Less text, more game!

I’ve been cleaning up the 2D sprites and getting the characters to look a bit more consistent. Some idle animations had a weird jitter, and a few characters would suddenly change size when switching animations. Small things, but once you notice them, you REALLY notice them lol.

There’s still work to do, but it’s feeling a lot better seeing the characters stand in the battlefield without sliding around between frames.

The bigger change has been the UI. Up until now, there was text EVERYWHERE. Enemy names, status effects, damage estimates, a giant list of everything the ball was doing. It was useful while getting things working, but it was starting to feel like I was reading a spreadsheet while trying to play pinball.

We’ve now moved a lot of that information into icons! Health is still clearly visible, but things like poison and armor have their own icons with numbers showing how much is applied. The damage queue is now icons too, so you can watch your hits build up and then see those effects get used during combat.

My favorite addition is the little floating feedback when you hit something on the board. If a bumper gives you +2 damage and +1 poison, those icons and numbers pop up above it before fading away.

It sounds small, but it makes hitting things SO much more fun. You can actually see what the ball is doing and what each upgraded feature is giving you. Those upgrades are starting to feel like something happening on the table instead of just numbers changing somewhere else.

Now, the 2D icons themselves are VERY much a first pass. They need a LOT of love lol. Some are clearer than others, and there’s plenty to figure out with their style and readability. Eventually we’ll get there!

For now, I’m really happy with how much easier it is to follow what’s happening. Still the same pinball chaos, just a little less reading required.