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I’m hard at work on the new menu system for Project Viper. The Dawn’s Light menus are mostly just the default rpg  maker menus. For Project Viper, I’ve started from scratch. That means I can make every menu exactly how I want it to be. It also means that if players don’t like it then I can’t blame RPG maker for it.

Here’s some of my favorite parts of the new menus:

The new design

RPG maker menus are based on Window Skins which are small graphic files like this:

When a menu is created, the window skin is automatically made to fit the size. It’s a good system but it makes for some pretty boring menus.

The menus for Project Viper don’t use any skin, instead I’ve designed them in photoshop and exported the separate parts of the menus. The text is much nicer as well.

You can use the mouse

I made the menu system knowing that the game would include mouse control so I’ve added some features to make things a little easier. You can close the menu from anywhere. If you’re somewhere deep in the menus, perhaps menu->journal->quests->quest-detail you can still close the menu with just one click.

Menus that don’t fit on one screen have scroll bars. These are good for mouse users but they double as an indicator for keyboard users so they can see where they are in a list.

The new journal menu

I really like journal menus in games. I like to see what I’ve done and what I still have left to do. I’m not alone either, lot’s of Dawn’s Light players like journals as well. The Dawn’s Light journal was a good start but it was lacking in a few areas.

Quests will now have more details so you won’t have to guess what it means. Quests now have multiple tasks to complete so something like ‘get me some coffee’ isn’t equal to ‘kill the evil boss’. You can also look at all of the quests you’ve already completed and remember how cool you are.

I’m including more stats this time. As well as the progress stats like ‘quests completed’ and ‘items found’ I’m including stats that are just for fun. Such as how many enemies you’ve fought in total or how many times you’ve reset puzzles.

Enough about menus already!

The menu system may not be a selling point on its own but it definitely adds to the experience of the game. Plus it was fun to make. I’ll have some screens and a video preview ready in a few days.