UPDATE #8 - A functioning menu?!

Since the last post, I've been focusing on game menu (or at least one of them), in particular the character selection part of it.

Currently we have a very stripped-down version of the menu, which will eventually allow you to customise scripts with genres and such. But for now, we just have the ability to cast two actors and select a location (for the sake of my sanity). The location menu isn't so important right now, as that is a less complex aspect of the game-play and mainly indicates backgrounds and potentially costumes.

By clicking "HIRE ACTOR #1" or "#2", you are brought to this screen which shows a selection of nine faces. When you hover the mouse over one, it will show the name of the actor and their stats (which will later affect how valuable they are to a specific genre). When you click one of them, a purple-ish highlight appears around them and the "CONFIRM" button is active and ready for you to confirm that selection.

In addition to this, the selection of actors are chosen at random by a seed which generates every time the game boots up. There are 18 characters overall so far and I've also made it so that if in the "HIRE ACTOR #1" menu you choose, say, Kim Buckworth, she will not appear as an option in "HIRE ACTOR #2" and vice versa.

Moving forward, I still have a LOT of sprites to draw. Most characters basically only have a face at the moment. But my next goal is to make it so that when two actors are selected, they appear at the Overlook shoot AS those characters (instead of Lester and Janette).

UPDATE #7 - A new hope.

I feel like today was a bit of a turning point for Auteur. It was making my brain melt trying to perfect the 'shooting' aspects of the game, so I started to focus on the main menu.

As you can see, we not have functioning buttons (or button).

And we also have a selection of actors to choose from. They are randomly generated every time the game reboots, so whoever the seed chooses for you is what you get! I've also included a back button and what is currently just a rectangle that appears when you hover over each of them. Within this rectangle will be the stats for that specific actor and their fee.

So here is what shooting looks like in it's current state. The options can currently affect the clapperboard percentage, the star gauge and the time (which disappears when dialogue opens at the moment...). Next what we need to do is get any actor we want into the scene and also make their stats affect the game. We also need specific dialogues for each actor, so it's going to be a feat but I'm feeling good about it.