Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Slowly drifting into a new game

I'm generally still handling Democracy 2, promoting it, advertising it, checking out bugs etc etc, but I have also started very rough initial work on the next game.
I'm basing it on one of my older games, but I'm hopefully going to do more than just an update, more like a total re-designing and overhaul to make it better than before.
When I first started red-doing Democracy 2, I imagined that the main interface for the game would change a lot. I did a few mock-ups and spent a lot of time doodling and trying to lay things out better. But in the end, I stayed pretty much the same as the original game.

Right now, I am fiddling with the interface for this new one, thinking about what I have on the screen and if I really need it there, and generally simplifying things. My games tend to look more complex than they are, and they also tend to look pretty dark and gloomy. Democracy 2 was a step in the right direction, in that its still a damned complex and deep game, but has a more friendly 'why not give it a try' look to it.

The next game will hopefully take it a bit further. Just by using bigger, friendlier fonts and lighter interface colors, the whole thing already looks much more welcoming.

Once I really get into the game, I'll get more excited about behind the scenes stuff such as a lot of gameplay/AI changes I would like to make, but right now I'm being shallow and concentrating on looks :D