Maybe I have a bit different idea of what an RPG means to some of you, but in this case I'm mostly referring to the style of gameplay with it, not everything related to a game where you assume the role of a character and emphatize with him/her like maybe in some pen paper RPGs. There's no point spending months into developing original lore for a map which people will play for a few hours.
Yes that time is much better spent on sweet power ups and upgrades to blow freaking zombies up with.
Am I right?
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Anyways, the lore in this map doesn't matter, what does matter is extensive gameplay that expands the replayability of the game.
Since you did say you want it so players can basically "respawn" as a fresh new civilian on death, it essentially means:
The game doesn't end.
The game runs on a clock, ends when the clock stops and whether survivors escapes or not.
But what if, you can escape as many time as you want and this adds onto your score card?
Say, you can help a group of survivors escape, this nets you points, which can unlock new "ideas" for your characters. Saving groups of characters will net you bonus points, but is harder to do. Saving yourself by successfully escaping, nets you normal points.
Upon escape, you have a choice of continuing the game as another civilian, typically restarting the game.
The differences is that the civilian spawns gets randomized, but with your unlocked points, you can essentially "choose some preference" in the creation of your character.
Say:
Newbies = Start off as a new civilian, no "perks" enabled.
Once you gained enough points, you can use it to buy perks, to equip it onto your next civilian.
Perks basically are "attributes/skills/enhancements" that is suppose to make your survivor unique. Survivors can bring up to 3 unique sets of perks at one time for one civilian, certain perks can not be used with other perks, thus disabling them. Other civilians you meet may be created with a random perk.
The idea is straight out from fallout, but typically, every perks may have a disadvantage. Some may give items, some don't. Some has specific spawns, while others are randomized.
Like:
Athletic - You move faster and can dodge attacks, but you aren't as strong.
Muscular - You are stronger but slower.
Pizza Delivery Boy - You know your way around the area (outer map advantage), you are more vulnerable to damage.
Thief - Your stealthier and can avoid detection more effectively.
Criminal - You lose less sanity in general, but other civilians doesn't trust you.
Negotiator - You prefer to convince rather than violence, you are less effective at combat, but npc civilians trust you more.
Firefighter - You can break down barricades more effectively, and charge into danger. More resistant to fire, but more vulnerable to the infection. May spawn at a Fire Station.
Police Officer - You can use firearms effectively, but vulnerable to infection. May spawn at a Police Station.
Scientist - You are very intelligent and can craft a variety of medications, but you are also vulnerable to damage.
Engineer - You can craft and repair items and build barricades with ease, but you are weaker in combat.
Well they aren't exactly up to par with the lore, so I could simplify them to fit in SC2 lore:
Cybernetic limbs - Being part machine and part man makes you resistant to infections and you are more efficient with actions.
Military Training - Having trained in the ways of combat, you are more effective with firearms and melee weapons.
@dra6o0n: Go
Continuously rescuing civilians for points would change the map into something completely different, taking it more towards the Lemmings style from survival style. The traits system could be a nice touch instead of just having characters with different numbers in their skills as I had planned it so far.
There are two ways to take the map to, both of which have gotten quite a lot of ideas and approval: The "death means death" mode where you lose your character when you die, and the mode where you preserve some of your characters attributes when you die and then get to respawn in some way. The latter could benefit from a character save/load system, and the death-means-death mode not so much.
A save/load system would also mean that the character development system was interesting enough over a long period of time to benefit from the save/load system to begin with. If you'd be just getting more and more traits over time, then eventually all characters would end up being the same. So it'd probably mean each trait would need its own level up system, like a character with Military Training would become better and better at using guns, and so on.
However, then some of the players would start with a more and more powerful character each time, and the game would have to be balanced for that, requiring me to create new content for the more powerful characters... The whole thing would become very chaotic considering that not all players would start the game with a character of the same level, and the game would also be more predictable if the character levels would mean enabling a different set of gameplay content.
For a "casual" game like this (compared to big MMORPGs which you might spend months or even years with), it seems to me that it's better to add replayability by creating various different kinds of random encounters and randomizing the city for each game, so you never know which of the possible variations you'll be getting into when starting the game. Considering all this, I don't really see the usefulness of the save/load system even for characters, because I don't have the will to spend so much time balancing the gameplay for progressively improving characters.
The traits system can still fit into this, but only by using them as static attributes which instantly tell you what the character is good at and which skills he can improve faster than others. Still one more possibility to use a save/load system for is that the more times you have beaten the map, the more choice you have for what kind of starting character you get, otherwise being completely random. First you'd be able to choose one of your perks, then the rest, then the point distribution into each of your skills, and eventually even the starting equipment you have.
Include a day/night system
A day/night system would make the map feel more realistic. You could make it so that players have more visibility during the day, allowing them to precieve incoming threats much easier.
Make a CB radio system
See if you can prevent players from communicating until they find a CB radio, that would add to the atmosphere
Fatigue and hunger
Give players the option between running and walking, running will drain their fatigue, when you are drained of fatigue, you cannot run or attack.
Make players have to search for food constantly, apply levels of hunger. e.g., "well fed" gives a 125% health and movement speed boost, "fed" gives no buffs or debuffs, "hungry" reduces movement speed by 20%, "starving" will reduce players speed by 60% and damage the player by one point every 2 seconds
You could make use of custom resources for these
Ammo system
Create a custom resource for ammo, like something similar to the WC3 NOTD map
Background story
Give each character a background story, and slowly reveal it throughout the game, the more depressing the better, I would very much like to help you with this if you would like, cuz writing depressing stories is a hobby of mine
creepy music
Play some creepy techno music to enhance the atmosphere
Refrain from making the same old cheesy story 5000 other maps have used
"You awake in an abandoned hospital, unaware of what had occured over the months....."
Multiple endings
Based on the actions of the players, have a different ending. So for example, if at the end only one player is left alive because he betryaed and killed the rest of his companions, you could perform karmic justice and have his escape ship out of fuel.
Or if lets say all the players are alive at the end, you could make it so that, on the way out of the city on their escape vehicle, one survivor looks upon himself through the reflection on the rear view mirror, only to discover a faint bite mark on his left shoulder
trivial items
Make lootable items such as news papers, suicide notes, magazine stripes that can be viewed, giving trivial information of the back story of the map
For example, you could make a news paper article that gives scraps of information about how the entire zombie crisis started
Voice acting
I know you probably won't have any of this, but it would be so nice if you did, it's not hard
A way to solve all characters being the same is that despite being able to unlock all perks at some point, only allow the player to select 2 or 3. You won't need to balance the map anymore because all the perks should balance each other out and should only make certain aspects of the game easier while making others harder. They're basically there so that a player can choose his preferences. I think the key is to give a lot of options, but only a few selections.
Well as for traits, they should be kept simple, but affects the game in a general sense.
Say:
What if many players chose the "global" traits or traits that boosts guns, but nobody bothered to get anything else? Well the trait should affect the game globally, as in how much enemies can be encountered, the chance of random encounters, etc.
Basically, what can be set is that each % for a random encounter can be listed with a default value:
Some traits can globally affect the percentage of said encounters, buffing or lowering them, making the game different if say all players chose the same traits, it'll buff the percentage and debuff for the similar or same encounters.
Maybe use 3 possible different kinds of traits for 1 survivor character...
Zodiac - Based off of the current list of zodiacs. Used for relationship between characters is a possibility.
Personality - Based off of a description of your character. Example: Loner, Hard Worker, Leader, etc.
Livelihood - Basically the "description of how your life was before the event happened". Example: Rich, Poor, etc.
What about making the game very open worlded, so we can explore the entire city, giving us something new everytime
That's the plan, though obviously there will be some areas that are more difficult or more dangerous to access to keep it interesting. There wouldn't be much point in generating a huge city if the players could only access a small part of it.
Actually, try using regions to create parts of the city where it's safer than some parts...
Dead frontier uses a grid-like map to create their environment, with different region having stronger monsters (typically far away from the safe house generally).
For this map, you spawn randomly in different areas, so making region based difficulty isn't a great idea...
So maybe...
On map load, a few spots will be selected for "heavy infestation" which are danger zones.
Players and npcs CAN'T spawn in these zones. Maybe some npcs can have an exception in the case of "events" (trapped survivors running out of food for example).
Events should be time-driven. Like if there exist a room filled with survivors running out of food, failing to save them will likely end up with you entering a room full of zombies instead.
Kind of like Resident Evil Outbreak stuff... If you don't reach this area in time to trigger this event, the results are a "bad event", which are guilt trips to make you feel bad about failing.
Still Alive is back in business! I'm not going to explain what I've been doing for the past few months, since you probably wouldn't forgive me...
I have the basics of the item/inventory system done, but apart from a test item, still missing the actual items. The inventory currently has 15 slots, and items don't stack. This means you can carry at most 15 items at a time, but I might change the limit depending on how many items there will be hanging around later on. Items can be dropped on the ground, but I'm not yet sure if I need to make them decay over time because of engine limits. If there's going to be hundreds of items lying around, it might slow down the game. Dropping and using items are implemented as unit abilities, so they have hotkeys assigned. Selecting items still needs to be done by clicking on their icons, which are constantly visible on the screen.
Just now I've implemented stats: Health, Hunger and Sanity. Health... is health, and regenrates slowly over time. It can also be restored by some items yet to be decided on. Hunger increases over time (the bar goes down, for consistency), and once it reaches zero, you start losing health. Hunger keeps the players exploring to find food, and encourages them to split up so they can find it faster. Sanity is lost when near enemies (or other horrors) and in darkness, and gained near allies and in light. This encourages the players to stick together. Wicked, eh? When sanity reaches zero, the player starts suffering from insanity, which will have several consequences, although I haven't decided yet what they'll be.
I had an idea for the light system: Players have naturally short line of sight. If a player comes close to a lamp, the lamp shares its vision with the player, and the player is considered to be "in light". Otherwise he's considered to be in darkness. Areas outside the player's line of sight are constantly kept as black mask intead of the usual fog of war.
I'll post some visual media once I've made everything look a bit prettier than they are now.
According to my conversation with A1win(Before Dustin got drunk in IRC), we discussed the Attributes, Inventory and Room Generation systems.
The Attributes system has already been mentioned by A1win. Originally, the idea was a little more extreme, resulting in death if any of the three attributes dropped to zero. However, the current system is a little more lighthearted, giving the players de-buffs instead.
The Inventory system discussed was originally 12 slots, raised to 15. However, the main focus was on the crafting system. Originally, items could be salvaged and crafted. For example, say you have 3 items, a Pipe, Duct tape and Metal. Metal could be salvaged into two Whetstones and Whetstones could combine with Metal to form a Blade. A Blade could be combined with a Pipe and Duct Tape to form a Sword, a basic melee weapon.
To get a little more advanced, let's say you have Metal, a Pipe, Line, Duct Tape and a Stick. By combining the Stick with the Line, you form a Bow. Combining the Metal and Pipe would create a Launcher Mechanism. Combining a Launcher Mechanism and a Bow using Duct Tape would result in a Crossbow, an arrow firing weapon. Salvaging the Crossbow would result in the return of most of your materials, allowing you to freely create items suited for your situation.
Lets say that you're trying to establish a tactical location. However, your area is vulnerable to large waves of enemies, but you have a hallway. By salvaging the contents of the Crossbow, you would reclaim most of your materials including the Launcher Mechanism and Bow, losing the Duct Tape material. By utilizing the Launcher Mechanism with Blades, you could create a Bear Trap, a basic reloading trap that can be reclaimed when necessary.
The way items are found is quite simple. When entering the generated room, you would be able to interact with certain items such as Bookshelves, Beds and Tables. By interacting with them, items would fly out of the doodad, allowing you to choose which item you want.
As we talked, we discussed about some buildings beginning off powerless. These buildings would require the power to be reactivated before lights would work. These "Raw" buildings would contain some items others didn't, requiring the exploration of them to survive.
I'm glad that A1win revived this thread before I did.
I'd like to add that not everything we discussed on IRC was "decided", just discussed. The item system for example might need to be changed if there would be too many items for the engine to handle simultaneously. In that case, I need to implement containers that work both ways; you can take items off and put them back. Items in containers wouldn't be actual units so that'd allow a far larger number of items to exist.
The current crafting ideas are just examples of what the system could be like. I think my approach will be first figuring out the interesting items I want in the game, and after that the crafting patterns and component items.
As an update from yesterday, I have a much neater inventory now. It keeps the items "compressed", removing all empty spaces between them. This enables an item being selected all the time, so that when you drop an item, the next item "falls back" in the inventory and becomes selected. If you drop the last item in the inventory, the selection itself falls back and the previous item in the inventory becomes selected. I also have a working food item now, which removes a bit of your hunger. From now, it'll be easy to add other items into the game as well.
Yes that time is much better spent on sweet power ups and upgrades to blow freaking zombies up with.
Am I right?
Yes u are!
People are going offtopic.
Anyways, the lore in this map doesn't matter, what does matter is extensive gameplay that expands the replayability of the game.
Since you did say you want it so players can basically "respawn" as a fresh new civilian on death, it essentially means:
But what if, you can escape as many time as you want and this adds onto your score card?
Say, you can help a group of survivors escape, this nets you points, which can unlock new "ideas" for your characters. Saving groups of characters will net you bonus points, but is harder to do. Saving yourself by successfully escaping, nets you normal points.
Upon escape, you have a choice of continuing the game as another civilian, typically restarting the game.
The differences is that the civilian spawns gets randomized, but with your unlocked points, you can essentially "choose some preference" in the creation of your character.
Say:
Newbies = Start off as a new civilian, no "perks" enabled.
Once you gained enough points, you can use it to buy perks, to equip it onto your next civilian.
Perks basically are "attributes/skills/enhancements" that is suppose to make your survivor unique. Survivors can bring up to 3 unique sets of perks at one time for one civilian, certain perks can not be used with other perks, thus disabling them. Other civilians you meet may be created with a random perk.
The idea is straight out from fallout, but typically, every perks may have a disadvantage. Some may give items, some don't. Some has specific spawns, while others are randomized.
Like:
Athletic - You move faster and can dodge attacks, but you aren't as strong.
Muscular - You are stronger but slower.
Pizza Delivery Boy - You know your way around the area (outer map advantage), you are more vulnerable to damage.
Thief - Your stealthier and can avoid detection more effectively.
Criminal - You lose less sanity in general, but other civilians doesn't trust you.
Negotiator - You prefer to convince rather than violence, you are less effective at combat, but npc civilians trust you more.
Firefighter - You can break down barricades more effectively, and charge into danger. More resistant to fire, but more vulnerable to the infection. May spawn at a Fire Station.
Police Officer - You can use firearms effectively, but vulnerable to infection. May spawn at a Police Station.
Scientist - You are very intelligent and can craft a variety of medications, but you are also vulnerable to damage.
Engineer - You can craft and repair items and build barricades with ease, but you are weaker in combat.
Well they aren't exactly up to par with the lore, so I could simplify them to fit in SC2 lore:
Just wanted to put my two cents in on this map:
It's an amazing concept, and what you've accomplished and displayed here already is extremely impressive. I would play the hell out of this map.
I agree about adding some kind of bank file and using stats, perks, or other attributes to make your character "unique" or better or something.
Anyway, keep up the awesome work.
@dra6o0n: Go
I believe you're confusing perks with traits. But I do like that idea.
@dra6o0n: Go Continuously rescuing civilians for points would change the map into something completely different, taking it more towards the Lemmings style from survival style. The traits system could be a nice touch instead of just having characters with different numbers in their skills as I had planned it so far.
There are two ways to take the map to, both of which have gotten quite a lot of ideas and approval: The "death means death" mode where you lose your character when you die, and the mode where you preserve some of your characters attributes when you die and then get to respawn in some way. The latter could benefit from a character save/load system, and the death-means-death mode not so much.
A save/load system would also mean that the character development system was interesting enough over a long period of time to benefit from the save/load system to begin with. If you'd be just getting more and more traits over time, then eventually all characters would end up being the same. So it'd probably mean each trait would need its own level up system, like a character with Military Training would become better and better at using guns, and so on.
However, then some of the players would start with a more and more powerful character each time, and the game would have to be balanced for that, requiring me to create new content for the more powerful characters... The whole thing would become very chaotic considering that not all players would start the game with a character of the same level, and the game would also be more predictable if the character levels would mean enabling a different set of gameplay content.
For a "casual" game like this (compared to big MMORPGs which you might spend months or even years with), it seems to me that it's better to add replayability by creating various different kinds of random encounters and randomizing the city for each game, so you never know which of the possible variations you'll be getting into when starting the game. Considering all this, I don't really see the usefulness of the save/load system even for characters, because I don't have the will to spend so much time balancing the gameplay for progressively improving characters.
The traits system can still fit into this, but only by using them as static attributes which instantly tell you what the character is good at and which skills he can improve faster than others. Still one more possibility to use a save/load system for is that the more times you have beaten the map, the more choice you have for what kind of starting character you get, otherwise being completely random. First you'd be able to choose one of your perks, then the rest, then the point distribution into each of your skills, and eventually even the starting equipment you have.
lol I've got some awesome suggestions
Include a day/night system A day/night system would make the map feel more realistic. You could make it so that players have more visibility during the day, allowing them to precieve incoming threats much easier.
Make a CB radio system See if you can prevent players from communicating until they find a CB radio, that would add to the atmosphere
Fatigue and hunger Give players the option between running and walking, running will drain their fatigue, when you are drained of fatigue, you cannot run or attack. Make players have to search for food constantly, apply levels of hunger. e.g., "well fed" gives a 125% health and movement speed boost, "fed" gives no buffs or debuffs, "hungry" reduces movement speed by 20%, "starving" will reduce players speed by 60% and damage the player by one point every 2 seconds You could make use of custom resources for these
Ammo system Create a custom resource for ammo, like something similar to the WC3 NOTD map
Background story Give each character a background story, and slowly reveal it throughout the game, the more depressing the better, I would very much like to help you with this if you would like, cuz writing depressing stories is a hobby of mine
creepy music Play some creepy techno music to enhance the atmosphere
Refrain from making the same old cheesy story 5000 other maps have used "You awake in an abandoned hospital, unaware of what had occured over the months....."
Multiple endings Based on the actions of the players, have a different ending. So for example, if at the end only one player is left alive because he betryaed and killed the rest of his companions, you could perform karmic justice and have his escape ship out of fuel. Or if lets say all the players are alive at the end, you could make it so that, on the way out of the city on their escape vehicle, one survivor looks upon himself through the reflection on the rear view mirror, only to discover a faint bite mark on his left shoulder
trivial items Make lootable items such as news papers, suicide notes, magazine stripes that can be viewed, giving trivial information of the back story of the map For example, you could make a news paper article that gives scraps of information about how the entire zombie crisis started
Voice acting I know you probably won't have any of this, but it would be so nice if you did, it's not hard
Also, can I be your writer for the map? Because I just love writing dark and gloomy crap about zombies
@A1win: Go
A way to solve all characters being the same is that despite being able to unlock all perks at some point, only allow the player to select 2 or 3. You won't need to balance the map anymore because all the perks should balance each other out and should only make certain aspects of the game easier while making others harder. They're basically there so that a player can choose his preferences. I think the key is to give a lot of options, but only a few selections.
Well as for traits, they should be kept simple, but affects the game in a general sense.
Say:
What if many players chose the "global" traits or traits that boosts guns, but nobody bothered to get anything else? Well the trait should affect the game globally, as in how much enemies can be encountered, the chance of random encounters, etc.
Basically, what can be set is that each % for a random encounter can be listed with a default value:
Encounter 1 = 35%
Encounter 2 = 10%
Encounter 3 = 50%
Encounter 4 = 65%
Some traits can globally affect the percentage of said encounters, buffing or lowering them, making the game different if say all players chose the same traits, it'll buff the percentage and debuff for the similar or same encounters.
where the fuck is alwin??!!?!?! is the project dead??
No, it's still alive. Just having a little break from mapping altogether.
Maybe use 3 possible different kinds of traits for 1 survivor character...
Zodiac - Based off of the current list of zodiacs. Used for relationship between characters is a possibility.
Personality - Based off of a description of your character. Example: Loner, Hard Worker, Leader, etc.
Livelihood - Basically the "description of how your life was before the event happened". Example: Rich, Poor, etc.
What about making the game very open worlded, so we can explore the entire city, giving us something new everytime
That's the plan, though obviously there will be some areas that are more difficult or more dangerous to access to keep it interesting. There wouldn't be much point in generating a huge city if the players could only access a small part of it.
Actually, try using regions to create parts of the city where it's safer than some parts... Dead frontier uses a grid-like map to create their environment, with different region having stronger monsters (typically far away from the safe house generally).
For this map, you spawn randomly in different areas, so making region based difficulty isn't a great idea...
So maybe...
On map load, a few spots will be selected for "heavy infestation" which are danger zones.
Players and npcs CAN'T spawn in these zones. Maybe some npcs can have an exception in the case of "events" (trapped survivors running out of food for example).
Events should be time-driven. Like if there exist a room filled with survivors running out of food, failing to save them will likely end up with you entering a room full of zombies instead.
Kind of like Resident Evil Outbreak stuff... If you don't reach this area in time to trigger this event, the results are a "bad event", which are guilt trips to make you feel bad about failing.
Several Months Later...
Still Alive is back in business! I'm not going to explain what I've been doing for the past few months, since you probably wouldn't forgive me...
I have the basics of the item/inventory system done, but apart from a test item, still missing the actual items. The inventory currently has 15 slots, and items don't stack. This means you can carry at most 15 items at a time, but I might change the limit depending on how many items there will be hanging around later on. Items can be dropped on the ground, but I'm not yet sure if I need to make them decay over time because of engine limits. If there's going to be hundreds of items lying around, it might slow down the game. Dropping and using items are implemented as unit abilities, so they have hotkeys assigned. Selecting items still needs to be done by clicking on their icons, which are constantly visible on the screen.
Just now I've implemented stats: Health, Hunger and Sanity. Health... is health, and regenrates slowly over time. It can also be restored by some items yet to be decided on. Hunger increases over time (the bar goes down, for consistency), and once it reaches zero, you start losing health. Hunger keeps the players exploring to find food, and encourages them to split up so they can find it faster. Sanity is lost when near enemies (or other horrors) and in darkness, and gained near allies and in light. This encourages the players to stick together. Wicked, eh? When sanity reaches zero, the player starts suffering from insanity, which will have several consequences, although I haven't decided yet what they'll be.
I had an idea for the light system: Players have naturally short line of sight. If a player comes close to a lamp, the lamp shares its vision with the player, and the player is considered to be "in light". Otherwise he's considered to be in darkness. Areas outside the player's line of sight are constantly kept as black mask intead of the usual fog of war.
I'll post some visual media once I've made everything look a bit prettier than they are now.
@A1win: Go
I'm glad this was revived by the author, and not some random comment....
Anyway, I like the "Sanity" concept, it sounds neat and quite original.
HELL YEAH! Creators Block REMOVED!
<('_')>
According to my conversation with A1win(Before Dustin got drunk in IRC), we discussed the Attributes, Inventory and Room Generation systems.
The Attributes system has already been mentioned by A1win. Originally, the idea was a little more extreme, resulting in death if any of the three attributes dropped to zero. However, the current system is a little more lighthearted, giving the players de-buffs instead.
The Inventory system discussed was originally 12 slots, raised to 15. However, the main focus was on the crafting system. Originally, items could be salvaged and crafted. For example, say you have 3 items, a Pipe, Duct tape and Metal. Metal could be salvaged into two Whetstones and Whetstones could combine with Metal to form a Blade. A Blade could be combined with a Pipe and Duct Tape to form a Sword, a basic melee weapon.
To get a little more advanced, let's say you have Metal, a Pipe, Line, Duct Tape and a Stick. By combining the Stick with the Line, you form a Bow. Combining the Metal and Pipe would create a Launcher Mechanism. Combining a Launcher Mechanism and a Bow using Duct Tape would result in a Crossbow, an arrow firing weapon. Salvaging the Crossbow would result in the return of most of your materials, allowing you to freely create items suited for your situation.
Lets say that you're trying to establish a tactical location. However, your area is vulnerable to large waves of enemies, but you have a hallway. By salvaging the contents of the Crossbow, you would reclaim most of your materials including the Launcher Mechanism and Bow, losing the Duct Tape material. By utilizing the Launcher Mechanism with Blades, you could create a Bear Trap, a basic reloading trap that can be reclaimed when necessary.
The way items are found is quite simple. When entering the generated room, you would be able to interact with certain items such as Bookshelves, Beds and Tables. By interacting with them, items would fly out of the doodad, allowing you to choose which item you want.
As we talked, we discussed about some buildings beginning off powerless. These buildings would require the power to be reactivated before lights would work. These "Raw" buildings would contain some items others didn't, requiring the exploration of them to survive.
I'm glad that A1win revived this thread before I did.
I'd like to add that not everything we discussed on IRC was "decided", just discussed. The item system for example might need to be changed if there would be too many items for the engine to handle simultaneously. In that case, I need to implement containers that work both ways; you can take items off and put them back. Items in containers wouldn't be actual units so that'd allow a far larger number of items to exist.
The current crafting ideas are just examples of what the system could be like. I think my approach will be first figuring out the interesting items I want in the game, and after that the crafting patterns and component items.
As an update from yesterday, I have a much neater inventory now. It keeps the items "compressed", removing all empty spaces between them. This enables an item being selected all the time, so that when you drop an item, the next item "falls back" in the inventory and becomes selected. If you drop the last item in the inventory, the selection itself falls back and the previous item in the inventory becomes selected. I also have a working food item now, which removes a bit of your hunger. From now, it'll be easy to add other items into the game as well.
Update: A few screenshots below.