Demo 2.0: a rebuilt interface, and 11 languages in human hands

Demo 2.0 arrives on 7 October, and it is the largest update the demo has had since it first went up.

Two things changed: the interface was rebuilt, and the last of the localization work landed.

The interface

This started as a small complaint. Buttons that looked fine in English looked wrong in German. So I rebuilt the whole thing around the text instead of the other way round.

• Every text button now sizes itself to its label. Same artwork, same corners, no clipped words, in every language. Twenty-one controls across seventeen screens.
• One button look everywhere. No more three different plates depending on which screen you happened to be on.
• A click-to-continue mark, which this game somehow never had.
• Lighter choice plates, and a keyboard letter on every Chapter 1 choice.
• New stat reward cards, with a proper animation when you earn a point.
• Menu sounds. Quiet ones. One click when you select, a lower one when you go back.
• Save and load got fixed. The page row stopped doubling as a save button, and the empty quick save page is gone.
• Preferences now explains what the AI actually does, in plain words.

The languages

I wrote about this earlier in the month, and it ships here for the first time. All eleven languages have been through a human pass, and every one of them came back with hundreds of edits. Chinese stopped sounding translated. Japanese tightened every screw. Spanish became one neutral Spanish instead of two competing ones. The credits page names everyone who helped.

One fix I am especially happy about: the Chapter 1 countdown used to punish you for not having a Latin keyboard. If you typed in Japanese, Korean, or Chinese, your input method ate part of your time. It does not anymore.

Same game underneath

Chapters 1 and 2, still free, and N.E.K.O. still reads what you actually type rather than picking from a menu.

The full game arrives on 9 December. If you have not already, add ASANA to your wishlist. For a solo dev, every single one counts.

One question before you go: what was the first thing in the old interface that annoyed you? I read all of it.