Devlog 3: Setup for Natural Notebook + More Customization

I’ve started setting up Natural Notebook, which will contain notes involving the lore of Universal Existence (written by an unnamed council you’ll meet later in a future version of the game), along with notes from Domainus, creator of the universe you play through in Universal Existence. For now, though, it’ll be empty (but hey, at least there’s plenty of space for my desktop cat).

I’ve also added mostly minor extras, such as changing the welcome screen link to refer you to the itch.io game, making a curved translucent box for when you select an app (using 16px white bordering with 8px border-radius and alpha value in html color code), etc.

By the end of tomorrow, I’m going to try and add all the notes in there. Then again, I may or may not have planned a bit too much lore in advance, so I might possibly not complete it by then. The best I can probably do is condense it down. I’ll have future me tell you about it.

I also have to fix an issue with the window header text overlapping with the game description text when you scroll (screenshot below showcases the minor bug). I’m planning on maybe giving the header a background that’s on top of everything else in the window.

Well, that’s enough work for now. See you tomorrow (maybe)!

(Also, when I left to take a break, my GitHub codespace somehow kept counting time. I did spend some time on art that Hackatime didn’t count, though, so that makes up for it. Time spent on art was for the Natural Notebook app icon. Either way, I’m better off closing the codespace next time.)

Devlog #2 - Turning a Screen into a Window

Sorry for devlogging with such a large amount of time. I got thrown off after discovering Terra as I wanted to publish a devlog for both at the same time.

Anyways, I made the welcome page from a screen into a window. Now there’s a bottom bar that tells the time and a way to open/close the welcome page window.

I did get stuck on trying to fix the header, which converted the window from a column of text into a row of text (the title was squished on the left, with the picture and game description squished on the right). I spent a while until I realized I could’ve just fixed it by replacing the that made up the header with a (ah yes, we love when we spend 30 minutes trying to figure out an issue only to find a simple solution that I could’ve actually spotted at the beginning).

This is starting to look a lot more like a WebOS now. Sometime this week, I’m going to make the overall window format reusable and set everything up for the next app.

Devlog #1 - Welcome to UniversalOS

I already knew what this WebOS was going to be based off of before I even started this mission.

It’s Universal Existence (more info in the screenshot below).

So far, I made the welcome screen for the WebOS, with some text explaining the game and a small panel showcasing one of my favorite levels of Universal Existence. Not much else to say other than I’m pretty satisfied so far.

Also, the cat is not part of the WebOS. He’s just a small desktop pet I have. You’ll see him in future devlogs.