UI Overhaul & Verity Free-Roam Expansion! | Development Update #15 (Patreon)

Hello everyone!

I'm here to update you all on what I've been doing behind the scenes. This week, I started working on overhauling and improving the user interface, expanding Verity's day-to-day activities, and future-proofing the game's code.

Here is what has been implemented over the last week:

🖥️ Massive UI, UX & Hotkey Overhaul

One of the most poignant UI-related feedbacks that I received was that the game's interface is cumbersome and the user tends to have to click through way too many menus to get anything done. I've spent a lot of time to try to reduce that feeling as much as I can.

Dedicated "Talk" Button Removed: You can now talk to Love Interests by clicking their sprites directly during free roam. This is a feature that has been requested a few times by different people, and it definitely streamlines the gameplay and makes dialogue much smoother.

Character Screen Consolidation: The Inventory, Demonic Lineage, Spellbook, and Journal have all been merged into a single "Character Screen" with easy-to-navigate tabs. The main HUD text buttons have also been converted into clean icon buttons with cursor tooltips.

Keyboard Hotkeys: Almost all of the main free roam actions now have a dedicated keyboard hotkey! I've added hotkeys across the general HUD and every single sex scene. You can use Enter to start actions, the Spacebar to pass ticks, the '<' and '>' keys to control animation speed. Number keys have been assigned to top-row menu options such as accessories and spells.

Sex Scene Trackers & UI: I added a new "off-hand action" tracker to every sex scene so you know exactly what your right hand, left hand, and mouth are doing just by hovering over the icons. I also condensed the sex accessories and meta actions into a single screen. I also updated the Sub/Dom bar into a clean, easy-to-read green-to-blue gradient, because some users expressed that the green/blue bar was confusing and unintuitive.

Dynamic Stat Feedback & Animations: Stat pop-ups have been moved to the right side of the screen with slightly randomized positions, and they now feature subtle audio cues when you gain or lose stats! I also added smooth fade-in/fade-out transitions for map screens and phone menus.

The Keychain: To keep track of what keys you have, a new "Keychain" item has been added, which displays all your acquired keys (like the Staff Wing or Verity's quarters) in its description.

Tutorial Improvements: Tutorial pop-ups can now be advanced with a simple click or the spacebar, and I've updated the text to accurately reflect the newly merged Character Screen and renamed menus.

Custom Notifications: I replaced the native Ren'Py notification system with a custom one. Notifications will now neatly stack in a list and fade away, instead of overriding each other. This will hopefully make it much clearer to the player when they get enough EXP for a level up, or enough magic proficiency to learn a new spell.

🎓 Verity Free-Roam Expansion

I wanted to give you more casual ways to spend time with Verity outside of formal dates.

New Co-op Activities: You can now invite Verity to get coffee, have a meal at the cafeteria, watch a movie, play pool or darts at the dive bar, play arcade games, or go dancing at the nightclub, even outside of a date. These are "short and sweet" events, without too much narration, that generally just give some stat boosts to Verity while also accomplishing a task that you'd otherwise get no bonuses for.

Seamless Transitions: If her pleasure and stats are high enough, several of these hangouts (like the movie theater or nightclub) can branch seamlessly into a sex scene.

Public Affection & Seclusion Logic: Verity will now require you to find a secluded spot to make out or have sex while she's at work. Doing so unlocks a new "secluded place" flag that governs her willingness to spontaneously switch positions in public!

Phone Numbers & Vibe Eggs: I streamlined the phone number exchange into a single "Let's swap numbers" interaction. Also, passive pleasure gains from Verity's vibe egg now cap at 900, meaning she won't immediately climax the second you initiate a scene with her!

Masturbation Events: I completely reorganized and rewrote the logic for Verity's spontaneous masturbation events, fixing a few bugs, tweaking the visuals, and adding dedicated moans and sound effects.

Sleepovers: I added a new "Can I spend the night here?" dialogue option if you are hanging out in her quarters.

🛠️ Under the Hood & Engine Polish

As I prepare the game for future Love Interests, I had to completely rewrite how the game handles character positioning:

Room Manager Overhaul: The room manager now randomly assigns dynamic screen positions to LIs when you enter a room. If there are ever more than four characters in a single room, a new "overflow" window will appear with clickable portraits so you can easily choose who to speak to. For now this won't come into play, but it's laying the foundation for when we have 5+ love interests roaming around the world with their own independent schedules.

Sprite Anchoring: I replaced all of the old positional transforms. Character sprites are now anchored exactly at their feet (where they touch the imaginary "ground"), which makes aligning different characters on-screen much cleaner and future-proof.

Audio Wrap-up: To wrap up the Sound System implementation, I added dedicated audio feedback to the game's UI (opening/closing screens, hovering over buttons).

I've been testing a lot, and personally, I feel like the gameplay is much smoother and more responsive than it was two weeks ago.

There's still a lot to do, but I'm working as hard as I can to get these new features in your hands as early as possible.

As always, thank you for your patience and your continued support. Hope you all have a great week!

Cheers,

Mr. Crowne