Now that I have finished updating all of my projects to use SDL3, I can focus my efforts on the Major Update(tm) for my strategic leaf-raking business simulation game, Toytles: Leaf Raking.
I started with a new logo and title screen.
Sprint 2026-MJ_18: Update logo
Complete:
- Create new title screen logo
- Update title screen background
Since it was first released in 2016, the title screen has basically looked like this:
It was just a simple text title, with some very pixelated imagery on a simple grass background and some weird looking leaf sprites.
When I was originally developing the game, I remember deciding NOT spend too much time on trying to make the art look good. I am not an artist by trade, and while my programmer art is potentially better than most, it’s still programmer art, and I knew from past projects that I can spend a lot of time polishing something and still end up with an ugly result. At least if I was quick about it, I could be more likely to actually finish the game.
The end result isn’t pretty, but it’s kinda got its own charm. I hope, anyway?
But for the upcoming 10 year anniversary of this project, I think it is time for a facelift. Here’s the latest version of the title screen:
I made the new logo using Inkscape. Since I always intended for there to be a series of Toytles games, this logo can be reused for future projects. Toytles: Snow Shoveling? Toytles: Lemonade Stand? Toytles: Go-Kart Racing? There’s a lot of potential.
I decided to replace the leaves with something that looks better. After looking into creating something more stylized, I ended up taking a picture of some leaves of the maple tree in my backyard, then using one of them as the model that I traced.
I also created a new rake sprite, but I decided to hold off on putting it on the title screen until I had more screen real estate, which required changing the menu.
I ended the week working on updating the buttons. The existing buttons are basically static images that I created by using a rounded rectangle inside of another rounded rectangle. I can use better, more button-looking buttons that animate.
I also plan to rearrange the buttons so that there are fewer options to choose from, and some of these buttons could be on a submenu.
And with submenus, I can add new backgrounds. And transitions. And better fonts for the buttons and blocks of text.
I am quickly finding that even simple improvements bring a cascade of changes, many of which I anticipated, but some of which I didn’t realize would feel so necessary rather than be considered a separate nice-to-have.
Thanks for reading, and stay curious!
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