Preview of New Layouts

[Kaz]

We're getting closer to having the artwork done, so I have started the process of mocking up ideas for new layouts that take advantage of all the art I've been investing in.

At the moment these are not ready to go, but I ought to be able to roll them out pretty quickly once all the art is finally completed.

I thought it was time to post them in here and give you guys a preview of what is planned.

This is an example for the how the homepage might look
http://www.monarchygame.com/devtheme

This is an example for the game layout showing a Dwarven Barnabas kingdom.
http://www.monarchygame.com/devtheme/base.htm

[Vilena]

Firstly - NICE JOB!

Secondly - would go for a different font on the "MONARCHY" frame on home page. It doesn't seem to match that great looking background. Bring up that page again now with that in mind... do you see what I mean?

Thirdly - and most likely born of more personal ideas where the Goddess Angelique is concerned - the arms in the graphic make her seem more "warrior goddess" which she wasn't in the old stories. And which she is not. No offense to that Angelique of course ;>

Somehow I always pictured that One as hmm --> does "sexy-yet-'stately'" make sense?

[Kaz]

Glad you like them (in general).

I'm not really sure what you mean by the 'Monarchy Frame', but if you're referring to the new Logo then I actually really like the font, and it's pretty much what I asked for when I paid to have the logo created. It's a custom font, with custom texturing so it can't just be swapped out without redoing the entire logo.

Monarchy Logo

If that's not what you mean, and you're referring the simple text "The land is Tonan ... ... the game is Monarchy ... ... the choices are yours!" then that's still under construction, I'm not 100% sure on that bit yet.

As for the Angelique image, again I personally like it, and it was drawn and paid for almost a year ago now, it's some of the earlier artwork and has been in the gallery on the boards now since September 2013.

gallery/image_page.php?album_id=2&image_id=193

Sorry if you don't like it, but I guess I can't get everything perfect for everyone. That won't actually be the image used for her on the final layout though because it's picturing Angelique the goddess rather than the mortal queen of Istan.

[Fireslash]

looks great man

~Fire

[Kaz]

This is by no means a final design, but I've taken the game layout previously posted and created a sorcery screen layout that uses the new sorcery artwork.

This layout includes options that don't currently exist, and is not totally finished, but it's done enough to see what you think of it.

Click the X to get rid of the summary of the previous turn spent, I'm testing out some alternative ways of displaying data and this is one of them.

http://www.monarchygame.com/devtheme/sorc.htm

[Nymphsong]

Kaz,

That Sorcery screen looks great, although I must admit, I do not recognize all of the Sorcery options, which came as a nice surprise to me.

I think this is headed in the right direction for sure.

Whoever you got doing your artwork is worth the weight in pounds!

This kind of piggy backs onto another theme that you had a while back with a card game so to speak. I think that a card game could work, combined with this type of artwork. If your plan is to go complex you will need more artists, if you want to keep it simple one artist will be fine. I would recommend keeping it simple as in three gods (maybe expand in Oleana or old Gods in later expansions). Probably start off with a concept simply like the card game "Three Dragon Ante" easy to learn, and then as things progress, make the game more complex. Also, if the game picks up steam, having an online version like MTG would not be a bad idea. So, yes I think this art is a door that has needed opening for some time now.

[Kaz]

I've already got a concept in mind for a card game that's nothing like any other card game I know of. I need artwork for all the buildings before it's feasible though, but I think the basic premiss that I have in mind will work well. It's not yet ready for any kind of testing because it's got a lot of incomplete elements, but I'll add a basic overview of the game to the development forum if you're interested in reading it.

The other spells that are not in the game, but are on the design, are spells that I've had in mind for a while. There are a few extra images for the war screen too. The layout will probably roll out without these extra spells and war options. But I'll start work on coding them once the aesthetic overhaul is completed.

The extras are

Sorcery:

Elan Spells
Both of these were taken from ideas for canon ghost orchid, only the names of the spells were ever actually coded, but you can sort of guess what the intent was to be.
Elan Drain - I think this was originally intended to be an offensive spell for draining elan, but I thought I'd go a bit different and make it a spell where you take elan from an ally
Sacrifise Troops - This one is pretty self explanatory. Some of your troops die and you get elan in return

Invocation Spells
These are a mixture of existing spells and old spells and are like summon troops, but for buildings.
Divine Temples - is just another name for the Sidhe spell Summon Circles
Shifting Walls - is the name from an old Oleana spell that summoned forts. Not sure how that one worked, so my version might end up different to the original

Summon Spells
This is basically me reusing all the old summon spell names from the past to create a series of summon spells that allow you to pick which troop type that you summon

Shield Spells
This is me wanting to make use of all the current shield spell names. I'm thinking the shields will be sorc, war and scum, but am not 100% settled yet.

Fog Spells
This is again me wanting to make use of all the various names for the different spells (like I did with the offensive spells already)
I'm currently not sure exactly how I'll make fog variations yet

War

Siege (or destroy forts) - Havn't decided on a full idea for this yet. But it's likely to be simialr to GR but use T3, T4 and Scum instead. It's also likely to make use of Catapults and Balista

Build Catapults - You'll have a maximum amount that can be built (per race) and they will make building destruction easier. Not certain if they will have a use outside of the seige attack.

Build Balista - You'll have a maximum amount that can be built (per race) and they will make siege equipment and troop destruction easier. Not certain if they will have a use outside of the siege attack.

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These are all very early concept ideas though and are subject to change. I just needed to fill some numbers when doing these actions, and having 8 attack types on each screen made sense.

I'm also considering removing the racial special skills, just so that I can make use of the artwork for all races, rather than just one in some cases. But again, that's still in idea mode.

[DarkAtla]

Well.

I for one am very excited.

[Nato]

Yeah, man! Look at all those words! When do we start?!

[DarkAtla]

I just want to click those exciting little buttons :>

[Kaz]

I'm currently waiting for a couple of artists to finish off the concept inks for the final 2 races (Fae and Centaur). Once I have the final artwork for those races I can start using it.

The downside to having so many races to chose from is that I can't really make use of the artwork until it's all done, otherwise some races look good and others, not so much. Upside, is that when it 'is' all finally ready, we get quite a considerable aesthetic overhaul.

In total I'm getting 15 images of the gods, mortals and prophets, 50 images of troop types and 24 images for various in game options. That's 89 bits of artwork total (for this phase at least).

Currently out of the 15 total images for the gods/prophets/mortal kings, we have 6 gods fully finished, 5 done as inks and 4 in-progress. With the troops types we have 40 fully finished, 4 done as inks and 6 in progress. With the in-game options all 24 images are done. At some point I'd also like to get 60 different building images done, but I don't have a budget for that, at least not at this moment in time.

The overhaul won't be ready for the next reset which is due pretty soon, but - fingers crossed - I very much hope it will be ready in time for the next one.