Esoteric Update #254 - U Ded

Ok, things are rolling along nicely. I'm also on vacation for two weeks, possibly three, so I will work on the game as much as possible. But yes, let's talk about this week's changes. It's a bit of a random and eclectic collection, but it should make sense where all this fits into the development of the test adventure.

So, firstly, in terms of writing, we've added a few thousand more words into the game. It's nothing exciting, just small flavour stuff.

Secondly, I did some work on the circuit system. I hoped to get it done, but ehhhh... I couldn't sit down to it and dig into the code as much as I wanted to. Unfortunately, programming is a mentally straining task, and it doesn't sit well with having a minor migraine. Still, I started working on the component system and a definition for whole circuits.

Thirdly, and this might sound weird because it's a cool little technical detail, I added the ability to sort containers by hash instead of by ID. And you might ask... but why? Here's why. When the container is sorted by ID, items are grouped by category and then within category, mostly displayed in alphabetic order (with some quirks and exceptions). This means the items are well-organised and easy to look through, and it works well for organised containers or such that the PC is familiar with. Hash sorting gives items a seemingly random order within the container. However, the order is fixed for a given set of items and a container. So, while the sorting seems random, it doesn't change when you re-open the container; the items are disorganised but don't shift around when unobserved. To clarify, this sorting isn't an option the player toggles; it's an attribute for the container. Here's how it looks if applied to the inventory:

Additionally, I ended up revisiting the affector system (in case you don't know, hmph *scoffs, adjusts glasses*, an affector is an invisible item that runs code when you open an inventory containing it; they're used for inventory manipulation) to allow them to spawn new affectors that will then run within the same inventory opening. This was previously impossible.

Fourthly, there's now a 'u ded' screen with basic functionality any 'u ded' screen should have. I think this one is self-explanatory:

Fifthly, I worked on some new document templates. And these are directly for the adventure because, as it turns out, we might need some sticky notes and a burned letter. So...

Here are some sticky notes (clean, folded, crumpled):

And here is a page with a burned corner (with a demonstration that the paper texture can be swapped out independently of the scorch mark):

I've also located a quite nice CC0 PBR resource site and combed through it (in fact, some of what I grabbed was already used above), but I still need to process everything to add it to the game.

There's not much to say about what's coming up next. I'm just going to be working on the adventure whenever I have the time.