Weekly Update – February 11, 2022

UI finalization, which started two weeks ago, continued this week. Some questions that have been open since day one, such as available equipment slots, are getting answered because they’re dependencies for completing the UI.

• Decided on equipment slots. This is finally done. It was one of those things that I overthought. My original philosophy was to keep things simple and have a single armor slot, and some slots for accessories like rings. My thinking changed as the depth of the game expanded. The final equipment slots are Armor, Helm, Gloves, Boots, Necklace, Rings (2), and Shield (note that weapons are handled in a different manner, to be explained in a future post). Adding the new slots to the actor inventory was easy. I had to do a little bit of rework because of the rings. The original logic assumed that there’d only be one slot per equipment type.

• Updated damage absorption and evasion calculations. With multiple pieces of equipment potentially affecting damage absorption and evasion, I had to update the combat calculations. This wasn’t difficult, but balancing got more complicated. I now have to consider mixed pieces of equipment, partial equipment, and class restrictions on each equipment type.
• New items: Leather Gloves, Leather Boots, Leather Cap, Wooden Round Shield, Wand of Magic Missile, Necklace of Protection, Ring of Invisibility. These were created to test the new equipment slots. They may or may not make it into the final game. In particular, the Ring of Invisibility, which grants invisibility as long as it’s worn, is too overpowered.
• New map elements: Mushrooms and Crystals. Caves are in need of more variety so I added glowing mushrooms and crystals.

• Indefinite status effects. Previously all status effects were temporary; after a certain number of turns the effect disappeared. Now, status effects can last indefinitely. This was needed for the Ring of Invisibility and will be needed for all equipment that gives the player a status effect while worn. 

Next week, I’m implementing the quick switch slots for weapons and light sources as part of the UI finalization.