SNES FF-style battle UI started


Battle UI started! :)

It's just the really, really basic layout, so it's not exactly amazing to look at. But... here you go anyway!


Now, I know Ms. Jacalyn Anity might not be the most common name, particularly for a, uh, grizzly bear. But she is a very fancy bear.

Really, though, I'm used to the names library for Python, which generates way less interesting names... the one I found for Clojure tries way, way harder. It ended up being pretty funny, but it also pointed out something I'm going to need to deal with: Choosing name length limits and dealing with the actual length of names in the UI. Handling the length of strings in these text panels is something I've already handled quite a bit, but this is certainly adding a bit to it in some specific panels.

This update would be really, really lame... more lame than it looks... if this stuff -- the menu panels, the parties, the units -- weren't all coming from the server in JSON. Which, still, I suppose doesn't seem huge, but it's a really good first step to making almost everything data-driven in the client. So I'm really pleased with that.

It was also a larger pain in the rear than it should've been to get the parties to render on a diagonal based on how many of them there are (which is the reason I have one party with three and one with four units, to make sure the client is staggering them correctly). While this particular layout will work for four-member parties, it doesn't help for traditional FF-style enemy packs that tend to be grouped horizontally. So that's something else I'll need to work on, but for now, I'm pleased with the progress.

Next on the menu will probably be:

  • Menu display templates (first one: Unit name + ATB bar for right-side battle menu)
  • Displaying battle options (which are already being generated but not displayed)
  • ATB progress on the server and messaging to the client when ready

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