SFML's use of fonts is bizarre. It gives you a bounding box for the font, but then just ignores it and positions the text using the baseline, which is then outside of the bounding box. This is a quick fix but still looks wrong.

combat_ui.cpp

@@ -27,20 +27,10 @@ namespace gui {
 
       sf::Text label($font, name);
       auto bounds = label.getLocalBounds();
-      fmt::println("CENTER w/h={},{} vs bounds={},{}",
-          cell.w, cell.h, bounds.size.x, bounds.size.y);
       auto label_cell = lel::center(bounds.size.x, bounds.size.y, cell);
-      label.setPosition({float(label_cell.x), float(label_cell.y)});
+      // this stupid / 2 is because SFML renders from baseline rather than from the claimed bounding box
+      label.setPosition({float(label_cell.x), float(label_cell.y) - label_cell.h / 2});
       $labels.push_back(label);
-
-
-      sf::RectangleShape label_box;
-      label_box.setPosition({float(label_cell.x), float(label_cell.y)});
-      label_box.setSize({float(label_cell.w), float(label_cell.h)});
-      label_box.setFillColor({10, 10, 10});
-      label_box.setOutlineColor({100,100,100});
-      label_box.setOutlineThickness(1.0);
-      $label_boxes.insert_or_assign("Z" + name, label_box);
     }
   }