Arbiter - Monthly Recap - June 2023

If you're wondering why this is two weeks late—Clive. That is all.

June was hell. Work-wise it actually went pretty well, but my soul was nearly broken by CONSTANT social commitments. One of which was a wedding but the other of which was a bachelor's party weekend that was 5.5 HOURS AWAY. Imagine a supposed "good friend" asking so much of you?? And on Clive's release weekend?? The audacity??

But I did my duty as requested. Such is the burden I bear as an honorable squire of Lord Rosfield. But afterwards I took a fat ass vacation since I haven't had a break in a LONG time and needed it to repair my soul on top of wanting some time to really sink my teeth into FF16. I'm still getting back into work-mode, but I'm least feeling a little rested and all the more inspired. Yippee!!

You Eye

I spent pretty well the entirety of June finally working on Arby's UI! It was a PROCESS and admittedly one I'd rather break down in an exclusive post, but things are going well! 

I spent the first week or so prototyping and getting feedback on a bunch of different ideas. It was tough because Arby's a pretty in-depth game with a lot of information that needs to be immediately visible, but I also really don't like overbearing or distracting UI that takes too much attention away from the actual game. After many attempts however, I eventually found something I'm pretty happy with! 

This was my overall concept for the HUD, made in Photoshop. I made probably around 20~ different versions of this until I found one that satisfied me, and this felt like the closest I could get to what I was going for. I'm still working to get all of these elements implemented in-game, but so far so good!

There were a LOT of considerations that led me to this design—most of which ended up being a balance between utility and aesthetic. I've always loved the KH's bottom right health bar placement, but it was tricky to fit with everything else! Thankfully some friends helped me distill it down to the bare essentials, and I feel pretty good about where we ended up.

On the right side you have abilities, energy, health, and healing items (those little green orbs). I'm still working on the ability window but the plan is to have it slide out your equipped abilities when you have the button held. The rest is pretty straightforward.

On the left is where I'll be handling the transformations. I don't have art for it yet, but essentially each diamond will have an image of one of the bosses you've sealed, and you press the corresponding direction on the D-Pad to transform into them. You can only do that when the transformation gauge (the orange diamond) is full however, but once transformed you'll be able to swap between forms easily. Gameplay!

There's still a lot to polish and implement, but overall I feel pretty good about it! I do want to make it a bit flashier and fun in some areas, as well as see how everything looks with the boss portraits in there. There are some elements I want to be animated as well, so that'll be a whole 'nother thing to figure out too. Still, the UI is progressing well and without much trouble now that I've solidified its layout, so I'm excited to start banging out the rest of the elements over the next couple weeks!

State of the World

I've also settled on an environmental concept artist! We started talking about Arbiter's world, lore, aesthetic, and characters, as well as all the little details that make up each level. I spent a good chunk of time preparing some documentation and references to make their job as easy as possible, and they've already got some ideas in terms of which direction we can go. 

In hindsight I'm glad I spent the time I did figuring out the game's art pipeline, but I do wish I hired someone a bit earlier to figure out the overall aesthetic. It's so nice having an experienced artist give their impression of my world and be able to visualize and communicate it in a ways I never could. I'm hoping this allows me to remove a lot of the guesswork from each level's aesthetic so that I can just start building assets and properly putting them together, but like most things I imagine it'll be a lot of iterating to fully realize the world we conceptualize. Nevertheless it feels great to have this cooking on the side while I work on UI, so I'm excited to show you guys what we build together over the next few months or so!

Return to Valisthea

All in all, not a bad month! Thanks to all the besties who helped me figure out the UI layout—it was a struggle but hey, we got there! I'm still technically on vacation so I'm going to enjoy the last bit of FF16 I have to finish and then properly get back to work. The game has been dominating my mind lately so I really need to just get it out of my system before I'm back in full swing. It's been a humbling and inspiring whirlwind to play through, but I can pretty confidently say it's my favourite game of all time, period. 

Although I'm finding a lot of sobering similarities between 16 and Arby, it warms my heart to finally see Square reclaim their mantle as some of the best storytellers in the business. I was already aggressively resonating with the game prior to release, but having played it now I'm finding that every single session just elevates it higher and higher in my mind. In combining all of the different pieces of media I've loved over the years (FF, KH, Dark Fantasy, AoT, GoT, etc.) they've somehow created what is quite literally the perfect video game for me. I want to go over it proper in a separate post, but suffice it to say I am extremely satisfied and the game has more than surpassed the hype for me. I would gladly let Master Rosfield dominate my humble soul. 🧎‍♂️

Anyways, thanks for the support as always folks! Sorry these two months are gonna be a bit light on content, but I think once the UI is in-game and I start properly cooking the first level, this thing's gonna start looking like an actual videogame! Crazy! Take care guys.

Submissive Squire to Dominant Clive Rosfield,
Jordy