Esoteric Update #239 - Wealth 2.0

Hey, I feel very not-ok, so please just have this report on what we implemented over the last week.

Firstly, concerning the updates from the last two weeks, we have continued to refine those systems. The mind map looks better than ever, and I'd say it runs a bit smoother, too, as I sorted the elements to optimise the rendering. Likewise, the mindmap and the GB system now support JavaScript choices, which can change the current view and the game's memory without redrawing the screen. This will come in handy eventually (likely next week).

Secondly, we also went back to the tooltip system and extended the libraries a little bit. The point was mostly to cover the new terms which showed up in the thought experiment demo that we felt needed explanations... and here's something important regarding that...

Thirdly, we reviewed the CSS and implemented a host of changes to help with the game's appearance. This ranges from fixing errors that would cause visual glitches under some circumstances to just shifting things around by one or two pixels to enhance and unify the look of the game's menus. In the process, we enabled tooltips in interactive elements, which was problematic before due to some CSS interactions. We also now have handling for recursive, looping references in tooltips, which would crash the game before.

Fourthly, we've completely updated the implementation of wealth, introducing tangible money. This was motivated by my discontent with the previous state of the wealth mechanics, and there's a lot to it. Firstly, we've introduced a range of new items: a wallet and debit card for the PC (which extends to wallets and debit cards existing in the game in general), a full range of pound sterling coins (more about this in a moment) and ATM receipts. Let's go over the functionality of these items one by one (of course, you will notice certain features are missing; we'll get to that eventually).

The wallet:

• You can store coins, notes and debit cards in your wallet (this is the first item aggregator but likely not the last we'll be interested in implementing; perhaps a key-ring coming sometime soon?);
• You can likewise retrieve such items from the wallet;
• The wallet displays the total amount of money stored within, including the debit card. Your inventory will also show the total amount of money on your character, including things not in your wallet.

The debit card:

• You can use it with ATMs, yes we have working ATMs now;
• Shows the amount of money in your debit account.

Coins and notes:

• All currency items in the game have quasi-unique IDs which store unique qualities of the item, such as the specific variant of a bill or some note about the damage sustained by a coin;
• Despite being quasi-unique items, coins and notes of the same denomination stack, this feature is called deep stacking (combine similar but not identical items into stacks; it can be turned on or off in the options menu if you want to view the items individually).

ATM receipts:

• Accurately record the transaction for which they were printed;
• Completely pointless (realism);
• Really, you should just ignore them/throw them away.

As noted above, several times, we've also implemented working ATMs, which serve to turn your debit balance into hard cash. The functionality is very tactile, for a text game at least, and we'll likely be expanding on the functionality eventually. The way the ATMs work is also crucial for the recent concepts we've implemented, such as fragment responders.

However, there's also functionality we still need to implement, payment options (cash only, credit only, cash or credit, limitations on currency a given point of interaction can accept, etc.) and banking (which will be done through an in-game website where your character will be able to use her Wealth resource for a variety of things, including charging your debit).

Sorry for the staggeringly uninteresting update. I'll try to show something off next week, but for the moment, I need to rest. I've had a rough night and a rougher day.