Inventory ideas

Inventory ideas
I would be interested in hearing input on how developers would like to see the existing LASSIE inventory work in the Flash game player. It will be *basically* the same system (a drawer with a row of icons and two scroll arrows), although I am open to ideas on its mechanics. Some points that come to mind: 1) should the inactive state of the scroll arrows display when there are not enough items in the inventory to require scrolling, or should the arrows be hidden all together since they are not needed? I lean towards hiding them. 2) do you, as players, like the fact that an unfilled inventory aligns left, or should the row of items center within in the drawer....Or, would it be better to just increment the few items evenly across the span of the drawer? I lean to centering the row. 3) would you rather click the scroll arrows to advance, or do you like it as is where just holding the mouse over an arrow triggers scroll? 4) would you get excited about having a Mac OSX dock-style rollover animation on inventory items? If not, too bad. It's already been programmed, you'll just have to turn the effect off for you game :D

Re: Inventory ideas
Hi! I have a suggestion: Can we use MI3 inventory style? Can we choose an inventory style?

1) I'm fine with either, really, but hiding the arrows makes more sense, I suppose. 2) I'm cool with centering. 3) I think I might like clicking the arrows better then just holding the mouse over them, but it's no biggie for me. 4) I like the idea of the inventory graphics enlarging as they are rolled over like in MacOSX, but I don't need it. It's certainly something that'd be great to have the option to use or not, though. As for a MI3 intentory style (big custom graphic, inventory sprites appear inside) an option for that would be cool, but I don't know what kind of crazy logistics would be needed to implement that. I have no complaints about the current inventory system, anyway.

Re: Inventory ideas
Can we use MI3 inventory style? Can we choose an inventory style? That certianly is a possibility now that Lassie will be Flash based. Although I I was modeling the engine interactions off of CMI, I scrapped that inventory style because of Director's archiaich sprite system. That number of dynamic sprites overlayed ontop of an already dynamic layout of sprites was going to be suicide within Director, which officially has no dynamic sprite methods to begin with (aren't creative workarounds great?). To say the least, managing graphic objects dynamically is SO much easier in Flash. It's fast, easy, and almost painless... However, for the time being I am going to stick with this current inventory system because I have the program mostly written, but I don't see any reason why – in the future – a CMI style inventory option could not be added.

I think I might like clicking the arrows better then just holding the mouse over them, but it's no biggie for me. Ok, let's persue this topic a little further becasue I'm hung up going back and forth... Help me weigh these two arguements: :!: CLICKING to scroll: I think this is, overall, the more intuative choice for any form of navigation because a user tends to exprect results only when they actively persue a goal. If the goal is to scroll, they click the arrow... as uposed to accidentally scrolling when they didn't want to becasue their mouse passed over something. :!: ROLLOVER to scroll: This was the winning arguement in the Director player because of the circumstance that an inventory item cursor is active when the user wants to scroll the inventory. Item cursors have an expected result of being "used" when they are clicked. However, you can't "use" an inventory item with an interface graphic, so clicking the item cursor on the scroll arrow is a secondary result of the same inciting action. So yeah, I like the click idea, but the rollover has a strong arguement. I would appreciate second opinions! LOL, maybe I'm way ovethinking this, but I hold the belief that a user should not have to think becasue the designer/developer did all the thinking for them. The best user experiences are the ones that are never noticed. It's kind of a shame really – sloppy work gets attention, good work doesn't.

Another possibility would be to make the inventory menu that's kind a like it was in Super Mario Brothers 3: If you have a bar that's full with items you display the arrows and by clicking on them the inventory bar is (completely) refreshed with the items of the next "inventory page" instead of just scrolling one item to the left/right. Know what I mean? :roll: Just an idea...

If you have a bar that's full with items you display the arrows and by clicking on them the inventory bar is (completely) refreshed with the items of the next "inventory page" instead of just scrolling one item to the left/right. Yeah, not a bad idea... I'll keep it in mind for future AS development, although its definately a "bottom of the list" type feature. I'm also considering building a mod at some point that would work like the CMI inventory system with the panel overlaying the screen area. Lots of possibilities! :wink:

Is there anyway for the game to remember where in the scroll of inventory items it was when last viewed? ie, say I've got twenty items in my pocket. Each time I view the inventory it starts all the way at the left, so I have to scroll to the right to see the other items. When I close the inventory and go back to it, once again it's all the way to the left and I have to scroll right. Just curious if there's a way that it could "bookmark", so to speak, what items were being viewed when it closed, so the player wouldn't have to scroll all over again if they accidentally hovered their mouse too high and closed the inventory bar. But it's no real big issue.

No, that's not a problem... I can just neglect resetting the scroll index. It would just take a bit of extra error checking to confirm that the inventory display has not been altered (items removed), and that the current index would still be within range of the number of items. Sounds complicated, but is really pretty easy. Although I would probably not get around to developing it until someone presented a specific need for the feature.

Make the inventory stay up
Trying to find the right threads for my comments, Does the current inventory have an "always on" option. eg. so that your items are always visible? I find that to some players, the location of the inventory is not immediately obvious (eg. hidden down the bottom). Also from a usability perspective it can be frustrating when there's a lot of interaction with the objects. Cheers, idzol

No, I never implemented that as an option. That would be a nice feature though... now if only I remembered how the inventory program worked!

Since this thread has recently been used, I have an idea, and was wondering if it was possible with an inventory item. Greg, I think I have decided to go along with my plan with my own graphics, and to keep it a secret for now.... however, an awesome idea for that game would involve a "guide" :wink: which I would want to be able to look things up. The idea would basically be a conversation with the item in your inventory. Do you think that is a possibility? If not, how about an item that when "used" activates a new sprite, no matter what room you are in which you could have a conversation with instead?

however, an awesome idea for that game would involve a "guide" which I would want to be able to look things up. its doesn't have anything to do with the words "DON'T PANIC!!" does it? you could make stuff happen by using the inventory.. and have a swf in each room for something visual, i think it would be possible, never tried but it should work

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