It may surprise people to learn that I'm still working on a game, and specifically Wargames 2. While I'm sure many other people also had access to it, I was working on it when the 4.0 update of BYOND was in its infancy and had a chance to implement some of its features early on. Unfortunately I'm a bit rubbish at any changes, so even Wargames 2 suffers from not implementing its features as well as it could.
I will upload some screenshots of the new version, and you will see I'm finally updating the game with more of those features! So late! Before then, HUD overlays in the map element were dominant in BYOND and feature in virtually all my games. There is still some reliance on that, but I'm reducing it with time.
The new world creation screen - expect some more updates to this!
The most obvious thing in this update is trying to cut my reliance on HUD overlays for things that really shouldn't use it, so both the map generation and game options are now in separate windows.
Some eagle eyed readers might see something new here in the game settings screen which includes some of the new features
The HUD wasn't just used for map and settings though, and boy did it look ugly, it was used for the vast majority of the games features, such as information display, building units and buildings and selecting research. On top of this, unit functions such as embark, settle, irrigate and all the rest relied on HUD icons taking up space on the map screen.
It may not look like it, but some of the HUD reliance is starting to be cut from the game, as you will see in the next screenshot. Also see the new "Simple" Unit filter, which splits units by type (infantry, ranged, ships, civilian etc) rather than by era. Under Simple settings, it also limits view to the most upgraded unit for each 'type' such as blunt weapons, sword user, spear etc.
But there is light at the end of the tunnel, resources now has its own separate window, boxes is locked away until you find the relevant research (I don't think I'm spoiling anything here in the next screenshot!), selected town shows which buildings and population it is on, and if it has space for other buildings. Town Stats is now completely removed from the HUD menu. It also shows your government type (here, Monarchy) and your nation title, adding more visibility to other features in the game previously left untouched.
Here you see the new Resource window, and in the background, the ugly command HUD list for a worker, soon to be reworked into its own window
Unfortunately, I doubt I will de-HUDify everything before I eventually release the next version, but I'm seeing what can be done to de-clutter the screen. Another example of HUD use is the technology screen ingame. This has always been a flawed presentation, cutting off if you use a smaller sized map and being a bit useless - but still probably the easiest way for me to display without causing too much work for myself. I'm still unsure what to do here, whether to just make a separate image included in the game, making a window'd version of it, and perhaps even using that as an alternative to selecting it from the drop down HUD menu. All these ideas require a bit of ground work for me to do. It also means deciding between a "hidden" tree where you can't see whats in front, and having it all displayed (or whether both should be available, hidden for current game but visible as an image as reference, perhaps AoE2 style or something like that).
How the technology tree has always looked in-game. It doesn't do anything, but it looks pretty...well maybe not
Some of the other changes I'm including is more balancing, particularly to resource production. More of it is going to be locked behind new research (so I'll be bloating it even more! You love it really! Research EVERYTHING!). Units outside of Settlers never took population from your city, that is now changing too, and population will grow slower and be more important. Waste will also now start having a use (its actually been in the game for quite awhile now!) meaning existing features (ever wondered what 'Tomb' was intended to do?) such as hospitals and health research will play a stronger part in the game. Literacy will probably not be touched in this update, but its also more visible than previous versions.
Hopefully you have enjoyed this update, and spotted some extra tid bits I might not have mentioned yet! I'm aiming for an update this week, but how long I delay may influence how long it is to the next update!
