I’m going to preface this by saying that work on the user interface is probably my least favorite kind of programming. It’s tedious and boring, and doesn’t feel very productive. But once it’s done, it makes a world of difference. Since the first Possession was whipped together in a week, it didn’t have that much polish, though I think it was pretty good for being made in only 7 days. I’d like Possession 2 to be much more accessible, better-looking, and playable, though, so I’ve been doing some work towards that end.

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The sidebars used to just be drawn as a simple square. I whipped up a border to use instead, and also made it adjust based on how much information needs to be shown rather than just taking up the entire side of the screen. It also shows you the special abilities you can use in your current body, and you can now press the number listed to use that ability instead of having to go through the spell screen.

One thing you can see in that picture is something entirely new: A menu that shows up when you right click on an enemy or square. It lists the abilities you can use on the targeted location, which means that the game can now be played entirely with the mouse, if you want. (Actually, that’s not completely true yet, you still have to use the keyboard to go up and down stairs).

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Another other thing I’ve been working on is changing the stat system of the game. In Possession 1, every creature had a “Hit Chance” and a “Dodge Chance. But what made things confusing is that the actual hit chance was the “Hit Chance” of the attacker minus the “Dodge Chance” of the defender, so a 50% hit chance could in reality be, say, a 10% hit chance if the attacker had a high dodge score. This also led to silliness like some creatures having a 120% hit chance. I’ve gotten rid of that, and just gone to a basic “hit skill” and “dodge skill” system. Since those numbers aren’t quite as intuitive as hit chances, the game now shows you the chance of hitting (or being hit by) an enemy when you target them.

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Here’s what the Monsterpedia, which contains information about the monsters you’re possessed, looks like now. In the first game, it was just kind of a jumble, the creatures were just listed in there based on which ones you possessed first, but now they’re sorted by level, and the list is scrollable. It also tracks your stats with the individual creatures, showing how many times you’re possessed a creature type, how many times you’ve exploded one, as well as how many kills you’re made and turns you’ve played as a creature.

I’d like to get some feedback on all these interface changes, which is hard to do without people actually playing with them. Luckily, it actually looks like the game’s going to be in a stable enough state (though still nowhere near finished, content-wise) to release a playable dev version soon. And by soon I mean “hopefully this week.” So stay tuned for that.