Finalizing Menus

Now that most of Chrysanthemum's UI (user interface) was fully functional, it seemed about time to make it look just as nice as it felt. The first thing that I needed to do was to create a finalized logo, title, and dedicated font to give the game its unique style. I ended up using a color scheme that resembles the chrysanthemum flower: yellow and green. I wanted the logo to be floral, but more of a symbolic depiction of a chrysanthemum rather than an accurate one.

Chrysanthemum font and title displayed the left.

Chrysanthemum logo displayed on the right.

I then began implementing that new style into the UI design. I changed out all of the text in the game with the new font (Gamaliel by Rafael Ferrani Peralta), added the logos throughout the title and pause screens, and put the title on display front and center of the main menu. I also ended up changing the background color of the menu because with the new logo and title, everything just looked too dark and green-tinted. So to combat that, I decided to use a lighter blue to make the menu feel brighter and convey the style of the game better.

A view of the updated main menu screen.

A view of the updated custom inputs screen.

In addition to finalizing the style of the UI, I also made a few functional changes to it, as well. I added confirmation upon trying to exit the game from the pause menu to warn the player that they may lose data if they exit then. That should help to prevent accidental exits that cause data loss and frustrate the player. I also realized that I had not added a way to exit the game from the main menu screen in the first iteration, so I included that in the changes.

A view of the confirmation screen when trying to exit the pause menu.

Justin Simmons

07/14/21