MENUS
I was asked to redo the old menu. It used to look kind of fiddly and cluttered, so we had to come up with a way to make it clean and simple and still make it look like a part of the Kingdom artstyle. This is what the old menu looked like:
We tried couple of things for new menu. Hanging buttons, like a sign hanging from a building, banners, signs on a wall with chains. Eventually we came up with a wall that slides in from the side. The buttons are stones embedded in the wall.
The reason we chose the wall was that it resembles the walls you build to defend your kingdom. The stone buttons were chosen because they worked better with 'highlighted' and 'pressed' animations. Something that proved rather tedious with the hanging buttons.
The shield you can see in the screenshots above are a way to track your progress. You will get more ornaments on your shield if you progress through the game, for example when you escape from an island.
The pop-up menus slightly resemble a dark wooden board, with lighter wooden buttons sticking out. The thing we had to keep in mind here was making it look good and simple, but also making sure the menus and buttons would work for touch-based devices (phones, tablets). We didn't want to have to redo the whole menu when porting to touch devices.
UNLOCKABLES
The idea for the map came about when we decided to add unlockables for Kingdom: New Lands. A lot of the new content for Kingdom: New Lands isn't available right away, you have to find signposts in order to unlock new locations, and that's where the map comes in.
When the development for Kingdom: New Lands just started out we didn't have the idea for adding islands yet. So you can see the map developed with the rest of the game, adding more locations and changing the whole layout.
As you can see above, the right most map is the final one. It might look a bit empty compared to the other sketches, but as with the menus, the map needed to be simple and clear. On top of that it needed to be adjustable for different resolutions, something that's not doable with any of the earlier maps.
It's a shame we had to throw away the middle map, I particularly liked that one because of all the little 'locations' depicted on the map itself. But that's how it works, kill your darlings and such.
SKETCHES
Make sure you watch the Kingdom: New Lands trailer below, and head over to STEAM if you want to see how long you can last!
