I’ve been working on a larger change to how Castle of the Vampire presents itself. The game has always been built around a character grid, but the interface and the artwork have gradually grown beyond what a plain text display can comfortably communicate. I wanted to give the game more room for information and more expressive characters without losing the feeling of an old-school text-mode game.

The important distinction is that this should still look like a computer rendering characters, not a tiled game. Think of it as hacking the BIOS to replace selected characters with custom one-bit artwork. The grid remains the foundation; the artwork is an enhancement to the font, not a replacement for it.

A modern UI for desktop

The first major part of this work is an optional high-resolution interface for desktop.

Until now, the interface has been closely tied to the text display. That works well for the classic presentation, but it limits how much information can be shown comfortably. The new Modern UI takes a different approach, borrowing the general layout of the mobile interface while adapting it for desktop.

The HUD is rendered in dedicated UI panels instead of being embedded in the character display. This includes the stage number, character level, experience, money, HP, MP, relic, weapon, and messages. The inventory is also rendered through the UI.

Unlike mobile, the desktop version doesn’t need a directional pad or touch buttons. It can use the available desktop controls while retaining the same general organization of information.

This gives us two ways to play on desktop: the original text-embedded interface for a more traditional presentation, and the panel-based Modern UI for a more spacious layout.

Separate display and interface settings

I also reorganized the display options to make the distinction between text resolution and interface style explicit.

On desktop, the Text Mode setting offers three configurations: 80×25, 80×50, and 40×25. A separate UI setting selects between:

• Retro: the original interface embedded in the text display.
• Modern: the interface rendered through dedicated panels.

The Hi-Res panels are an additional category in the Options panel, visible only on desktop. This keeps desktop-specific controls out of the mobile interface.

Mobile has a simpler arrangement. Its Display setting offers 80×25 and 40×25, and the UI is always Modern; the mobile layout is already designed around panels and touch interaction.

The distinction matters because text mode and interface style solve different problems. One controls the character grid; the other controls how the game’s information is arranged around it.

Enhanced characters

The other major change is a new Enhanced characters option which cycles through three levels of enhancement: None → Items → All, with All is selected by default.

• None uses only ASCII characters from the pure fonts. There are no special replacement glyphs.
• Items adds custom glyphs for crystals, gold bags, relics, potions, and the other items and objects in the game.
• All also gives monsters custom glyphs.

The intention is to let players choose how much of the original character-based presentation they want to retain. Someone who prefers a strictly ASCII display can turn enhancements off, while someone who wants the extra visual distinctions can enable them. I chose to make that the default in order to reduce the friction of non-hardcore players.

This isn’t simply a switch between two fonts. The system needs to handle terrain, items, and enemies independently, and it needs to do so at every supported font size.

One thing to consider is that, at least for now, the goal is for the display to feel like a “hacked” character set, not a tiled game with animation layered on top. This means all artwork is one-bit very low resolution sprites that still behave like a font.

I also decided not to use replacement glyphs for the terrain; many reasons for this but one of them being once that step is taken, the art demands on the game will skyrocket in order to make it look decent, and that will limit the addition of new content and areas. The exception is affordances such as buttons, levers, plates, which are much more readable as a simple glyphs and are stand alone.