Combat Log is back (sort of)

Got the combat log back:



It doesn't store history beyond 64 messages, but it does have a scrollbar now so you can go back and review those last 64 messages. Currently, it's a global log but tonight I'm working on making them unit-specific, with interceptable global messages for events that need to hit all the logs. I'm working on the inventory system now, which is gonna involve digging into the particulars of Urho3D's drag-and-drop. Pretty curious to see how I end up implementing that.

I read the recent Rampant Coyote blog post about expendable items in RPGs, and it's gotten me thinking about expendable items in GC. I have a rather long history of playing roguelikes, especially Crawl and Nethack, and at the end of every game I always have just a huge collection of consumables that I was saving for great need. Often times, I'd even forgotten about some particular item that might have saved me from a messy death.

Consumables are a tough thing for me. I have a hoarder instinct. If something is rare and of limited use, then I can only justify using it in the most extreme of circumstances. That means I'll probably never use it, since I can always convince myself that the current circumstances aren't extreme enough, and that there is something worse lying ahead that I better save it for. I'm a pessimist, you see.

GC currently supports charged items that become unusable once the charges wear off, but I'm thinking of doing away with that. Either an item is so common that making it charged/expendable is sort of pointless, or it is so rare that I'm never going to actually use it. I'm actually doing some vigorous thinking about the interface I want to present to the player in general, and a number of my ideas do away with the traditional inventory altogether: something I had once latched onto as a good idea, especially if I do a hot-seat multiplayer mode, where watching someone do the inventory Tetris would be infuriating.

While it's been a bit of a brain-bender untangling the UI system, it's starting to pay off. As I write more boilerplate and become more familiar with how things work, I should be able to make more rapid progress with iterating on the UI system.

I'm also going to try to update more frequently. I've found that it helps me to stay motivated, even if (as with this post) I really don't have a great deal to say.