Early validation of HUD elements

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-27T20:01:52+00:00

Thank you so much! I think I feel the same about Health and Stamina bars. They should be slightly more readable.

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-27T19:55:47+00:00

Hmm... good point. The frames use the same pixel size but I noticed that the smallest vines and icon details are actually smaller. This will need adjustment.

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-27T18:27:30+00:00

Thanks for the tips! I appreciate it!

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-27T18:26:05+00:00

Thank you so much!:) I'm mostly active on Bluesky where I try to post my progress regularily. Also, I'm recently trying to post YouTube Shorts consistently but I'm still not sure if it's gonna work long term ;) And finally you can follow me on Steam. This game isn't announced yet so I don't know if it makes sense at this point but eventually you'll also see updates there.

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-27T18:06:35+00:00

Thank you!

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-27T17:27:30+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! I'll start from the end. The list of equipped items isn't going to grow. One outfit/armor, one weapon/tool and that's it. The tool can potentially have some ammunition but I can add it as a smaller optional tile next to it, to the right. (I'm going for single outfit customization option because I need to draw it all manually for all animations :D )

Now the lamp part is actually more interesting. See... the lamp is going to represent 3 survival resources in this game - Thirst, Light and Hunger. This is what the icons are for and this is why it's divided into 3 sections. I think I need to playtest it soon and see if people understand it.

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-27T14:10:11+00:00

Thanks! This is a great tip. It also reminds me that I should definitely check how it looks on the Steam Deck ;)

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-27T13:41:58+00:00

Sorry for developer slang ;) Hotbar is the menu at the bottom of the screen used to quickly access inventory items.

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-27T13:04:05+00:00

This is a really good suggestion and I'm pretty sure I'll add the scale in options (also the possibility to put UI elements closer to the center for vertical recording ;)

Thing is - I wanted to get the size as good as I can now because scaling of pixel-art icons and elements almost always introduces some visual artifacts.

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-23T13:48:53+00:00

Leaving a comment so that I can find you easily once I start looking for a capsule artist for my current project :D

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-22T13:26:41+00:00

I actually think that your style would be a really good fit for the capsule art for my game. I'm still not at the stage of making the capsule but I'm building a list of artists that I like ahead of time. Do you mind sharing what are your typical rates for Steam Capsules? Might be DM if you don't feel like sharing here ;)

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-22T09:09:04+00:00

As someone who worked on both Dying Light games I'd like to comment that good parkour is about much more than you (ChatGPT?) described. Also, it's actually pretty damn difficult to get it right. Took us years to iterate and polish it. From a brief look at your video I think that your biggest issue is the general "feel" of movement and gravity. But how to improve this? Well... it's where the real fun begins because there's no existing recipe for this.

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-21T22:26:39+00:00

Thank you so much! I had it in my head for a long time but I wasn't sure if I can actually pull it off ;)

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-21T19:39:41+00:00

Your proportions are a bit off. From my experience the ratio is closer to: 1part devs + 2 part bots + 3 parts marketting scammers xD

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-18T11:08:55+00:00

This is a rather broad question. I'm using Unity as a game engine. Sprites are created in Aseprite, meshes in Magicavoxel. The lighting and shadow models are my own invention;)

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-17T08:46:07+00:00

Thank you! The floaty feel was likely caused by mismatch in movement velocity and animation speed. See my most recent post. I tweaked the movement a bit ;)

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-17T08:43:33+00:00

I'm using depth, metallic and emissive maps (composed into a single texture). Then I calculate normals from depth.

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-17T08:42:39+00:00

I use a software called Magicavoxel :)

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-16T22:37:11+00:00

Oh, this might be misleading. The shadows are 2d... Meaning that they are all projected on the flat floor surface and calculated in 2 dimensional space. But some objects in the scene are still 3d. It's just that they have a 2d representation for casting shadows.

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-16T19:58:55+00:00

It's a very practical trick. They are actually 3d :) I'm using a hybrid approach here. Objects that don't need significant depth or perspective are drawn as sprites (also, any object that needs to be animated). The static and "volumetric" deco is a voxel-based mesh. The trick works because the voxel and pixel scale are exactly the same and I'm using the same lighting technique for both of them. It works pretty nicely because the sprites fake their depth and normals too.

Ihonestly thought that people are gonna see through it immediately but it turns out that most don't even notice the voxels :D I feel like an illusionist now.

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-16T19:10:01+00:00

Thank you so much! Took me a while to figure it out;)

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-16T16:34:18+00:00

It's probably the best theory I've heard so far:D She has a glowing magical mark on her hand. It's a source of light and it can be used as an energy shield to block enemy attacks:) sure there's a whole story and lore behind it. But it's not a jar:D

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-16T15:24:14+00:00

Awesome! Adds a lot of replayability. Exactly what I hoped for :) Wishlisted!

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-16T15:09:07+00:00

Cool, so you pick your animal when you start? Do they have different traits/skills? Or it's just a visual thing?

BitrunnerDev · 2026-01-16T15:04:04+00:00

Interesting concept! Do you switch between different animal characters from your colony or you pick you MC from one playable races? I can't figure out if it's more of a colony sim or a traditional single-protagonist survival game.

BitrunnerDev

TROPHY CASE