Development Update 2

Creating the items system

I wanted to create a comprehensive model for all of the items in the game. This means having detailed properties for each item that can allow the character sheet to track things that players would either have to keep track of themselves and allow for more complexity that would normally have to be ignored in other TTRPG games.

I’ve also designed the system with item slots in mind. This means that the game can be far more specific about what you are holding, wearing or storing in other places, making it easy to keep track of your inventory. This makes the character sheet in FOC a little bit more like a regular RPG game in the way it handles items, and the more complex stuff can be kept track of for the player by the character sheet.

The big challenge was first getting all the items to prioritise the correct slots and also creating new item slots if they are an item that can hold other items. Originally, I overcomplicated it by having the item object contain other items if it was a container. But it was easier to instead just go for a set number of possible item slots, such as head, bag or torso and only display and organise items into the bag slot if one of those items is a bag with a capacity to carry items.

I haven’t settled on exactly how specific I want to be with encumbrance either. As it stands, items have both a weight and a dimensions property which means they can either be too big or too heavy to store/carry/wear, but I feel like having to make sure your inventory has both space and weight margin may be too much for the player to have to think about–even if the number is given to them. It will end up being like the opposite of a bag of holding, with realism being maybe a bit too big a mechanic.

For now I will settle with having maximum dimensions and a set weight amount, but I’ll see how much extra complexity item size adds and go from there.

The challenge after that is all of the inventory management stuff. I need a modal for items when you click on them to get all their details and manage all of their properties and a way to move them around between different slots (ideally click and drag). Both are doable but will take a lot of time to get the UI design correct and make sure all of the item properties are working correctly.

I didn’t think the item system would end up being this detailed and take this long, but it is the biggest milestone to complete on the way to having a functional character sheet. Then I can focus on finishing all of the other modals and things like dice rolling, listing actions and finally the levelling system. All will take a lot of time to complete, but I’ll get there eventually.