Something Between U and I

Dev log for Project Amethyst from 9/11/18 to 9/25/18

What have I been working on since the last update?

My primary focus for the little time I spent working these past two weeks was setting up the pause menu. I know I previously said I would be starting on the inventory system (twice, actually) but this is technically a prerequisite for that. I decided to style my menu mostly after LoZ: Breath of the Wild with a tab system similar to GTA 5. I chose to tack on GTA’s tab model since the right thumbstick won’t be used at all in my game and that is how you page through BotW’s inventory. Once I got the tabbing system up and running I went ahead and sketched out concepts for how the main tabs will look.

The index tab for keeping track of creatures discovered in the game.

The part tab for viewing and editing aspects of your current lineup.

The bag tab for using items, medicine, skills, food, key items, and special items.

I didn’t make sketches for the Self (a sort of global progression info tab), Save, or Options tabs since those will be much simpler and mostly self-explanatory. These aren’t final, obviously, and in the future I will be tweaking them based on tester feedback (the bag tab already seems cluttered). I am also considering moving Save to its own hotkey (Y probably) instead of dedicating a whole tab to it.

Other than a few super minor edits to the dialogue system, that’s all I accomplished since the last update.

Unfortunately, these past two weeks have been super slow. The first week I was out for a bit for some family stuff and the second week I was focusing on a job opportunity. That ended up going nowhere, so I got back to work mid last week.

What obstacles have I encountered?

As I mentioned above, most of my obstacles these weeks were external (to both myself and the project). My attention was pulled in multiple directions – one of which I will talk about below – all away from this project. Aside from forgetting that you can’t use timelines in widget blueprints, I had no issues coding-wise.

What's next?

Time for some bad news…

Effective immediately, I will be ceasing all production on this project. After a lengthy discussion with some colleagues and friends, I have decided that this project will take far too long to be useful as a portfolio piece. Instead, I will be turning my attention to a new project that I will be able to ship in a fraction of the time of this one. For the sake of showcasing my abilities to potential employers, I have deemed this a necessary sacrifice. Amethyst is a passion project that I have wanted to make for the better part of 14 years so rest assured that I will never abandon it. Once I am in a secure position career-wise, I will return to this project. Until then, this is the final update for Project Amethyst.

I will be announcing my new project a week from posting this, and will be keeping a dev log for it just like these ones. If you’ve been following Amethyst up to this point, thanks a ton for doing so. I encourage you to check back next week for the big announcement. Until then, thanks for reading!