Hi there!
So it came to pass, that only a tiny update gets completed within two weeks while working on another way bigger project :D
Hopefully, the user interface enhancements in I Am Overburdened version 1.2.3. will be appreciated still.
The book of monsters
The biggest (albeit functionally neglectable) change is the new "Book of Monsters" layout. Now the unlocked monsters can be explored using a scrollable grid just like in the case of the "Tome of Artifacts". It looks much less crammed + this was a necessary change for the future ;)
Yep, this also means new monsters will join the party with the upcoming bigger content update (currently it looks like 4 to be more exact) and for this to happen the presentation had to be changed beforehand to accommodate.
Scroll madness
All the scroll-bars (not just the new monsters book one) were updated to handle up/down clicks too + screens where scrolling grids reacted to mouse movement (Stash, Treasury), were fixed since they could produce horrible noises with the quickly changing focused artifacts.
Nearby beasts
How could I forget about this feature?! The same thing was implemented for the "Tome of Artifacts" with nearby items long ago, but somehow I missed this one. Opening the "Book of Monsters" next to an enemy now selects it immediately.
Tome hot-keys
I also added hot-keys for accessing the tomes (Left Ctrl + A for the "Tome of Artifacts", Left Ctrl + M for the "Book of Monsters") with only one press as they may be opened semi-frequently during play. The input guide was updated to reflect these changes.
In-game inventory on steroids!
A real nemesis of mine. I could not find a good way to notify the player about nearby items so far. I tried multiple things in the past (some even made it into the game), but I was never satisfied.
I think I got it now? I really like the current version. Let me know what you think!
Little development history
One thing I tried long ago was changing the color palette of the slots which may be affected by a neighbor item pickup. Empty slots became lighter and used slots became red. I scrapped this approach because I could not find good enough color variants and it generally did not look that useful.
To give at least some help to the players I decided to add in-world slot notifications. I liked them quite a lot so I released this feature a while ago, but I admit that functionally it was not best (e.g.: with a full inventory the slot icons don't help too much :| )...
Then it hit me! Don't change the slots I have to focus on, change the ones I don't have to focus on. May sound counter-intuitive, but it worked way better than my first color based attempt :)
It wasn't a ~perfect solution though. I just could not pinpoint the best time when to fade in and out unrelated slots. It looked a bit chaotic. With some iteration, I worked it out though. If there is a rapid change just forget the whole thing (disable the feature) so it doesn't bother the player and only fade out the unneeded slots if the player stays still a little nearby an item (or items).
Summer Sale
In the meantime I Am Overburdened also joined the Summer Sale!
You can buy it at Steam or at itch.io for dirt cheap (50% Off - 2.49$, may vary based on region).
What's next?
This is the first "teaser" update where changes related to the expansion pack crawled into the official build of the game and I shared tiny but concrete info about what is to come. Expect a few more updates like this in the upcoming weeks, but soon (hopefully really soon) I will unleash a bigger and better I Am Overburdened upon the world :)
Thank you very much for following my progress and for all your support.
Stay tuned!
