Atcho' Feets


Texas has a mostly-top-down view, but angled to make it a bit more visually appealing and storybook-like. Direct top-down is a bit too analytical; even the snes/nes games that have top-down view generally use side-view for monsters, items, and other not-strictly-top-down visual effects. Since Texas is 3D, the most natural thing to do is just tilt the camera slightly:TOP DOWN:ANGLED VIEW:Side effect of this, however, is that if you are standing behind a wall, you can't see what's at your feet. The wall, displayed at an angle view, blocks it. And since you can't see what's at your feet, you can't click it, so you can't pick it up or interact with it.Another problem: sometimes, things get layered improperly; you drop an item but i falls below the rug. This is something that can actually be fixed in this case (rugs) but not really in others (grass, etc.) Imagine dropping a key in the grass and being unable to beat the game.Interacting with objects happens by clicking on them. This is fairly natural, though I am going to have to implement some kind of system of "hotspots" to let the player know where they can or can't click. But then, ANOTHER problem: to pick something up, in the best of cases, you click it, and then click the "take" action.How to solve this. Well you could have the player just automatically pick up an item when they walk overtop it. This is an action-gamey way of handling pickups, and it works. Maybe the simplest solution, and give a message if they stop on something they can't pick up. You have to be able to handle full inventories, so you need a message that there is something there to pick up. It's not like Zelda where the inventories are so carefully laid out that you never have the problem of encountering an item you can't take.I think the solution I will choose, however, is sort of a "context sensitive" menu interface. When you are standing overtop an item you can take, a box will pop up saying "Atcho' Feets" which shows the item and has two buttons: "Look", and "Take".Since your feet are the "bottom" of you, the most intuitive place for this to appear is towards the bottom of the screen. It can't go bottom-center, because that is where the spacebar-shaped GUN button appears when you have a gun. Bottom right is probably better than bottom left, because right is "later" than left. So I think the place this little box will go is the bottom right corner of the screen.Items can be clickable, takeable, or both (if it's takeable, it's clickable). I need some kindof highlight so the user knows what they can click. The "atcho feet" box will only appear for items you can take however, so that it doesn't appear when you step on a bed or something.The other thing I could do to outline clickables, rather than visually outline them, is just make it sort of obvious by context what you can click on. Think: foreground vs. background in a platformer. Foreground are more colorful so you know you'll bump into it. Background are faded or dimmer, or blurry. Something along these lines.RAMBLING STOP! =)

2008-12-20


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