#146: Nothing new

Nothing interesting to report this week. I did some work on the NPCs that arer not finished yet, but nothing really important.

#145: Return to weapon switching

This week I returned to playtesting the game and fixing bugs / refining content as I went. I came across a nasty bug that allowed me to duplicate my equiped weapons. I fixed that one and another bug came up I fixed that one too and another came up.

So I took closer look at the system and almost immediately realized how bad it was. So I basicaly rewriten the entire weapon switching script. Now it is much more simple and efficient. And while I was at it, I also improved the equipment screen a bit.

Now it shows separate stats for both of your weapons. It also puts the stat window infront of your character while equiping new items.

That is basicaly it for this week. Next week I will continue playing through the game and fixing / adding things.

#144: Favorite items

This week I did a little playtesting and came around a intersting shortcoming. Navigating late game inventory is a nightmare.

This is a problem many RPGs share. Mainly games like the elder scrolls. I played most of those games, except the arena. Daggerfall has atrocious inventory system. Only few items fit onto a screen. Only thing redeeming it somehow is the mouse support.

Morrowind is slightly better. You have a large screen you can resize, tabs and automatic item sorting.

The problem appears when you collect too many items. You can’t really sort the inventory in any way.

This is what other titles like skyrim and to some degree oblivion fixed.

Skirim allows you to select items you will frequently use and add them to your “favorite” tab. This allows you to find certain items much more quickly. So, thats what I did. I added favorite tab into the game.

Favorite items are now only one key press away from you (tabs cycle properly, so you only have to press the L button to get to the other side). Favorited items are highlighted in all tabs. You can add and remove items with a button press. Great for food and healing items.

That is all for this week.