It's been a few weeks hasn't it? Well, y'know sometimes you need a holiday. But, break's over, I'm back and blogging has started up again!
On Thursday, I finally published the inventory tutorial I've been working on for ages and quite frankly, I'm rather proud of it! The tutorial comes with the example file I've been building and covers setting up the project, all its functions and all of the scrolling functionality. As with most of my tutorials, the events aren't as neat as they could be, but I've purposefully left it that way to give a better idea of what's going on.
You can check out the tutorial and download the project here.
So, what now? Well, the next job is to integrate that inventory system into my main game file. FUN!
In the tutorial, I've simply implemented the inventory as a layer over the top of the game. However, in my game, I plan to have the inventory on a separate layout, which brings its own challenges. On the one hand, all of the code for the inventory is stored in its own event sheet which helps keep things tidy and means I don't have to worry about turning off any of the overworld code because it won't exist in the inventory layout. However, I do have to make sure that my player (a global object) is correctly hidden and restored when you return to the game and that when you do return to the game layout, everything is exactly where you left it!
I am enjoying the modular form this game is taking – it means I can build each system in its own event sheet and layouts so they don't interfere with each other as much. I mean, getting them all to talk to each other when they need to may be a challenge, but I'll take that in exchange for keeping my code tidy!
Now I need to think about what game system to build next as a tutorial. At some point I need to build a turn-based battle system, but I have NO idea where to start with that. I was also thinking of implementing a crafting system, so maybe that's a better follow-on from the inventory. If you have any thoughts, leave a comment!