New build up, remember that if you might need to delete your browsers cache to see the changes, and the change log post has been updated.
I think the changes made over this month have really gone a long way to making this game feel more professional and complete. I'm quite happy with the way things are looking, and most of these changes were subtle things compared to the changes I made in January.
This week's update focuses almost solely on the menus and windows in the game. I created a new window style for the whole game, one that looks more like your standard 16-bit RPG windows with the gradient screen and border. I'm not making any excuses in my blatantly copying the feel of Final Fantasy and other games so I decided to stick with the blue/black scheme that is so familiar with people. You can see a comparison of the old version and new version
here.
I also animated the windows, while this isn't as big of an issue as the other changes I've made it took a lot of time and I like the effect. I've also shadowed the text in the game, this is something I've noticed that is fairly common and it makes the text stand out more against the blue screen.
The other 2 changes are the Icons used in the dialog screen to show when the user needs to press a key when to continue and a sword that points to which menu item you've selected. I like the look of the sword and it's shadow, I also like how it breaks out of the menu borders sometimes. However I think the "press a key" button needs some work, its not quite a polished as I want and might be a little too big.
Lastly I've redone the trap graphics again, I thickened the lines a bit and make the icon inside more distinguishable. To get the inactive graphic to stand out more I added some shading along the bottom, some of which disappears when active. I also added a few more frames of animation into the active trap graphic. I hope to add the other trap graphics in the next update, and while the icon inside will be different I'm going to distinguish the different traps by different colors.
One final note: There are a few menus and windows that have not been redone yet. In the case of the Credits and Special Attack windows I haven't decided how I'm going to use these or I I'm going to keep the SA menu. The windows on the main game screen haven't been animated yet, and one window was removed, because I'm still looking at the current layout and might make a few changes.
Also I need to start getting some levels designed, if anyone is interested in helping with this let me know.