We’ve been getting closer to completing the basic menu structure of our game. The next piece we’ve managed to tackle is our title menu.
This menu went through a few structural changes over the course of its development. Originally we were going to use a more abstract design for the menu in a reflective space. This design felt out of line with our theme though, and decided to take the design to space.
While we thought this was going in a better direction, we had started with a more high detail design for all the pieces. This once again didn’t match with the aesthetic of the rest of the games menus.
Upon flattening everything, we also gave the menu a black and white color scheme to match the in game menus. While we were close, the abundance of white was a little overwhelming, so we once again included color to soften the look of the menu.
On the technical side to create the effect of the background sliding diagonally across the screen, the star field is applied to a surface. The surface is rotated and is partially drawn slowly increasing the amount of the surface that is drawn each frame.
The menu options are clamped around an invisible ellipse to represent the rings surrounding the Skys. Every time the player scrolls the menu, a new target angle around that ellipse is determined, and the options adjust to positioning themselves to that new angle over time, still following the path defined by the ellipse.
Thanks for joining us on another devlog! Next week we will be stepping back into some map designs, taking a look at the high school our protagonists will be spending their year at. Follow us on Twitter to keep up to date with our devlogs, and see you next week!