I spent a bit of time reworking the inventory again today, to make it more efficient and informative. I felt the whole thing needed rearranging after I started adding things like keys to the game, which are held in the inventory but don’t have a set space.
I’ve replaced the section labelled “Petals” with a section labelled “Items”, which covers petals, keys and the kokeshi doll acquired at the end of the game. I was very happy with the previous petal indicator, so I’ve simply shuffled this over to the side to allow room for the new indicators:
I’ve left the spacing of the sushi indicators roughly the same, but I’ve added a number next to each icon which tells the player how many of each sushi they are carrying. This is something I haven’t done up until now because I was going to limit the player to one of each, but after watching people play I feel that was a little harsh. The player can now carry an unlimited amount of sushi!
Instead of only displaying the blossoms collected for the current level, I’ve changed the last line of the inventory to display the collected blossoms for all levels. This way, when the player gets to the last level and realises that they can’t continue without 60 blossoms, they can see which level they need to concentrate on most. Altogether, the new menu looks like this:
Except on the last level, where I’ve covered up the petal collection icon so that the player knows they don’t have to collect blossoms in this level.
To conclude the work I’ve been putting into the game’s music recently, I’ve added some new sound effects to the game with the help of SFXR and LabChirp, so the inventory now plays a lot of little blip sounds when selecting, using or cancelling items.
