Shadowrun: Dragonfall – Director’s Cut Dev Diary #4: New Visuals & UI

The latest Shadowrun: Dragonfall – Director’s Cut dev diary has been published by Harebrained Schemes on Kickstarter, and it includes info on the visual and UI improvements for this stand-alone re-release of the Shadowrun: Dragonfall campaign. Here’s a snippet:

Interface Improvements

Last week, Trevor talked about all of the new combat mechanics we’ve implemented. To emphasize the new systems and new data, our combat UI has also seen a similar upgrade to more clearly show you each potential target’s status. You’ll see a different targeting disc beneath enemies depending on whether you have a (clear shot), i.e. if you are flanking the enemy’s cover position or if they are standing out in the open, vs. if they are in cover. On mouse-over you’ll also be able to see exactly what type of cover the enemy is in, and we’ve made the shield icons representing cover state more obvious above enemy heads.

We’ve also updated our health bar display to show how much Armor each character in combat has, represented by white (pips) above the bar itself. Each attack that hits now includes quick animated feedback on how much armor was applied against the damage being dealt, how much armor (if any) was stripped by special attacks, and how much damage was done. This is complemented by some improvements to our above-head text (floaties) that appear when you attack. Lastly, this is a small thing, but world interaction icons now have a short text description attached to them, similar to characters, that appears when you mouse-over them (or when you hold down the ALT key to reveal them.) This is nice when you’ve got a lot of inspects or pickups in one place and you’d like to know what you’re dealing with before clicking.