Godot Development: Pre-Alpha Build 2 (Patreon)

Hey guys, it's Rriik here! It has been exactly 2 months since the first time I presented the new engine and framework which will support Identity in the future. This time around, the build received a tremendous boost in terms of its front end features! (Links down below)

First of all, I want to thank all people who have submitted feedback on the earlier post. Granted, it wasn't much to go off of, the first test only supported the bare minimums of a visual novel framework, however your interest and opinions were warmly welcomed by the team!

Now, the first and most requested feature was the ability to properly scale the game window to any size. With this build, that's finally possible. The game window and its contents will now fully scale and you can drag its edges manually to the size you want (the game will default to 1080p res which remains the recommended window size to play the game in due to the backgrounds being 1080p). There will be more settings added in the future to control the display options on a whim.

Second of all, Godot's impressive suite of UI customization tools allowed me to create all-new interfaces and UI layouts with minimal effort! The new look will likely serve as a testbed for future original UI.

People also requested an Android build, so I made it happen (and it actually behaves surprisingly well for a first try!). I have yet to address input management and mobile UI upscaling, so there might be some difficulties when navigating the interface. For instance, on Android you can only scroll text by dragging the slider button (which right now is very thin), and text/buttons might be small on devices with smaller screen sizes. Nevertheless, you can still play through the entire game and all the menus with little to no problem with essentially out-of-the-box touch input emulation provided by the engine, which is very nice indeed!

Other notable features include the addition of a backlog screen, the ability to skip previously seen dialogue, player name selection as well as lots of overall fixes and improvements.

Changelog

- Added backlog screen.
- Added ability to skip previously seen dialogue.
- Reworked user interfaces.
- Player first name selection is now working.
- Game application window can now be properly scaled.
   > Default/recommended resolution will remain 1920 x 1080 pixels.
- Mac & Android test builds

- Fixed character names and dialogue on save thumbnails not showing proper coloring and/or text formatting.
- Fixed character names not showing as "???" before player meets them.
- Fixed player name not rendering properly and crashing the saves.
- Fixed flipped Kovle's sprite which crashed game when heading to the gym
- Fixed save behaviour when loading save file where a flipped sprite is present on screen.

Known issues:

- Save thumbnail data compression still doesn't work due to engine-side bugs. Results in bigger save file dimensions.
   > https://github.com/godotengine/godot/issues/25640 and https://github.com/godotengine/godot/issues/25595.
- 'Move' transitions aren't implemented yet, will print "Unconfigured behaviour" warnings. Shouldn't impede gameplay.
- Dialogue skipping button sometimes flickers or renders improperly (particularly around choices), but works in functionality.
- Input management is still poor. On Android you can only scroll text by dragging the (very thin) slider button and on PC navigating via keyboard is difficult.
- (Android) Save thumbnails are broken and load a black screen instead. Saving/loading does however work properly.
- (Android) Interface and text might be tiny on devices with smaller screen sizes.

!!! - Save compatibility has been broken due to numerous feature additions and corrections. Please delete old save files to prevent game crashes.

(Links expired. Please check our Patreon page header for links to the latest public and Patron releases)

I'm expecting the next Godot release to also be the one which will migrate the whole game from Ren'Py to Godot. Most of the main features have been ported and what's left is achievable within the next 2-3 months. After this happens, the focus will be further improving the game as well as ironing out bugs/optimizing features on Android and other platforms (please do report problems/errors if you encounter any!).

Either way, that's it for now, I'll see you guys in the next one! <3