Hey, friends! The Deckpoint Studio team checking in with another update on Freeborn. As you can tell by the title, this update will be focused on our ongoing UI updates. As with so many things, inspiration for our UI update struck when we stepped outside of Unity. The rebrand to Freeborn, and the rough, painted logo design has inspired and played into a long desired goal to make the UI more cohesive and minimal. The UI has historically had a very metallic, sci-fi look which came from our roots as we expanded upon Knights of the Old Republics minigame Pazaak. Of course, Freeborn came to be much more than a card game, which meant so many new systems for the minimap, dialogues, and inventory and menus to organize them all!
Caption: A look at the classic Ekosi interface: metallic, sci-fi, physical. Weve long known we wanted to bring these systems under one cohesive theme, and one that matched the broader feelings of the game and story. And now its time! But, to no ones surprise, weve started with the Ekosi card match UI.

The sneak peek

Yes, enough of the context! Heres a look at what weve been working on.
Caption: Our first foray towards the minimal, rough, white paint stroke aesthetic. Early WIP.
Caption: Further progress away from scanlines, and towards the white paint look. Early WIP. In the above pictures, you can see some of the progress weve made over the last few weeks. Weve been wrestling with masks and transparency, but things are starting to look the way we want! In classic gamedev fashion, were picking up skills we never thought wed need. If the UI is going to be updated, that should include fonts at least in some contexts. Tyler has been learning how to build fonts in the style of the Freeborn logo, and weve now got a functioning numeral set.
Caption: Our custom white paint font for the scoreboard. Shaped after the original, digital font. Next on our list is an alphabet, but thatll take a bit of time (26 letters vs. 10 numerals!) and discussion to figure out where a more stylized font could be appropriate.

Ever onward

Unfortunately, as sometimes happens in this life, things take longer than expected. We hoped to be able to participate in Octobers Steam Next Fest, but this UI update needs a little more time in the oven if were going to put our best foot forward. We still hope to deliver a new demo version during the winter, and well re-enroll for the next Next Fest in the spring! Until then, stay tuned to our newsletter, our Twitter, or join us on our Discord to track the development journey. Cheers, The Deckpoint Studio team