Bit of a slower week this week as I created more and more systems to improve the quests. We're getting to the point where enough will be done to more rapidly create quests when all the modular systems are in place.
The first new system I added was a learning system. This allows the player to learn certain information about the quest (which I guess you could already do in your head) and display it in the quest screen. Highly convenient! It also requires you to ask around town for information. In the future, it will take both clue-finding, interviewing, and reasoning to determine accurate information about the quest, but for now, you get a nice report about the pertinent information in the quest screen.
Since monsters can now be clues that lead back to a nest or other group of monsters, I added little pips to the minimap where you combated monsters, as well as a history on the side to tell you which monsters were encountered where.
Marked improvements in the quest display.
I also developed this nice prison building that I will use in some variants of the monster encounter quest.
The key was dropped by a boss monster, naturally.
It's the little things that often turn out to be massive hassles. For example, you might recognize the key and locked door system from the underground cultist temple catacombs. However, they had to be basically entirely remade in order to work in the overworld since all of the inner-workings relied on assumptions like the fact that they would be underground, there would be only a certain amount of doors that would need to be checked. That's not to mention the key itself, which actually is the first item dropped as the result of a monster kill. In hindsight, probably more items should do that.
On the docket for next week: more complex quest information and interactions, time-based events (i.e., monsters attacking at certain times). I also will do some experimenting with new NPC behavior, which will include some of the first inklings of the companion system. Remember to email any questions, comments, and prayer requests you have to [email protected], or just leave them in the comments below.