Dev Diary #324: Optimization Reminder

Hi everyone, welcome to the (probably) final Dev Diary for the 0.10.0 Update. With the release looming ever closer, I have once again implemented a new UI revamp in the form of the Reminders Menu 2.0.

The new system, as you will all shortly see, looks much more appealing than the boring old list you all know and "love". On top of this, it also comes with a couple of font options, so you can pick whichever suits you the most among three styles. Now, without further ado, the new Reminders menu:

The new interface features a two columns system and is, much to my surprise, smart enough to do linebreaks within the pages' margins. This new interface will probably find its own limitations in the future, but I have yet to properly stress test it. Again, a huge thank you to Moonflow for making the assets (and finding some cool fonts) to use here.

There will also be, before release, an update to the sidebar equivalent, however, the assets are still in the works and I can't quite show them off yet.

Now for the more boring part; Optimizations. I've been simplifying some atrociously coded checks in areas of the game in order to make them easier to work with using what I've learned in the last year. While not as major as the Travel System 3.0 overhaul from last week, it is still a good thing as it removes deprecated code and makes things a bit simpler for me to update in the future.

Finally, there's been a bunch of UI related fixes, as the game is moving to the new sidebar. As I had figured out last week, the tag I was using everywhere to make the buttons grey was messing with the Sidebar buttons, however, I had forgotten to take into account other similarly coded buttons used in various other areas, such as the Wardrobe, Makeup menu and shops. Those have all been switch up to prevent any further "explosion" in the sidebar when opening a new menu.

Other little tweaks include some (long overdue) UI fixes to the wardrobe, the new sidebar and just more bugfixes to make the game ever so slightly less frustrating.

So what's next? Well, I don't expect to have crazy amounts of time between now and release, so outside of the refreshed Sidebar Reminders, I'll probably try to squeeze in the Sidebar Inventory overhaul, try a major optimization of certain keyboard navigation features and try and find some places where I can optimize the actual game's file size in order to keep it accessible on less powerful devices.

See you all for the release!