Back at it - I've made some conceptual progress, and done some writing for the companion robot/creature while I was traveling. I'd provide samples of that writing, but I've decided that every line of non-utility dialog (or really, monolog) from the companion should only occur once, but also be skippable. I want to provide a little opportunity for regret.
I also decided on a somewhat random feature, which I have only a vague idea of the utility or pleasantness of, inferred, and not informed: user-defined place names. This opens things up to all the worst evils of the world, so I'll probably do some basic slur-filtering, but I think that I can be somewhat charitable with the audience of the Playdate, and with the internet's understanding that place names will be user-submitted, and thus not direct artistic choices by me.
Seeing as I want the users to be able to type out place names, I had to figure out how I'd like that to happen, and I have a first draft.
The "voiced" grid is selected, the "Z" is selected, and vowels are not active. I think I'll probably have to use the crank here for at least one thing, so either it'll be to stamp the letters in place, or it'll be to scroll through the letter options. Honestly, it would probably be a decent fit for that too.
Now, I could use one button as a mode switcher (perhaps B), then use A to submit the letter. I also don't have a backspace here, but that's a pretty easy fix.
The font is pretty hastily made, as of today, because I didn't find any that seemed appropriate for this project - I had size, aspect ratio, and style requirements. I'm not happy with the X and Y, although I never am, and the fact that it's an even width means that the stems have to be off to one side. I've tried to be relatively consistent, but I've made a few choices, like using different curvature for XY and MW, using different shapes for V and A, and going a little out of bounds for the Q - normal, but might cause me problems later. If it does, I'll just shorten up the loop to keep the stem nice and clear.
I've tried making pixel fonts several times before, with limited success. This time, at least, I don't have to make punctuation or special characters, although if I wanted, I could definitely do something silly later like making up an alphabet and then just leaving the player to decide how to use it.
The layout is likely going to be very frustrating for a lot of people, and it might not justify itself. It isn't worldbuilding, necessarily - it has no in-world significance as of yet. However, I think with a minimal optimization, reorganizing from partially-alphabetical to a frequency-privileging approach, it might be acceptable. I think that this might be a project where I can actually lean in to celebrating difference.
In the meantime, I also had some fun with the music box, but I reckon it'll be easier with a few more visual improvements. I'm also not using the up and down arrows for anything currently - I could theoretically use them instead of the crank for input mode, or I could use them for some other mysterious purpose, like going up or down an octave or a fifth.
Here's the most normal minuet ever, cranked out from memory. The only really interesting things here are that I added little note visualizations and that the number there is how the entire row is represented - using a big integer, and masking out the bits for notes being present or not. This means that you can build your favorite numbers and see how they sound! If you're that kind of nerd.
That's all for now. Not a big few days, but I'll keep at it.