The basis for the new menu screen. This is where the biggest changes between the old game and the new may be seen, as this is entirely redesigned from scratch.

As you can see all it does now is showing Wendicka's face. The left panel will be used to show the basic statistics, and the right panel will be used for all other stuff. The same setup has been used in The Fairy Tale REVAMED and is by the way also used in the upcoming .NET version of The Secrets of Dyrt.

Why the big change here? Because I felt it to be needed. I did notice I made some mistakes in the UI of the original Star Story, however I knew back then that all I could do to fix those issues was remaking the entire game. Since that's what I'm doing right now anyway (as the old engine has gone down the drain as the compiler that engine was written in no longer works and me facing issues with newer computers with that engine, to the remake is needed to preserve the game for the future) I can improve things greatly. Since your inventory also houses items that can influence your statistics by simply carrying them around (since in Star Story all characters have their own item back this was easy to do) you do want to see the effects more easily, right? The achievement board, although not a really personal thing, but for the game as a whole will also be brought here.

The basic working will be the same though. You can give items to other characters, you can decide to use stuff etc. etc. Most of that will be the same as in the original engine. There will be a "use" button in inventory screens, but that button is actually only needed for touch-screen devices, since they cannot simulate a right mouse button. The right mouse button can still be used to use stuff.

When it comes to savegame transfer, I think I have good news, but no promises yet. The new engine uses the same character database as the original. That was easier to port to C++ than I could have imagined. This will make savegame transfer easier when it comes to characters, their initials stats, levels, abilities and personal inventories. Bad news could be for the points used to count powerup on abilities, however having to reset those will have no effect on the powerups already unlocked, and those you still gotta unlock will merely start the process anew and can still be unlocked anyway... It only will take longer. I am still studying if I can prevent that. The bad news is that it will very likely NOT be possible to transfer the story line data, as that's the point where the engine is by far too different from the old. Of course, restarting the story may not be too much issue with levels, abilities and items too high for the starting dungeons 🤣... At least I hope you don't mind too much. I am already glad I could preserve what I got here.

A separate utility for savegame transfer will likely be coded in C#, so .NET will be required there. It was simply the quicker way to go.

And that brings us up-to-date, I think.