'm still far from starting to work on that. Wishing you success!
When working with UI and state animations, it’s helpful to have speed control buttons:
- minus key = slow down game by 50% each time
+ plus key boosts x2
Speed up will save you a lot of waiting for UI animations and with slow down you can catch bugs that occur when you click UI really fast (before it’s done animating)
We have one key, ctrl-minus which halts the game (speed multiplier=0), but keeps the update loops going.
I like your UI very much! It has such strong Wii vibes!
Side note: The view where you're working is *_the dream._*
Awesome, love this video. Also a tip: playtests show that users prefer 'undo' buttons over confirmation dialogues (and personally, I agree). They're not always possible, but I believe for deleting save files they are (you could have a temporary trash bin under the hood for example).
i also read this somewhere, users now have a tendency to just continue clicking through because we have become conditioned to do it. having an undo button in more games would honestly be much appreciated.
I'd like a video, even like a UA-cam short, on what your general workflow is. I see your Trello board in a few shots, it'd be nice to see how you organize your thoughts, plans, bugs, etc.
The UI is looking so comfy, congratz! One suggestion on the My Farms is to start with an option selected, maybe the last one played, so you won't need to disable the buttons (as it seems once you select one you can't deselect), that would come in handy if you're going to implement controller support :D
Wow, its always interesting and inspiring to see you come up with all your game systems, good work!!!!!
Amazing update as always, thank you for these great dev logs
Outstanding work all around! 👏
Looking great. Thanks for sharing the video early!
Looking great so far, good luck! :)
Love both the progress on Homegrown and the video itself! Your visual style really is amazing and the devlogs are super relaxing and nice to watch.
As always, an incredible video! I love following along and every video is so relaxing. Amazing progress!
Thank you for sharing! It's always interesting to peek what other developers have to show.
Looks great again! Thanks for sharing again!
Erina
amazing progress!
Loving the progress! The UI feels cozy and perfect for Homegrown
Man, everything is really coming together. Can’t wait for final release!
Dude, your room looks amazing!
looks stunning!
a suggestion for the farm list, if you take a screen capture when saving, you could display that as the background when selecting that farm, which could help you remember better which is which.
and for the normal background, you could have multiple images that are reprojected to slowly look around a bit without needing to store a lot of frames or load in a save file.
It's shaping up really good. I really like the changes you made at the end, with the darker outlines.
Looks great ! Thanks for sharing the progess!
Great update to your UI! looks to clean! 🎉
Your meals look delicious! Loved watching the process of making a main menu, I have yet to actually start my game (in the concepting part) and feel I have to get it done in one day as it seems like a "simple" thing to add to a game, but watching you I realized I have to take the time and think of what I want to accomplish with it (never thought of if someone adjusted the window of a game) :o
This UI looks fantastic! I particularly like the animations you've added
Another great update. Keep them coming :)
I absolutely love your designs. It's not easy to be a good programmer and a good artist, and you are both! Your game looks really good.
I REALLY enjoy watching this series. It's so facinating, satisfying, and beautiful to watch. Can't wait to get my hands on this game.
This is awesome! I love the contrast from Equilinox's sleek minimalistic UI
That responsive UI is really impressive. Well Done!
The UI ended up looking amazing! Definitely worth the time you spent on it :) I can't even imagine the amount of work it takes to code in all the positions and anchors yourself! Keep up the good work!!
Thanks for sharing all the process with us. Really love the updates. Can you show anytime what you write inside a Trello Card? Would like to see the way you think / organize the project.
Insane progress! Something about Getting around to finally developing the UI is starting to make it feel and look like a more complete game!.
Looking forward to future videos!!
You inspire me to continue to work on my own coding passions!! Its always great to go back and remind myself what is possible. Also make me want to get some plants for my desk lol
I really like how he pays attention to the small implications like the button stretching. It's just little things that take so long to implement but TM still does it. Keep it up!
I love your cooking interludes in the middle of each video haha
Very nice. I liked your solution to the UI scaling.
Fellow indi gamedev up here too. Can confirm that UI and visuals usually take much more time than anticipated. A nice progerss you have done, willing to see where it all would come by.
Looks awesome as always!
Thanks! :)
Man the UI turned out great. Looks visually very pleasing if you ask me
Really like the "new", flatter, simpler UI-Design on the end of the video. The game logo on the end also looks very nice :D
Very nice. Good work!😊
I love these videos so much
Looks great well done ✅
A video on how you use Trello and plan stuff out would be really awesome. Ty for the vids!
Great work!
The UI and the scaling of it are great!
For the buttons in the "My farms" option, I'd suggest adding a checkbox beside each saved farm so that you can select multiple farms to be deleted, and when you select multiple savings the load button is grayed out.
Nice progress and looking good. Really looking forward to final product. (And in this case also for early access which I usually don't do.)
Only, as a professional QA, I would recommend for "My Farms" section always offer option to get directly back to Main Menu. (Although I understand it is still WIP and first implementation.)
Love the part where you were thinking about corrupted save files right in the first implementation
"I was able to reuse some code... I'm not sure why it took so long to be honest"
As a fellow programmer, this is very relatable
Looks great, very nice progress and you have a good eye for UI! When it comes to menus I'd also suggest you to make some simple flowcharts of how the navigation and interaction will work between each menu page, mostly to find pain points. :p
im sure plenty people have said this before, but man your pc setup and the view you have during these beautiful months... it's so cozy
the ui looks great. keept it up m8 ;)
Last iteration of the buttons was much nicer!
Great Video! Could you maybe do a new Engine Making Series? That Would be so cool! 😊
Not sure how possible it would be but I think a cool home screen background would be a top down view of the last farm that was played in.
So when the game is saved the camera like zooms out and snaps a pic of the current state of that save and then that pic can be used for the background of the homescreen
5:43 slowly adopting to the german culture I see 🤣
Love those devlogs, they are not just interesting from an software engineering perspective, you also put quite some work in to make those videos visually appealing. The videos always emit a cozy and warm kind of vibe that makes me come back every time.
Something to add .... add photos of the farms in the save view rather than text.
There was a YT'ber that did a whole discussion on game UIs ... cannot remember who/what it was sorry...
But one thing he stated and I agree with him... something visual for the saves over just text - since there isn't anything but text to distinguish farms and if you came back to the game after a while, you'd have to go into each one to visually remember
To add to this, if you have a 'snap' of the farm, you could also set the main menu background as the snap if you are currently playing a farm - so visually you are still in it even thought you at the menu :)
"I forgive myself" cracked me up 😂
If delete function is irreversible, it's advisable to show the user a confirmation "Are you sure that you want to delete this farm?" (Yes/No). Just to make sure that the user doesn't delete their save by accident.
9:57 he seems to be aware. Also, labeling buttons Delete/Cancel (ideally color-coded) is safer for the brain than Yes/No, even if it seems redundant.
This is really great! It would be cool if you saved a (blurred) image of each farm along with its save fole, and display that as the background when you select it in the My Farms page
Hey Man ! The Final shot of the UI looks really Good. A small enhancement you can add is to use icons along with text in buttons . PS: Your cooked food looks delicious ;)
It looks really good
Your cooking looks great!
Every time I see your videos, I envy your working environment.
looking awesome!, if your releasing on steam, it would be interesting to be able to upload saves to the workshop so others can see what you've achieved!
An interesting idea would be to add insects, birds and small mammals from Equilinox to the area outside the farm to add some life to the surroundings...
You taught me a lot. Thank you.
Looks perfect! Keep it :)
Woah super cool, main menu always is the hardest part for me
Great progress! I think a little zoom-in effect when loading/creating a world would bring more life in the experience :) Of course just one tip for your polishing phase
I love your videos man
Your dog is so adorable!!!!
9:01 you could make active last played game, so the buttons become active itself, you're working quite, I wouldn't be able to do so much work just myself, good luck on your hard work 👍👍
That UI slide though 👌✨
Yay! Looks good!
I'm getting FarmVille vibes and im all for it
Would you do a video on your project planning and feature specs? I really like the way you have your Trello board layed out but I'm wondering on your thought processes when making it
Great devlog (as always!) The UI seems to be coming along nicely! And that final UI update really sells that, it's a very sleek, cosy and minimalist design which I think suits the game perfectly.
(Also that meal you cooked looked great, room for one more in the future?😂)
nice as usual
beautiful
Who said Christmas doesn't come early! Have a great Christmas Thin!
Yeah the game dev is impressive but THAT FOOD 😤🤌 please release a cookbook my guy
It's nice to see proper UI scaling being created.
i cant be the only one who is still waiting for the next Socuwan devlog
Regarding the farms menu, according to Microsoft, the more important button should always be on the right side . for example popups with (Cancel) and the (Okay). So I'd put the load button on the right and move delete to the left. as well as maybe reducing it's hierarchy (now it's the same weight as Load) by making the delete button smaller or colored in a different color.
You could have the save list automaticaly select the last savegame. That way it would be easier and faster to continue your last game.
You could also have the game create a screenshot when you exit/save a game and use that as a background for the selected savegame.
Tip for UI work: make a multi-window renderer where you can see the UI in more than 1 Aspect Ratio. That way, you can always keep an eye out for misbehaving layouts.
You can also use one of them for debug info and an in-game cheat menu (quick reload, give $$$, open sceneX). Beats overlays by a long shot.
Do you use unit tests? Because you can also test UI by making an assortment of screenshots every night and viewing them though html.
Was thinking about this also!