Nov 15

📝⌨📱UMeFate Pre-Alpha: UI - Lua Modding in Dev (Technical)

UMeFate - Antypodish

Dear UMes 🤗

UMeFate is on track to refactor UI with modding capabilities. Since this is an intensive and long process, we want to share current progress. Even if it is not finished yet and work will most likely spill into December of 2025. For that reason, this time, I have recorded a video, focusing on the more technical side.

The initial post discussing UI refactoring dates back to September 2025, just after the last pre-alpha tech demo release v0.0.9. Now it is mid-November and this process is still ongoing. You can read about the start of the UI refactoring work in our blog post

https://steamcommunity.com/games/3082340/announcements/detail/547873227591910008?snr=2___

List Of Discussed Topics

UI Refactoring Direction
UI Refactoring Bi-Product
That Is Not About Perfection
Currently Working On
What Next

UI Refactoring Direction

In the Ingame Feedback System and Lua Modding In Works blog post, we have discussed reasons, requirements and challenges regarding the current UI rework.

In short, there was a need to fix existing bugs in the UI and to expand its functionality. That wouldn’t be possible, without spending some development time doing so. But that work would need to be done regardless of the approach, weather sooner, or later. One of the future points on the roadmap was, to make the UI more moddable. It was clear at this point that if time was spent on expanding functionality using the current UI system, making moddable UI will be much more complex. If not prohibitively difficult. Just as if the UI had been designed, before implementing split-screen.

UI modding should be based heavily on the Lua side. Which can seemingly integrate with other Lua mechanics.

Weighing pros and cons of UI improvement vs refactoring, UMeFate gravitated toward refactoring. And even if the current UI refactoring is on the positive side, there is always a second thought, if this refactoring should take place. Or if I should wait for later.

Considering that early 2025 was focused on refactoring various systems, to support split-screen (including UI), and seeing the benefits paying off now, I believe that allowing modding UI, it will help and improve further UI and other various system implementations.

Lua based UI modding allows to change many UI behaviours and the layout at the runtime. In the updates this should also be possible from the game itself. That means, no need for access to code compilers, making game builds, or compiling script files. Most of this should be able to be done on the fly.

With all the current work, visual aspects are not treated as the priority. Graphics of the UI will be part of the future design. The current target is to prepare solid foundations and mechanics of UI. And to allow adding graphical elements in the future, when the right time comes. Consider this as a visual placeholder. But layout should be built to function. This effectively dictates the visual design.

UI Refactoring Bi-Product

However, in the above discussion, there is already a massive gain from the current refactoring. Implementing UI with Lua modding capability, has forced a restructuring and improvement on the core of the Lua modding itself. Something which would have to be done anyway, before starting work on UMes autonomy and other players’ interactions. As a result, part of the work is offset into UI development time.This potentially accelerating future work. To keep in mind, none of these are simple, or short duration tasks.

What Has Changed?

As per the video, a lot of new systems have been added and expanded. Some have been refactored already, or largely refactored. The old UI is marked as obsolete and will be removed, when Lua based UI will be replicated, to match the current UI state. But for now, the old UI is used as a reference point.

At the same time, the modding directory has expanded. Now Lua based UI has the ability, to use custom icons. Localisation config files allow replacing and in the future to change languages from the main menu. Layout structure allows to configure desired UI look. And finally, Lua files allow you to implement the behaviour of the UI.

However, creating new UI elements, will be using predefined UI prefabs. These UI elements come from the engine, where they are defined what they look like, or partially how they behave. Hence for now, for an example, slider, input field etc. the appearance will be limited in terms of modding. That way, changing a few prefab components on the engine side, will maintain the visual style of the whole UI layout. And preventing UI mods from breaking. This may evolve in the future.

That Is Not About Perfection

Another UI refactoring into Lua moddability is not about perfection. In fact, certain development decisions have been taken, to shorten the UI refactoring. Like the mentioned UI prefab elements, defined on the engine side. But from personal experience, understanding future development challenges and risks, the gut tells, this is the right time to do so, if UI Lua modding is an important aspect of UMeFate.

It is important to note, no 3D life simulator has ever done split-screen, as far as I am aware. And few games have done split-screen in such a way as UMeFate. Minecraft, with a split-screen on consoles, is probably the closest game in terms of split-screen and UI mechanics that I can recall.

Another note is that refactoring of the UI has allowed, to detect various issues with the current UI design. Which primarily I was happy with. But along with adding the new functionality, certain defects started emerging. And led to growing into a tech debt. So new UI design tackles these issues.

But making UI modding, without mentioned steps of the previous UI development, could be even more cumbersome. And potentially lead to other issues, since various problems were already tackled in the previous design over the duration of 2025. Yet avoiding getting into tech debt.

Currently Working On

Current work is focusing on implementing a feedback / bug report system. Also, looking into all related mechanics, such as buttons functionality, opening and closing UI panels. And also refining UI components and other mechanics as development progresses.

What Next

After finishing implementing functional feedback system, work will move onto:

Implementing game options.
Then to implement functionality of the construction menu, which already has a layout placed. There are some panels, which are hidden and not shown on the video.
Need to build a new UI element prefab, which will be used to save / load map, game (in future), place construction blueprints, or objects. These are currently in a game. But they need to move into Lua UI.
Refine how certain elements are displayed. For example, to move away from the right hand side panel, to a dedicated panel, which opens on demand. Like spawning a new object menu. Something looking closer to Factorio / Minecraft, rather than other current life sim games. This now will be much easier with new UI design.
Test split screen functionality.
Test map editor functionality.
Test the whole game loop, with the game lobby menu.

After Lua UI work, then development can move to address list of feedback and bugs, reported by UMeFate lovely playtesters.
Then push an update to Steam. And finally start work on autonomy mechanics.

And that's all for today's update. 🙂

Until the next one 👋

Nov 15

Release Notes - Version 1.1

Dolven - dolvengame

**Release Date:** November 14, 2025

**TL;DR**

- Brand-new save slot system.
- New game, continue, and loadout flows now protect progress and streamline party management.
- Updated splash branding, fonts, and localization coverage alongside key bug fixes and tests.

## What's New

### New Save Slot System

- Introduced a brand-new manual save slot system on the title screen, letting you create, browse, and load multiple saves alongside the current auto-save.
- Added a fully localized `Save Slots` menu with dedicated save/load dialogs, allowing you to browse every manual slot and the current auto-save in one place.
- Each save entry now shows party composition, dungeon theme, score, completed rooms, and timestamp so you always know exactly where a run left off.
- The title screen now spawns a live preview of your last party.

### Smarter New Game & Continue Flow

- `New Game` detects when the current run has not been moved into a slot and prompts you to convert the auto-save before wiping progress, preventing accidental loss.
- New `Save Slots` access on the title screen respects license restrictions but remains available whenever manual saves exist.
- Save deletion and overwrite prompts now use reusable confirmation dialogs across all supported languages.

### Loadout Character Management

- The Loadout UI lets you either load existing heroes from your auto-save or generate a fresh roster, making it faster to jump back into a run or try a new party.
- Added class availability icons and improved slot handling so you can see which archetypes are already in use while recruiting.

### Presentation & Localization

- Updated the TKFY splash screen to the latest branding and removed the default Unity splash for a cleaner startup.
- Expanded SDF font atlases and localization strings for the new save/load experience across English, German, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Chinese.

## Quality of Life Improvements

- Serialization now tracks save metadata and exposes APIs to copy auto-saves into slots, delete individual saves, and query slot availability.
- Title party preview pillars display localized character names and classes, improving readability in every language.
- Additional UI polish ensures buttons disable correctly in convention/demo modes while still surfacing available saves.

## Bug Fixes

- Fixed the Displace Enemy spell so it now behaves as expected during combat.
- Teleport afflictions reliably return both players and enemies to their starting tiles, backed by new regression tests.
- Addressed several edge cases during save loading that previously left orphaned party previews or stale UI state.

## Testing & Stability

- Added comprehensive serialization unit tests covering slot metadata, auto-save copy flows, and restore operations.
- Expanded playmode coverage for teleport mechanics to guard against future regressions.

Nov 15

PROJECT MIX Demo Patch #4 - Immersion Update and more!

PROJECT MIX - blackjack27304

This is a major update for the demo, with several improvements for immersion and quality-of-life.

When clicking the exit to Menu button, the game will now ask you to confirm with “Are You Sure?”
If you anger Saya enough, she will now shoot you to death, and you will have to restart from the last checkpoint.
Shaders are now preloaded at the beginning of the demo, so there are no more stutters when new objects appear.
Completely remade the bedroom view — it’s now much more detailed and full of life, from tailored shopfronts to animated NPCs.
Updated the rooftop street view so that it now includes shopfronts for added immersion.
Retextured numerous assets to better fit the stylized vision of the game.
Refined the sliding physics — you can now slide almost every item across the counter.
Added boob wind physics — if you slide items near a bosom, it will jiggle according to the force.
Fixed remote-grabbing bottle caps; they now snap to the correct position.
Added a cat fedora and ray-bans so you can get a taste of decorating the cat.
Added in Press Any Button screen for vibes.
Added in Shaolin beer in bedroom so you can chuck beer out.
Cigarette lighter and pack now respawn if you throw it out onto the streets (unless you throw it on top of an alien collider)
You can now open and close the bedroom closet
Updated Chinese text on vending machine so that it makes more sense
Fixed issue where background characters couldn't be quite fully visible or fully faded out

For Chinese players: Next week, I will be at WePlay Shanghai, China to show off PROJECT MIX — see you there if you’re going!

Besides these demo updates, lot's of cool things are being worked on the full game, so please look forward to that!