A Week of Progress Improving LEVEL UPs in my Indie RPG 

The fact that you're still sticking with your game and haven't given up is nothing short of awe inspiring. I love your videos and I wish you nothing but the best. Sticking to a big project like this is hard as hell and you have my deepest admiration for doing so.

I do wonder if it would make more sense to have the "action prompt" appear above the object of interaction instead of above your own head to make it more clear what you are about to interact with. I could be wrong but it might be worth trying it out! Thanks for the video! Nothing better than an early morning coffee, a devduck video and some gamedev :)

I think animating the icons in the thought bubbles would better convey the action. Just flipping between 2 frames would be enough, like an open and closed hand or door. I'd also say the XP circle filling up is a bit hard to read due to the pixel size, maybe increasing the radius by 1 and making the green 2 pixels wide would be clearer. The level up toast is really nice though, just needs a little jingle and it'll be really satisfying to level up.

2 pieces of feedback: 1. If there is only one possible interaction with an object, especially if it's logical, I would drop the interaction type thought bubble entirely. The highlight is entirely sufficient, like if I approach a door and interact with it, I expect it to open. If I approach something on a ground, like I stick, I probably want to pick it. Where these could be useful, though, would be if a) there can be different types of interaction, or reactions to the interaction and b) if these interactions depend on the tool in hand. For example, let's say you have doors that are locked with keys. You could then show a lock icon if the door is locked. Or some kind of lock and key icon, if you can ulock it because you have a/the key. On the other hand, let's say you can either pick up, or mine small stones. You could then show hand icon, if no pickaxe is selected, or a pickaxe icon, if it is. These are just ideas, but I feel like I would find it annoying, playing a game for hours and seeing a door icon every time I want to leave my cottage. Like, yes, game, I know I can open a door, thank you, can you now stop? 2. And this is entirely personal opinion, but although I have to admit that the level up popup looks very neat and has a great animation and the "press K to open that specific skill tab" thing is a good QoL feature. It just feels really, idk, cluttered? It feels too big and too in center or maybe too long on the screeen, at least for my liking. But again, it could be a me thing. Love the devlogs, btw. It's always fun to see someone's thought process behind stuff like that.

Lots of nice progress! Always happy to see you upload a new devlog :)

I love the vibe of this channel. It’s inspired my own efforts to develop a game with my sons. That being said, once you’re ready, I think your viewers would love an early access preview just to test it out and give you more feedback.

for the interaction prompts: i think that at least for the first few times, the icon should have text next to it, so players who can't recognize the icon still know what it means. the first time i have seen the hand icon (in this video), i couldn't tell that it's a hand, so i couldn't guess that it means grab.

I'll always love these types of devlogs. No trying to have unfunny Dani-like humor most of the smaller gamedev tubers have, making corny "stealing co- I mean borrowing code"(even tho that code is open source anyways) or other jokes, none of that. Just a chill devlog with some vlogging mixed in and it's all straight to the point and entertainment. We need more people like you and more people to realize not everything needs to be funny to be entertaining. Keep up the good work! Awesome UI changes

The ability to toggle the extra info would be nice. That way, players could pick a cleaner UI if desired. Best of both worlds.

Your videos are always so inspiring for me. Being watching those devlogs since the beginning. 🙏❤️

Great devlog as always! You and Bitbrain were actually my inspiration to jump ship from Unity to Godot and so far it’s been well worth it

Love the dev logs. UI and XP make it so much easier to see your progress. Can't wait to play this game.

Been following since the beginning and it's so inspiring to see you continue friend, keep up the great work! 😊✌️

That is looking really nice!

Looking at this now and still shocked that this game is still on the works, and yea the progress is going well, keep up the good work man! :)

Really inspiring stuff Fam!

Yaay! Devduck uploaded!

Very nice devlog mate! :D The end footage of that lake looked super lovely! The UI Changes all look really nice, think they add a lot to the readability of the game, rather than having loads of text, visuals on their own convey a lot more!

Small text and hard to read is something a Designer told me when I first started as a web dev. And the easiest fix he had for me (other than using another font)... raise the letter distance. He does this with almost every font. They are nice for headings or Buttons, where you just want to display "EXIT" But as soon as you want to have a text that people are supposed to read and not just look at (jear, strange difference I know) he puts more spacing between the letters. I did this, and ... it is such an easy and quick fix. Just a bit more space between each letter, and it is way easier on the eyes. :) Maybe that solves your problem!

Yay new devlog!

Very nice. Love the level up message and the detail of jumping to the right skill in the book. An idea would be to give the interaction prompts a small animation like the hand opening and closing. Even just 2 frames would work. I think it would give just a bit more clarity.

Love the new UI! Definitely a step up!

I love your room set up bro

Just a quick thought in response to the first part of your video when you showed off the original exit prompt (Press "E" for exit): I find that most games these days take a long time to finish, and when the gameplay loop begins to dull, even if I haven't yet finished the story, I'll take a break. It's usually not forever, but it can be a while. Four examples in my current library of games I love and have invested much time into but have never finished include: Stardew Valley, Terraria, Factorio, and Core Keeper. Now, I'd love to finish these games eventually, but I also don't want to lose my current progress. However, in many cases with games today, the only way for me to relearn how to play is to replay from the beginning (where all of the tutorials happen). I don't always want to do that. So...what I propose is a "how-to-play refresher button" that can reset any teaching icons or prompts I need to remind me what to do in the event that I've forgotten. I hope more games would implement this (of the ones that don't already come with built-in instructions and wikis via menu selection). That way, if a teaching prompt is assumed no longer necessary, it doesn't have to be forever absent in the event I need it again. Hope that makes sense.

It wasn't immediately clear what those thought bubbles were showing until you told us what they were showing.

Keep up the great work. Can’t wait to play it on steam deck!

Fantastic to see the skill UI improving! I really like toast when you level up.

Looking cool.

All the new elements look great. Nonintrusive and informative. Just the right amount of information, and it's not constantly in your face. I'd add the button prompt next to the icon in that thought bubble. But like you said, it can get a bit too much after you've played a longer time. Maybe there could be two different triggers to hide those: First two-three levels, you always get the hotkey prompt to build up that muscle memory of what button to press. A second counter for when the game is started, and the first 2-3 interactions show the button prompt again. After those only the icon. The second prompt would serve returning players: I for one tend to take breaks from games that can last months. Upon returning to the game, you've forgotten everything about the game, even what buttons to use. So having the first few interactions include the button prompt when you start the game.

I love that level up animation! That looks so satisfying! I'm imagining the runescape firework sound effect with it so that might be helping lol

It would be cool to see percentage of an island decorrupted and see the areas on the map which has been completed

Ayy a fellow OSRS'er doing some CG, nice! :)

Hey, been loving these dev-logs and been following since day 1! Something to keep in mind for the future, it might be a good idea to have a font size setting for some of the smaller text, as it might be hard for players with impaired vision like myself to read. I can’t wait to play it one day, and I’m sure something like this would help any potential disabled players enjoy it even more.

Love how you are sticking with the project 💚 might I suggest for the action icon for it to have a single frame of animation after a few seconds seconds - the hand lifting up/door opening wider; Incase a newbie sits and wonders but long enough it doesn't play and clutter for most ppl Love the experience toast! For the 'k to open log' you could instead peek the bottom of the log book sprite down to really sell opening it up 😆 you could also have the whole toast get pulled in to the open log book behind it, and fade the log as it closes, depending if that feels too diagetic or not 😆

Your Pup has gotten so big!

Love that you can see the XP like in Runescape!

love the video and the improvements. Sometimes, the icons and information can get jumbled up when they appear simultaneously (and I've noticed at least one instance where they were obscured by a tree). Maybe some code to make them detect if there are more instances of info floating in the screen and avoid to stack up.

for showing xp, I feel like it should be an animated progress bar or else the player doesn't know how fast they are leveling up. I personally think it would be cool if when you gained xp a bar pops up on the bottom left with an icon of the skill, and little xp orbs fly twoards it and increase it, and then it pops down when you stop earning xp or the icon and progress change depending on which skill you are leveling up. Also the "[k] view in field notes" pop up should only appear for getting levels one and two or else its one of those things people zone out because its like "well obviously".

Nice a new vid👍

Great progress as always, Ben! One challenge I have in my game is around multiple potential interactions at once and "iterating" through them. For example, there could be an item on the floor in front of the player, while an NPC also walks exactly where the item is. What interaction should be displayed? One idea was to have some sort of "toggle" mechanic to toggle between the different overlapping interactions. By the way, I cannot wait to play a demo of Dauphin at some point. I would probably spend hours fishing and nothing else, haha.

Nice channel and good progress on the game. I preferred to see the button (hit "E") rather than the icons when starting out as I can usually infer what it is going to do but might have to go to keybinds to see what is used. You could just use the button in the thought bubble for that. Also, as you mentioned these things will be needed less later so having a system where after the first dozen times or so shown there is an increasing delay between proximity and the display would be great. That way it does not just go away and the player gets used to it taking a little longer but no matter what if you wait 4 seconds by something and have not interacted the prompt comes back (maybe you have not played in a while and forgot the button). Keep it up.

I like it when you say Design then build.. I am a game programmer myself and I need to design more 😊

Awesome video! New keyboard?

I think a half-opened hand, as if reaching for an object, would be more readable than what looks like a fist.

in the XP popup, it's really hard to tell how much the XP bar is filled up - especially that there even _is_ an XP bar, because it just looks like a bevel. i would add a pixel of padding between the XP bar and the black outline to make the XP bar more visible.

Your room looks so sick :D awesome big screen and really cool aquarium

I really like the progress you're making with the game! Have you considered adding the skill progress to a screen in the clock? I think it could add more functionality go the clock while reducing the amount of stuff on screen.

I do like the new UI elements for leveling and the Runescape influence is amazing! But in my opinion I would give the option for a simplified version and or to be able to toggle it off for people who want a more relaxed play style.

I think the interact UI is a huge improvement! I don't think the hand icon reads very well though. I thought it was a camel or elephant when it first popped up lol

i would really love some startfish and small rocks on the sand so it looks more interesting!

When you pick up an object, it'd be nice if the object visually moved into your loot log. Just a quick animation that moved the item across the screen, establishing a visual connection between the item that disappeared and the loot log that just appeared!

I would really love to see some tutorial style videos in the Godot4 Engine from you

UI is looking good, the icon is definitely better than the text, but you should keep the button prompt, or maybe have it all be reactive. If the player walks over to something and doesn't press interact for 2 seconds then show the interaction bubble and button prompt but if they walk up and press it right away you know that player understands what to do and you can just not show the prompt at all and let them do their thing

Maybe the bubble should be a little bit smoother, like 3 frames: 1: One small bubble 2: One small bubble and another one above it 3: The final result with one small bubble and a big one above it that contains interaction image Also some items could potentially have more than one interaction, so maybe two bubbles in different directions would work. One working with Q button and another with E button for example. (Example: you could either knock a door or open it)

Shoutout to the Gauntlet shot in the middle of the vid!

Think the hand icon could do with some work. I had no clue what i was looking at until you said it

Good job on your progress! Tbh I think the outline is more than enough information and the thought bubble feels like clutter. If you can highlight other elements (like the door) in a similar matter to your items, this would be the more suitable solution to me. Also I suggest you give the outline a little bit of movement. My solution would probably be tweening it between 50% and full opacity.

You've got plenty of fish left, I think you're ready to move on to Corrupted Gauntlet ;)

massive thinmatrix vibes

I love the transparency, and information, but specifically at 9:22 I feel it gets cluttered. love ur content btw :3 edit - oh and maybe make the toast a bit smaller, idk.

Hey I remember the though bubble from a while back! Maybe you should remove all shading from the drawings in the thought bubbles to really make it clear what the player is thinking about... Great devlog!

2:57 that icon looks like a small bear, tbh.

I think this system, to show how much you need to level up a certain skill is really good and creative.

I think you should animate the thought bubble a bit. Like have it bounce slightly so that its not just static.

Hey are you using a TV as your screen ? Gratz on your progress :)

@3:58 it would've been funny if you put an 'interact' icon above your head for the weights.

I wasn't watching you for a while, but I can see you made big progress! I gives me boost to work on my game. But I have a problem right now, I need some models, textures etc. And I'm not happy with what I make :/ If any 3D artist read this, lemme know and hopefully I would offer some job ;)

Good day. After watching your videos all while either falling asleep, or as background noise while working, I've decided to graduate from being a lurker to actually commenting. Here are some of my thoughts after watching the playlist. Take all these points with a grain of salt where needed. This is your baby, we merely coo at it :) General vibe - I honestly like the general vibe of the game. This should be obvious given that 44 videos are a lot to watch begrudgingly. :D - Though I understand the reasoning for doing the magic-ey vibes with fighting corruption, I was ever so slightly...(I'm still trying to identify the emotion/word that is not as strong) disappointed. I think this game is great, partially because I'm expecting to immerse myself into doing marine biology field work from playing the game. If this is core to the reason for building the game, the expectation is that plenty of this will be preserved (and for the most part I actually do think that you are actively working on doing this). I for one love the watch face, depth meter, and fishing/capturing gear that you have implemented. I think the notion of not killing enemies, but saving them is beautiful and very different. This might be corny, but can you not save creatures from corruption with the power of...KNOWLEDGE? Corny I know, but I actually think you are set up extremely well for doing so. Some of the loot can actually be info tidbits, filling in your field journal sentence by sentence. You learn how to save creatures better by capturing/saving more and essentially becoming better at it. I don't even think you need the visuals to change necessarily, who knows what a truth bomb actually looks like? Fishing - Choosing which fish bites if more than one approaches, look at how fishing works for Crashlands, not as your entire fishing mechanic, but as the selection mechanic. - There are some visual improvements to fishing, I'm sure you want to implement. One I think is subtle (and consequently I think will be overlooked), might be easy to implement because the trigger is known (left click/WASD to move bait) and will have a deceptively large impact into feeding into the realism from my very personal opinion (cause I sat here wondering what I feel was visually missing and when I realised, I could not unsee it) is pulling the line taught and relaxing it when it is not taught. When a player interacts with where the bait moves, the bait can still move as it should, but instead of the very nicely done loopy line, just do n straight line. Open questions - If an island is saved from corruption, what prevents it from "ecologically collapsing" if I missed a single crab. My expectation would be that players would be disheartened and stick to viciously defending only a couple of islands. Building on the knowledge is power vibe, maybe you can identify a missing ecological niche that will stabilise an island? Or collect enough items to craft an education center, encouraging preservation? Or granting a level of resilience to an island based on the "healed" percentage? I honestly am looking forward to the next episode. Cheers!

Since you are returning to feature development I think implement some kind of travelling merchant, like the one in terraria. Who appears at Straggler’s Rock or washes up on shore like gullimer from acnh

3:09: The door icon looks like a door, but the hand looks like a fist. I think there's too little finger and too much "palm". 9:46: It seems fine. The skill icon next to the +XP notification seems kinda...a lot, though. Maybe making it partially transparent would help it blend into the background when you're not focusing on it?

When do you estimate finishing this project?

I think your entire ui is very big! I didn't notice it till now cause I watched your vids on my phone but when you showed startdew I suddenly noticed the huge contrast! Do you plan to release foe mobile or is it just by chance?

Yoooo

My man, PLEASE tell me where I can listen to your OST you have so far. I NEED to just sit and chill while listening to it, please!!

I dont know if its just me but the hand looks a bit weird and wacky, but good job as always

im not sure if this is something you already have since this is the first devlog ive seen of this, but you should add character customisation. if thats even possible idk (im not a developer 💀)

I think you might be over designing the icons. A simple hand for pick up, arrow for in would work?

I wonder if the limitation in pixel size from your art style is limiting your ability to execute your vision for the game... have you thought about doubling your sprite sizes for the game art, I wonder how much closer to your vision you could get with I higher pixel rez

Wouldn't it be good to have an option to toggle those information on or off?

The XP UI feels a bit cluttered to me, esp when other things like disappearing corruption or dropped loot are added to it. maybe you could show the +4 (or however much it then is) sign next to the round progress bar item at the top? Then the player sees how much they earned and how much they need at the same time and you removed one cluttering item while not loosing any information. Love your devlogs, alwqys looking forward to the next one😊

The hand icon isn't very clear, neither is the door. I would change the hand to an upward pointing arrow. I would change the door icon to a semi-open door.

HOW did you Made the Outline on the Sprites ?

10:08 - 10:16 what are the jellyfish at the bottom of the screen doin?

toast i think is a little too big, other than that it looks great, you could do different color background for each different skill type.

Dig all your UI improvements, but the circular/radial xp total top of screen was hard to read - could be a thicker fill or perhaps another colour or even maybe a horizontal bar...? It's not as visually pleasing but it could better convey the level up information before the timer fades it away.

Did you study computer science or software engineering?

Circles look kinda bad at small scales => maybe use an octagon for skill progress?

The corruption shader effect you made a long time ago looks cool don't get me wrong. But it feels out of place since the rest of the environment is pixel art.

what game is @5:44? thanks

Abandon the pixel art fonts in your book and try a handwriting font scaled appropriately

I think it would be slightly better to write the name of the skill that leveled up. Perhaps the first line could say Mining and then second line could say Level 20.

Do you dedicate full time to Daulphin? Or do you have a second job?

I vote yes on pop ups! But I think your progress wheel graphic is nearly unreadable. Definately needsa a clearer design.

Honestly looking back to the first few devlogs, it's kinda scary seeing the progress and just how far everything has come

Like the video. How do you do game dev? I'm trying to get into it.

I think the pixels are very large and there is a very low density of them. This makes it difficult to give details to certain objects and not easy to understand what they are. In my opinion they look like small fuzzy blobs more than clear objects.

You should focus more on game play than visuals such as UI and Sprites it's nice having everything look good, but then the gameplay doesn't match the artistic detail

Its annoying me that it says "BAit" on the box 😅

your house windows are really low lol

the name "Megahombre" has been stuck in my head since ive been watching these devlogs... make it stop