Esoteric Update #319 - Term Customisation

Final update before I go to the hospital, so let's address this first. I'll be gone for approximately 7 days, possibly up to 10 days before I'm released. I'll have my laptop and Internet, but I'm not sure if I'll have the opportunity to work on the game much. Either because I'll spend some of the time there sedated, or because it's just hard to do development while in a hospital bed. I'm going to do the next update on the 11th next month, and we'll see how it goes.

This week, I worked on writing and design some more, but there's not much to discuss in those areas. We've now surpassed 350 documents, which is starting to feel like a good number. Apart from lore, the documents now also contain some in-universe fiction, just for diversity.

I also wanted to implement something related to game configuration and character creation, specifically word lists with customisation options. The general idea here is that the player should be able to add custom nouns and adjectives to the game without needing to mod any files. This is accomplished by the UI element shown below (note that it's a one-line call to build the entire segment, which is neat), which can optionally support custom elements. Clicking the button prompts a modal that allows you to input the word you are interested in.

(Note: I realise there are some issues with the text here, I'll correct them later.)

I feel that a 3- to 25-character limit is reasonable, as is rejecting hyphenated or multi-word terms. Although I'm unsure, I'm open to hearing opinions on this.

I've made additional adjustments and improvements to the UI elsewhere, including minor tweaks such as correcting inconsistencies and refining the formatting.

I think I have a pretty good idea for how the new intro will work and how it will teach the player about various mechanics earlier and in a more relaxed way. I'll discuss this further when I come home from the hospital. Fortunately, once this is done, I shouldn't need any further procedures for a while. I already feel pretty devastated that the first month of what was supposed to be "my free time" or "retirement", as I've been calling it, has been going like this. And especially since I am still fighting for my benefits.