PC Feature Prioritization | Patreon Poll #22 (Patreon)

Hey Patrons!

As discussed in today’s weekly, I am starting to seriously consider what I need to do to get the game ready for a release on PC platforms. In this poll I’m listing off all the major things I have considered so far, and I’d like your help prioritizing them!

Note that native executables and a bigger interface are not listed here as they’re necessities that I have to work on first no matter what my priorities are.

I should also note that all of the suggestions that change the UI would be optional. The current mobile interface would be an option to switch to in the settings, and similarly large mobile devices (e.g. tablets) would likely be able to access the PC interface.

The results of this poll will help me prioritize features to add to the PC version of Shattered before it is released early next year.

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Please vote for all the options that you like, not just for your one favourite! I allow multiple votes as it means that a higher proportion of people will end up voting for the winning choice.

All patrons are encouraged to share their opinion by commenting and voting, but currently only the votes from Golden+ Supporters are counted when determining a poll winner. Votes from Shattered Supporters are worth double!

Inventory in Main UI

With a lot more screen real-estate, there’s no reason that the most frequently used game interface should be hidden behind a window. I want to move the inventory into the bottom-right of the main game interface and allow the player to do all inventory-based UI interaction right from the main interface.

More Details in Main UI

Just like with the inventory, there is loads of space in the main UI for other additional info. For example, I might like to show enemy and ally information in the top-left, giving the player more info at a glance that just a hovering health bar. This could include info like active buffs/debuffs, health, and character names.

Full Keyboard Support

Currently the game is mostly playable with keyboard and no mouse, but there are a few specific game elements (mostly window interaction) which require a mouse. It would be nice to give the game some form of keyboard selection functionality so that these interfaces could be navigated with arrow keys or similar. This would let the game be fully playable without a pointing device. Lots of this functionality would likely be usable for controllers as well, as using tab/arrow keys to select UI elements would be similar to using a controller stick.

Controller Support

Just like with keyboards, some players are going to want to play the game with a controller instead of a mouse. Currently Shattered has no controller support at all, so I would like to add at least partial, and hopefully full, controller support for users who prefer to play with them. The steam version of PD purportedly supports controllers, so that would likely be a starting point for considering controller functionality.

Mouse Hover Support & Right-Click Menus

Tapping on a screen and using a mouse have some similarities, but mice have additional functionality that the game isn’t currently using. I’d like to take advantage of this by adding contextual game actions for hovering and right clicking. For instance, when hovering over an enemy the game may display “attack x” under the cursor, to signify the action to be performed. Right clicking the enemy would cause a menu to appear that would let you do additional secondary actions, such as “examine x”. This sort of functionality could be used all over the game and its interface.

Hotbar Functionality

Just like with the inventory, a lot more screen real-estate and buttons means that it should be easy to expand quickslot functionality. Rather than the current 4 slots I might try to add a full-fledged hotbar above the inventory, which the player could use to assign items to the numeric keys on their keyboard (bar slots could also have their keys re-mapped, of course). It may even be possible to roll game action functionality into this hotbar (e.g. searching), but I don’t want to commit to that before testing out how that functionality feels.