When you're developing a game, especially one that has a rather complex game loop, it's very easy to get stuck on the functionality and forego what really makes a game gamey. Everyone has heard about the term juice when talking about games these days, and it's the most important thing for a game to stop feeling like a tech demo with little ambition.

While Iron Will still looks -- and plays -- like a tech demo, I have started the journey towards making it feel more like a real game that's being built. As promised on the last devlog, this update was completely focused on ironing out bugs and creating visuals. While they are still very amateur, I feel like the very fact that there is something other than stock engine visuals in the game already makes it feel much more like a real project.

Without further ado, here's what I managed to implement this week:

New features

New UI

For the first time ever there's something actually visible that is worth showing everyone! I'm actually having a bit of trouble uploading the before-and-after images here, so go and check it out for yourself while I figure this out!

Before	After

As for a more detailed list of what's changed, here you go:

• New fonts and colors: The game is now using fonts and colors that are more in line with the tone I'm going to set once we get some of the story and lore rolling. It also looks a little bit better than the defaults.
• Reworked attack button layout: The attack button now contains the same information, but displayed in a much leaner way. It's especially noticeable with longer move names with a lot of data. Plus, it looks pretty nice now!
• New animated background: This is the first of many, named WindySunset. Some others are in the works, but I have to focus on other stuff too, so I hope you enjoy this one!
• Updated start menu: The menu now has a cozy background and slightly less boring buttons. Admittedly it's still a major point for improvement, but at least it draws more attention than a gray screen. It also includes a few QOL/UX improvements around button focusing when using the keyboard to move around.
• Hit enter to confirm: If you enter a seed in the Enter seed number text box, you can now exit by pressing return.
• Creature cards reworked: The cards showing information about the battlers are now positioned in a less floaty way, and the disposition of elements inside of them was also changed.
• Creature levels in cards: The creature cards now show the unit's current level.
• Attack button wrap around: When choosing moves with the keyboard, you can press down after the last move to get to the first one and vice-versa.
• Attack button focus animations: I made it easier to tell where you're currently pointing at, and moving the mouse over the selection no longer messes it up for the keyboard navigation.
• Show me the money: Attack buttons now show the mana cost of the respective moves, so you can actually plan around mana.
• Text clarity: I'm trying to make interactable text and title sections stand out more. Text has different colors and sizes according to importance and function.
• Lots of updates in the battle log: These are bugfixes more than new features, but they're also UI updates. The battle log behaves much better now. See below for more details.
• New element icons: in attack buttons and creature cards you can now see icons related to the moves and creatures' elements.

New animations

I finally got to animations! They're still very basic, but at least you get some visual feedback on what's going on in the battle now.

The new animations are:

• Attack: when a creature uses a move.
• Hit: when a creature gets hit.
• Dodge: when a move by the opponent misses or fails.

New logs

• Self-destructing messages: Logs now disappear after a second instead of lingering forever if nothing else is logged.
• Fanfare: KOes are now logged.

Balance changes

• EXP gain is now based off of the opponent's HP instead of level, so there is some variance now, and defeating tougher units yields more rewards.
• Opponent levels now match your current level instead of being one higher.

Bugs squashed

• HP amounts in the UI are now rounded up instead of down, so units can no longer live at 0 HP.
• Status effects are no longer applied to KOed creatures after their HP is depleted.
• On hit effects are no longer procced on KOed creatures if they die from primary damage just before.
• Poisoned status no longer displays Ablaze text.
• On-hit and after-hit effects are now only procced after the primary damage instead of on every instance of damage.
• Related to the above: game no longer crashes if a creature with Madness takes damage.
• Critical hit message now appears after the hit lands instead of before.
• Lots of logs are now displayed for a brief moment before something new happens.

Roadmap update

The roadmap moved along a little bit. There are still some things planned that I haven't got to yet, but it's nice to see some progress. Here's what the list looks like now:

• Update UI font & base colors. Done! 🎉
• Add default attack and damage taken animations Done! 🎉
• Create environment art. Done! 🎉
• Add a compendium of moves and creatures seen to the main screen.
• Add tooltips explaining moves.
• End-of-battle rewards
• NEW: Make an options menu to simplify the start screen
• NEW: Add sounds

I hope you enjoy this update, and until next time!