Esoteric Update #185 - Fleshing Out Some Magic

Lore for this week:

Lore: Aspeciate Life

And now for the changes. So apart from doing some code refactorisation and a lot more writing for the tool use, I did focus on continuing the work with the new inventory functionality.

First off, I'd like to start with something odd; there are some things that we've specifically not implemented and have no interest in implementing after talking it out and considering the issue. And in a way, that's important as well. Firstly, we will not limit containers in terms of the total or individual size of the item. While not realistic, we've felt it would be an implementation detail that reduces the player's quality of life while adding little to support the themes and mechanics of the game. Secondly, we won't put an upper cap on what the player can carry within a single scene, but being over-encumbered is still a factor. However, this comes with a counterpoint too. There will be items that cannot be placed in the player's inventory but can only be transported by being picked up (into the hand slot) and set somewhere else. For the moment, design-wise, this is the best we can do to balance the mechanics we want to have accessible for puzzles and problems while maintaining the player's quality of life.

Secondly, I've worked more on talismans, and their implementation forced me to implement a few things that I didn't quite expect to have in the game yet. So we now specifically have three different parametric states for talismans. Previously, we had tool talismans, which are used as tools to apply their magic effect as an action to a problem. Now, these are joined by two more types. Self-use talismans run a script directly when clicked in inventory (or container). This allows us to construct spells where the player can choose when they are used without first identifying the target. To test this, I've added a simple sense magic spell to the game. Ambient magical auras are definitely something we want to play with, and we're going to do just that. The other type is equipable talismans. The concept is simple; these run a script when equipped and unequipped. But, to test this, I decided to make a talisman that affects your Affect magic skills, and that led to the necessity of figuring out how stacking status effects work.

My implementation of skill modifiers didn't have to deal with this issue before, though I knew I'd need to do it at some point. Interestingly, the final solution is more flexible and simpler than I initially envisioned. But also fairly arcane as far as the implementation goes. The thing is that it meant a decision had to be made about calculating stacking effects. For the moment, the systems apply the strongest instance of any effect but remember all instances, meaning that if the currently strongest instance runs out or is removed, it automatically changes to the next higher value.

Furthermore, all talismans are parametric; this can account for how many times a talisman can be used or for how strong the effect is. The idea is to have a class of items that can be enchanted to be talismans and let the player manage it however they want.

Unfortunately, this didn't go without issues. The implementation of holdable tools didn't fully grok with the outfit manager. After fussing about with it for a time, I've just disabled the outfit manager in cases when the player holds a tool. But ultimately, my goal is to solve it more elegantly. I'll need a bit more time to flesh out the implementation. The tool implementation causes a few more issues. But they were minor and should all be fixed now. And actually, this caused me to refactor some of the code for better readability. In the future, though, this will serve nicely for various implementations, including possibly some erotic magic.

I'm a bit tired, so no pictures this time. All content developed for these systems, at this time, should be seen as tentative anyway. We still have so much writing and coding to do to finish all of this, and quite frankly, without help, it's a pretty monumental task.