🔧Dev Log 8 – GUI, Code, and More Coding

Hey guys, Zak here! 👋

And yep, you read that right...
We got our first versions of the GUI to show… And a lot of code after code after code behind it hehehe.
That’s pretty much the summary of my entire week, to the point where I barely did anything else.
But hey… I got what I wanted, so I’m not complaining 😛

────────────────────────────────────────────

🎉 Welcome, Mark!

Before diving into this week’s updates, let’s give a warm welcome to Mark, our new GUI artist!
He’s already been working hard and hasn’t slowed down either! 💪

────────────────────────────────────────────

✍️ New Content – Version 0.3

This week I only managed to write around 2,200 words of new content.
That’s a bit below my usual target, but considering how much time I spent wrestling with code, I’d say it’s still a win!

────────────────────────────────────────────

🖥️ GUI Update – First Concepts & Tests

The following images are still first drafts, and some are mockups or conceptual ideas we’ll study further before implementing.

We already added several changes to the GUI — here’s a quick summary:

• 💬 Custom textboxes for each character, with smooth color transitions

• 🧠 Improved text flow by reducing pauses between emotional changes

• ✨ Highlighted choice menus by slightly darkening the background and leaving the options clear and centered

• 🧭 The textbox no longer takes up the entire bottom of the screen, opening up possibilities for:

  • Side window with character emotions

  • Scene-specific UI elements

  • Custom mini-menus, etc.
    
    

These are still early ideas but we included some mockups below so you can get a better sense of where we’re heading visually.
Let us know what you think of these first changes! 👇

Choice menus examples: 

A mockup of a textbox with side expressions - basically its shows the expression the character currently has next to the box. (we think this might be a bit overwhelming but tell us what you think.)

And finally an example of how the menu could look like in the future.

────────────────────────────────────────────

🧠 Final Thoughts – Coding Chaos

So... why all the coding this week?

We use Ren'Py to make Trueclash which I think it’s an incredible tool for building visual novels.
But the more we want to customize and go beyond the default engine, the trickier it gets.

A lot of time this week was spent figuring out how to make the textbox change automatically, smoothly, without delays or weird breakpoints when emotions or transitions are triggered.
It was really hard to get it just right.

There are still a few small tweaks I could make, but for now, I think it’s in a pretty good place.
(And I’m lowkey proud I didn’t break too many things along the way.)

────────────────────────────────────────────

Thank you so much for your support.