I have spent most of the last month learning menus in Unity, and building prototypes of various menus. I will not go into too much detail, since it is pretty dry, but I learned how to work with canvases, move the camera, layer UI elements, and animate ships (spinning, drifting, casting shadows, etc). I have also started to work on localization... support for multiple languages. This is much more complex than I expected, as fonts for Japanese, Simplified Chinese, and Korean have to be generated from characters actually used in the game. The more I learn, the more I need to learn!



Still, I am pretty happy with the results so far. I mean, I would be lying if I said I did not plan to make more progress, but progress is progress, and I should be able to code the "New Game" system in the coming weeks. This will start simple, perhaps a map size and density menu, but it will allow me to get to the fun part of game development. Once I am able to generate a map, the next step will be to add the ability to select stellar systems so I can work on in-game displays. 

The above menu has working localization, and clicking on the various languages will change the menu text and update the logo.

While the design of the interface is pretty basic, a lot is going on here. Most of the languages, including Russian, are using a single font. The more complex written languages must each have their own customized font. When dealing with localization, I need to consider the literal and metaphorical meaning of the actual words, how long each string is, and what font each uses. I am working with the default UI and localization support in Unity, and will end up with a dozen languages before the game releases. For now, this means machine translation, but I will hire human translators once I have the text finalized.

Design and Steam

I have pretty much settled on the Stars7 font for my logo, which means I will need to purchase a commercial licence for it. I have not done that yet, because I might change my mind if I find a font I like better. I just need to settle on a font, and (if required) purchase it before the steam page goes live. The other fonts I am using are free for commercial use.

I have not picked a colour-scheme yet, so the fonts will strictly be black and white for the next month or two. I will probably use colour theory to find a decent triad, but I might just go with one accent colour, plus black and white.

Steam Capsules

The steam store will be critical for the success of my game, so I want to have the best content and media possible. I will pay for a professional illustrator to design key-art for my game before release, but in the meantime I made my own placeholders. Steam needs a variety of widths and heights, but this is pretty representative.

Any release is at last a full year away, but even small things like placeholder art feels like real progress. In the next couple of weeks, I will work on improved UI interfaces for the main menus, and create a simple "New Game" menu.