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Architecture Early Overview: Items
🕑 Added 2024-06-29 16:19:22 +0000 UTCGood day, dear Viewers!
I have collected enough information about the work done to share with you. I will start with an introduction, after which I will reveal the topics reflected in the news preview. Let's go in order.
From the beginning of May until now, I have been working on the structure of Items in the game and the connection with the character. Many of you, whom I have known by name for several years, know that I have a penchant for creating “unusual solutions,” as was the case in Threshold Road with the creation of a body model and clothes for the main character (Sasha) from scratch by hand. The Item structure I'm working on is very simple and straightforward.
However, it requires some fine tuning to give it the flexibility I had in mind.
What does this mean and what problem does it solve?
I'll describe it right now.
Items and weapons.
Going back a couple of months, I was in working on basic weapon interaction animations (a simple knife in the hand). The character can run, jump and climb with a regular knife in her hand. However, this is only part of the picture, where we miss where this knife even comes from in technical terms. A knife is an Item itself that can be equipped, held in the hand or sheathed; be in container, such as a bag or backpack, or just lying on the floor and waiting for someone who might need it. And this will be true not only for the player, but also for other characters.
Speaking of Items, they are technically the basis for every holdable thing in the game. The image below shows an approximate demonstration of the connections and dependencies.
That's not all. Besides putting the weapon in the sheath, as I described earlier, you can also keep it in your belt. Some Slots (definition is below) may contain other items. For example, tools or bottles with liquids. Or something else. This is where the Equipment system comes into play.
Items are for Equipment too.
Sometimes you want practical realism from a game. In other words, common sense in its laws.
For example, after using the potion, the bottle remains in the hand and can be used for something else - for example, pouring water into it, breaking it to get a sharp melee weapon, etc. Or use a combat knife for crafting, rather than looking for a “special knife for cutting wood”. If you know what I mean, you can easily continue this list. In pursuit of this, I try to make the system as flexible as possible without making serious mistakes that could degrade the gaming experience.
In the example image above, there is a Metal Blade. There it's in the "category" Craft. Does that mean it can't be used as a weapon? No, this only means that it will have parameters specific to Craft category. It can also be used as a weapon (even if it's unsafe). Thanks to polymorphism (in a technical sense), this is also an Item, like a Weapon. What if we need a Weapon with parameters for Crafting? And this is also possible.
Specifically, about Equipment. It's expected that most items in the game will be equippable. This means that they can either be equipped or kept in an active Equipment Slot (hand where you hold an Item also has an Equipment Slot). Character will have many static and dynamic Equipment Slots (dynamic can be added by Items->Garments; for example, a belt). Among the obvious types like head, torso, etc. in addition character will have ten slots for fingers, a slot for the nose, separately for the ears, ankles and many others within reason.
We'll talk about item stats and their balance later.
Also character gets Equipment Multislot. In practical terms, it looks like this: the character has Equipment Slot for the upper arms. And this slot overlaps the same slot for arms, but of a different type. In other words, the Slot has Slots inside. For example, Multislot may consists of
a) shoulder pads.
b) fabric lining below.
They are independent of each other, but cover the same part of the body.
This will also be relatable to some other parts of the body.
This is a Multislot. They are of different types (a and b), so you cannot insert the same Garment (e.g. shoulder pads) into each Slot of Multislot.
I don't have a visual example to show you yet, but I hope you'll get a better idea of how this system works as we look at the Inventory example.
Let's find out where the items will be equipped from and where they are stored.
Keeping Items. Inventory.
During the game, the items encountered along the way can play an important role, and sometimes radically change the situation. It's quite obvious that a character’s inventory importance is high. Essentially speaking, it is assumed that the inventory will have a similar Slot system as the Equipment system. True, with some differences.
Firstly, this is the Slot Size - the occupied cells. The larger the Item the more space in inventory required. Some people call it the "Tetris system". However, here too I will try to bring something of my own. Each wearable container (bag, purse, backpack, etc.) will receive its own Maximum Slot Size. For example, a small fanny pack would have a maximum Slot Size of "S". This means that an item larger than this size will not fit into it even if there are empty slots. This may seem unfair, but I believe that, for example, a spear or a garden pot should not fit into a small bag (even a women's).
But the backpack (small one) will already have a maximum “M” Slot Size, which will allow you to carry larger items in it (the backpack will also have external pockets and compartments for smaller items). Items will have weight and volume, and containers will have limits. And again, it seems, what are these restrictions for if you are already planning to make slots that will already make a limit?
Everything is very simple and lies in the essence of the item Storage (which includes Inventory) system. For example, a common crafting item such as herbs or mushrooms is usually (from my gaming experience) stored in a stack of "X" units of such item. In turn, I abandon the idea of "numbers of blades of grass" and plan to use weight and volume numbers to calculate the stored resource. There is nothing wrong with resource units and I will use them for some larger resources like twigs or stones. However, for a small resource, more “realistic” weight measures are more suitable. Just imagine a stack of half a hundred mushrooms in a purse with no volume restrictions. No one will forbid you (I swear) to fill your bag with mushrooms, but to a reasonable limit.
After all, this is not the final version and some things will change. It's okay to miss the mark sometimes.
So, where are the items?
Items for loot.
So, some Items can be equipped - picked up, put on or sheathed, either put into inventory. Also, items will initially be placed somewhere. They can be found on the ground, in chests, underground (able to be dig out), exchanged with merchants, and so on. Everything here is quite simple and obvious. This system is still mostly on paper. Character can equip some items from the floor immediately. For example, picking up a weapon that has fallen from your hand or picking up a stone for a quick throw. These three systems are interconnected with each other.
The Loot system will also have Slots that are placed in containers. The character will be able to not only take things from containers in the World, but also put them there (as well in own made by crafting it). Both the main character and other characters will be lootable. It will be possible to take worths from both the first one and the others. In other words, you also may be looted.
The existing architecture partially implements these features which has long road to go.
I understand that this is a lot of work and some things can and will change during development. If I didn’t believe that I can do it, I wouldn’t publish it. I'm not trying to make the gameplay confusing or overly complicated. My goal is to interest and immerse you in the gameplay and at the same time avoid unnecessary scrupulousness in little things that can irritate. Some things won't be included in the initial demo of the game, but the basis must be solid. This is why I spend a lot of time analyzing architecture, studying examples of industry professionals who are much more experienced than me to show you my product and my implementation.
I received this freedom only thanks to you and I will never tire of thanking you for it.
You are the engine that moves this project forward.
Grateful,
Absent.Dogma
Comments
D K
The inventory system sounds unique and interesting. Hopefully, there won't be too many junk items and everything has it's place :-)(I have a bad habit of collecting them).
