After the Alpha 0.5 test I took a few days to fix the bugs players reported before I started on new features. I finished fixing the last reported bug, the invisible creature but, yesterday so tonight I started on the most requested features first. The two features I added tonight are the ability to identify items and the ability to stack items of the same type.
You can see from the picture above that descriptions of the items include some statistic information about that item, as well as different descriptions for singular and plural stacks. To identify an item you hold the LCtrl and click an item on the map, in your backpack, or an equipped item. When dragging an item onto your avatar to add it to your backpack, if you are already holding that item it will start stacking. So far only food has the ability to stack but eventually another item type, Collectables, will be able to stack also. Items like weapons, equipment, backpacks, and mounts won't stack.
When I first started on these features I created a mock up of what it would look like using Tool tip boxes that appear when an item is hovered. To me, it didn't fit the retro style and seemed really out of place. As systems become more complex and certain item types hold more values it might make sense to try something a bit different. I think what I'll end up doing is having the option of "full" or "Simple" types of displaying identified information. "Full" will list it as you see in the picture where "Simple" would read "Item Name: Value". I can see some people preferring quicker to read descriptions as opposed to the sentence like way they do now.
There are a few loose ends to add to make these feature complete. I need to add a way to split stacks both in your backpack and on the map, as well as stacking items on the map itself. I'll tackle these tomorrow then move onto the next new feature, NPCs.
