It was time to work on the UI in the game. Adding symbols to the mini map was a long standing promise, and the inventory got an overhaul because the tabbed interface caused more problems than it solved. So we proudly present the UI Update.
Inventory
The new inventory consists of two components. You have 9 slots that are available all the time. You will want to store healing potions, arrows, and daggers here. Because this is were the game is searches when it looks for ammunition or something to auto heal you with!
Below the quick access slots (for a lack of a better name, suggestions are more than welcome), you see 32 slots than make up your main inventory. You'll see which are filled and which are not. Clicking this area will bring up a larger version where you can actually interact with the items in your inventory.
You can also toggle the inventory by pressing the I key. And by popular request pressing Z swaps you primary and secondary weapons. Both keys can be changed in the options screen, off course.
Mini Map
The mini map now includes icons and can be expanded. Either click it or press Tab to expand the mini map, which also reveals a legend for the symbols.
A couple new icons appear on the mini map, you can now see chest, and dropped keys should also appear on the map. Just don't stare at it too long, because the game does not pause when you are inspecting your map...
More UI
There is more, pausing the game no longer reveals buttons. "Save & Quit", "Options", and "Pray for Help" are always available just below the log, and the other buttons appear with the inventory.
In addition, you can click to expand the log, should you think you missed something there. You cannot scroll there, not yet anyway. We wanted to try it out like this first, if you really feel scrolling is necessary, please let us know!
Grabbing and Stealing
Our little hero can now grab stuff. If you have a hand free, you can click the associated mouse button to either grab containers and furniture, or to try and pick pocket enemies.
Grabbing containers and furniture allows you to move them around in the level. No longer will you be defeated by a chest! Stealing is not guaranteed to work (stealing from sleeping enemies or having a bonus to nimbleness will help). And you can never steal an item enemies have equipped.
There will be content to make use of the mechanics in the near future. In fact Elias already came up with a bunch of suggestion in this thread: http://steamcommunity.com/app/506870/discussions/0/282992646966033484/
We invite you all to chip in.
Bug Fixes
What would and update be without bug fixes? Here are the most important ones:
- You can throw stacks of sigils without crashing the game.
- Fixes destructible walls theme.
- Staff of Disarm no longer works on claws.
- Fixes bugs with the tooltips in the option menu.
- Enemies should not heal when you switch levels.
- Fixes typos in tutorial.
- Adds missing end game text.
- Simplifies chances the pick a lock or disarm a chest.
- Fixes some bugs in the discovered items menu.
There were more bugs reported the last week, unfortunately we didn't have time to work on all of them, but rest assured. If your bug is not fixed yet, it still will be on our to do list.
What's Next?
We originally said that we aimed for the game to be in early access for about 3 months. That is about now. However, even though we are getting close, the game is fairly stable and fully playable, we don't feel we are done just yet. We still want to take some time to work on a couple of features.
The next couple of weeks we'll concentrate on adding more terrain and hazards to the game. That will be very exciting, but we'll also work on bugs. So please if you spot any bugs, or have ideas for extra terrain. Let us know!