Guildmaster has progressed rather nicely in the months since the last update, so it is worth taking some time to collate some screenshots showcasing such progress. Most of these were initially posted on Twitter, currently the best avenue to receive bleeding-edge updates on the project. Let’s dive in:

The Party Inventory UI

Taking an experience-first approach, I’ve focused the last chunk of work on the party inventory UI, the primary interface to equip heroes and view party composition at a glance.

This first pass is mostly visual. At the time this screenshot was taken, the equipment system was in place as well as the primary stats directly affecting a character’s expendable attributes (supplies, mana, energy, and health):

It took a bit of layout rejiggering to fit the remaining areas of relevant information. In this next pass, XP, defenses, to-hit, and a hero’s gold crowd the scene a bit, though luckily not much more information was missing:

I then took a brief detour from top-level, high priority implementation to focus on something that’s high on everyone’s coolness list: dual wielding. It was a good thing I tackled this seemingly frivolous feature this early on, because it required a rethinking of the underlying attack system that resulted in a more robust, extensible system that will allow weapon skills to add special attacks, and magic skills to add battle spells to a character’s arsenal. Here’s a dashing rogue brandishing dual swords:

This last UI screenshot reflects the latest and greatest. While visually not much different from the previous one, other than the morale meter, the characters’ special traits are now implemented. Featured in this screen: Curmudgeon, which reduces morale gain by 50% and increases morale loss by 50% for the entire party; Thief, which causes the hero to pocket a percentage of the loot after completing an attack; Shortsight, which reduces the sight range for the party if all members are shortsighted; and Point Blank Shot, which allows a hero without a melee weapon equipped to use a ranged weapon in a front rank:

Guildmaster Website

Also a slight detour from the to-do list, the bug to put together a quick layout for the Guildmaster site bit me; so I mocked it up and begun slicing it and building it out:

That gets us current! I’ll be releasing out Alpha 2 to my internal testers for some early feedback and review shortly, then will move on to the next major areas of missing functionality: XP gaining, leveling up, and city development.