Greetings and salutations!

Today was pretty productive, I do feel! Once again, I didn't get done quite as much as I might have liked, but nevertheless feel that I got a fair bit done.

First of all, a screenshot, showing the main menu (and the title that I've selected for the game):

So, what was done today?

The UI has been completed, I believe (with the exception of a custom cursor, which I think that I forgot about). It's fairly simplistic, and one or two bits are a little rough (the key-binding UI could use a re-skin, in particular), but it all works and for the most part looks acceptable, to my eye. This includes some work on the in-game UI; for example, spell-icons are now visible and highlight to indicate the currently-selected spell, and flashes occur at the edges of the screen when the player is hurt or healed.

Connected to and part of the work on the UI is that I've implemented pausing of the gameplay, with the option being given to either resume play or quit the game.

As to the gameplay, I think that I finally have an effect for my spell-bolts that I'm sufficiently happy with. As I believe that I mentioned, I had hoped to try something fancy, creating a solidly-glowing effect--and indeed, another entrant gave me a suggestion for a potential approach. However, I didn't manage to succeed to my satisfaction.

So I fell back on a venerable method: three orthogonal quads, double-sided, textured to look like bolts of magic, and rendered additively. It's not what I had in mind, but it looks decent, I find! In addition to this, I've added impact-effects for the two spells that were previously sharing the effect intended for the first weapon.

Speaking of those spells, one of them has been changed: The spell in question is one that the player can charge to a certain degree. Previously, this affected the resulting bolt's speed and damage. However, I realised that the latter left it too similar to the other spell that could be acquired--and which I think is a bit more interesting. So, while the effect on speed remains (if I recall correctly), instead of dealing more damage, the spell now deals its damage in a spherical area-of-effect, with the radius of that area being determined by the charge given.

And once again, there are likely sundry changes that don't seem worth mentioning here!

That then is all for today--stay well, and thank you for reading!