[Newsletter Archive] (SPOILER ALERT) Soundless FV: Shiny New After-Info Screen

Originally published September 14, 2022.

You shouldn’t be reading this post if you haven’t finished Soundless!

Today I go over the changes made to the after-info screen, and how crappy it used to be!

Awful bunch of code in a vbox that's just a bunch of textbuttons with lots of Toggle Screen actions.

BOO!!! Did I scare you?

That is what the code for the after-info screen used to look like. You know, the little terminal-esque screen you were shown after completing Soundless where you read all of the Head’s log files. It was so awful it once caused someone’s game to crash, and I mistakenly believed the answer was just to cut the blocks into smaller blocks (from 5 to 8). Hint: I do not think that was the problem. The screen is actually not const at all.

Screenshot of the after-info screen with the very first entry selected. All the main navigation buttons line the top and bottom of the screen, while there's an individual entry navigation on the left side, and the actual text of the entry on the right.
Screenshot of the after-info screen when a block is selected, but not an entry.

For the port, I wanted everything to display a lot neater, and have everything programmed in a more smart, methodical way rather than the code disaster you just saw. I don’t think what I ended up doing is perfect (if I wanted to go REALLY hard, I should’ve used screens with arguments and custom functions, but I didn’t have that kind of time on my hands), but it’s definitely serviceable.

As you can see in the example pictures above, the after-info screen splits twice now, first into blocks and then into individual entries. This is to make it both easier on the eyes and to allow for those who rely on screen readers and such to take things bits at a time. Also, I personally felt that the original presentation was ADHD hell to go through. Much easier to go through things in little chunks and steps than take on gargantuan blocks of text at a time.

Also, the entry font adheres to your font choice!

That concludes this issue. I’m running out of things to write about, so the next issue will come in a couple days! It’ll be about the presentation of sprites in the new epilogue and how it differs from the main game.

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