UI/UX Improvements

It has been over 6 weeks since the last update, time sure passes fast! I have come with a pretty set of new upgrades though, and a really exciting announcement as well. Again, as always, thanks to those who gave feedback!

In this development log, I'll be mentioning the UI/UX improvements I have been working on, and also a few other additions.

UI/UX Improvements

I have been getting lots of complaints about what all those stat abbreviations mean in the game. Considering that there isn't a tutorial that introduces the new players to the mechanics of the game, I thought that I should make some improvements. 

Although these improvements cannot take place of a tutorial, I think they'll hold up greatly until the alpha release of OVERKILL.

Item Tooltips

Do you remember those abbreviations which were not making any sense for the players but the developer? That is right, there are now tooltips for them! 

I tried to explain each of those abbreviations in these new tooltips. I still wanted to keep the explanations short since people do not like to read descriptions. I hope that they'll affect players' strategic decisions through their gameplay.

As can be seen in the picture above, a sword has the stats ATK, AS, CRTD, CRTC, and OVRM. When the mouse is hovered over to the item for selection, a tooltip appears which consists of those stats' descriptions.

Mechanic Tooltips

Although I think that players can get the hang of the game in a couple of runs, I still wanted to create some tooltips for certain mechanics that are present in the game.

Gems were added two updates ago with the reroll and transmutation mechanics. Although they didn't have any tooltips before, clicking them was always an option for the players to learn what they do; but, I also created tooltips for them, containing their hotkeys and a brief description of what they do.

Buff Frames & Tooltips

Like items, buffs were also leaking information about what they do, they only had their hard-to-understand abbreviations. There also wasn't a proper place where they were shown; so, I thought creating frames for them and supporting those with tooltips would be a great idea.

In the top right corner of buff tooltips, the remaining encounter count is present. Their tooltips also include the name, description, and power of the buff. I have also added a new buff type that enhances attack speed in this version on top of the previous ones.

New Dodge Mechanic

I have been working on a new dodge mechanic for a while as well. It simply is like a mini-game where you need to push the buttons in the order they light up. I call this dodge mechanic the continuous dodge mechanic.

With this new dodge mechanic, there are now a total of three dodge mechanics in the game.

When the enemy tries to attack, all the dodge buttons appear on the screen and light up in random order. In the end, when the buttons finish lighting up one by one, they all become available for pressing.

After they're available for pressing, the player needs to follow the same order they lit up in the first place while pressing the buttons. 

If the player fails to press the buttons in time and in order, the hero gets attacked by the enemy. When the player is successful, this action does not happen and the hero dodges the incoming attack.

New Random Event

Recovering health in the previous version was only possible through purchasing a restoration potion from the merchant for 2 gems, and it only was able to restore 50% of the total health of the hero.

In this version, I have added two more health-recovering-focused things to the game. One of them is the fountain random event. For now, it is a shrine covered in flowers and moss.

When interacted with, this shrine fully restores the health of the hero. It is not that common to encounter this shrine during runs, but I think it is another great addition for the players to make their strategies around.

New Items

There is a new item type which is the cape. They provide the player with CRTD, CRTC, EWTP, and OVRM stats. They are an especially nice addition to those critical hit lovers.

The cape item type also came with a few legendary items of course. I also have added a few more trinkets to the game with new stats. One of them is life steal, another is decay which erases a certain portion of the enemies' health, and the third one is a stat that multiplies the effects of buffs gained from shrines. I'll let you discover them yourselves!

What's Next?

Before talking about what's next in OVERKILL, I want to tell you that I'm no longer a single developer in this project! We are now a team of four people hyped to work on the game. Our aim is to release OVERKILL in early access until the end of summer.

The "raid" game mode and different playable characters and their skills are on the horizon still. Considering that v0.1.0 will be the alpha release, they'll be implemented until then. As I have mentioned in the previous development log, that is my aim until the alpha release.

Please do not hesitate to share your thoughts about the game, every inch of feedback is highly appreciated!