Hi,

Even very first prototype of “2015” Nightkeep had some kind of menu.

As you may know (might not know), game was originally inspired by NES castlevania from 1986.

The very first menu of Nightkeep had pause-like function. It was static screen where you could see your stats and gear, however that’s where the fun ended as well. It was NES- style focused and now when I look back at it, it was really dark and gloomy.

So when hero turned out to be a heroine. I decided to change menu concept. It was very similar to the original menu. Tho you could actually operate it now. And select one of 5 sections. Map, items, weapons and relics, gemstones and options. Below is shown old system that enabled to a gemstone.

In this time game was still retro-focused but with the upcoming changes, menu started to abandon the retro-feel as whole game did. Another no longer used

Now why to do it easy-why when you can do it very complicated and change the menu 10x right ? Not literally, but every retouch of menu in year 2016 was very time-consuming operation. I don’t miss these parts of development. Yet it’s still not the finale.

Menu changed its structure and sample above worked quite well for some time. But not for long, as I started to change some old graphic of the game I realized I need to change menu once again, but I decided it’s for the very last time. I need to set up the standard.

Current menu works pretty well and covers every need so far, but skill section. So I had plenty trial and errors menu during this 2015-2017 year period. It just happened with the time. Game changed from retro small project to much larger one. Rather than nes, i got inspired by Playstation at the end.

About Nostalgia Trips.
While Nightkeep was developed since 2015, I really didn’t share more of it here on gamejolt. I think I could have done it way sooner. While game itself is postponed due igg failure and I am working on small side project now, I will try to keep Nightkeep’s log alive with so called Nostalgia trips, where I’d like to cover development info that you missed.

Sorry for my English.
-PixelABCD