0.27 Preview and 0.26 Behind the Scenes

Hi, perverts! I hope you're all doing great. Things have been pretty tough for a lot of people for a while now, so I hope you're doing your best to be kind to yourselves.

I'm still feeling a bit too backlogged to set up a poll right now, but I'll probably put one up at the end of the week. In the meantime, Center of Attention patrons remain welcome to make requests, and I'm happy to receive feedback from everyone!

UI Changes

For its life so far, Ruin Me has used a mixture of default Ren'Py UI and super-placeholder graphics for non-default features. It was fine, but it didn't really contribute to the mood of the game, and it probably gave a lot of potential players who play a lot of Ren'Py games the impression that it was generic or super unpolished.

I'm glad that I made my first steps toward updating that stuff! The text box, the choice buttons, and the status overlay now have new art. One thing that took me a while to figure out was what metaphors I wanted to use for the interface. It wouldn't be appropriate to have a shiny, modern-computer look to the game, nor do I think it would be right to lean too far into horror motifs.

I settled with focusing on the "antiquarian" theme of the game. The choice buttons evoke labels on specimen jars, while the status overlay is meant to look like a card you might see on an artifact in some dusty back room. The text box itself has a bit weaker metaphor, I think; I needed something dark and translucent, so I went for a film negative. I think it works, but I may return to it later and decide I want to revise it further.

I still would like to update scroll bars, the journal screen, and other UI elements, but those are lower priority for now, mostly because you see them less often. This release was focused on the most common parts of the interface, including making them easier to use on phones.

Next Release

I'm working on the next "bird" that you're ruining at the Reform Institute! I'm giving myself permission to release some scenes in a sequence and leave the rest for later, so you may see all three of his scenes or just one or two.

I still want to keep revising the roughest of Theresa's poses! I hope to get that done this week, but it will be dependent on how much I'm able to accomplish.

That's it for me! As always, let me know what you think and I'm happy to answer any questions. Take care of yourselves.