Redesigning the Inventory in my Farming Game
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- čas přidán 12. 06. 2024
- Devlog video about "Homegrown", a casual farming game I'm creating using my own engine.
Another UI gets a makeover - this time it's the inventory!
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A rather vloggy devlog this week - there's not a whole load of dev content to show while I'm redoing the UI. Only one or two more UI devlogs to go though, and then it's just gameplay features and new content all the way till launch!
I actually like the vlog devlog style. It’s unique and not like all the other devlogs. Keep going the game looks great 👍
Include the descriptions.
If people need the reminder of what it does, it's there (and the player doesn't have to go all the way to the shop to find the description again).
If they don't care, then human brain is extremely good at learning how to ignore things - as long as it's always in a consistent place then, try it out yourself, you'll very rapidly learn to focus on the bits that matter and will stop even seeing it's there.
(And it's one of the WCAG accessibility principles. You should always be able to work out the context from the item itself, so that there is no reliance on a cognitive function test. In other words, not including the descriptions means you're relying on people's memory. Don't do this unless it's intrinsically unavoidable.)
@@tornado3007 As do I. I have lived in the country my whole life but it's Australian countryside and tends to be... drab. It's fascinating to see a more European countryside and helps me appreciate what I already have.
One suggestion, please make it so the items go into the inventory even if the hotbar is not full as it makes it feel messy I think. If you like it like this, leave it, just a suggestion.
Should definitely have some way of seeing the description of an item after you buy it. If nothing else, then for the case of someone doesn't play the game for a while and comes back to it, they may no longer know what something they bought before the break does.
Love the videos, games making amazing progress
totally agree
Maybe a book almanac or menu item to explain the tools or items you've bought and other features of the game?
Yes, I do remember when I bought, but my future me, 2 weeks later doesn't, I am sure about it.
had the same thought. There should be some way for people to read up where to use their tools if they've put the game down for a while. I kinda wish all games had this in general, because jumping back into something you were already in the middle of is so hard it often puts me off trying to play the game in the first place 😅
Exactly what I was about to say. You can always make it expandable, like after some time with mouseover that item, or maybe key modifier like Shift, or simply additional Game Option to toggle them on and off.
Regarding the item descriptions, a common compromise I see in-games...
(1) Hold down Alt while mousing over an item, to see the "Detailed View". When your not holding down Alt, you get the "Compact View".
If not mapped already i would just use the right mouse button. It's very intuitive because that how it works in most dekstop applications already.
@@z0bi_ from what he said in the video, the right click brings up the tooltip already. So if you have 2 different view options bringing up one of them would require a modifier.
You could also have it that mousing over the icon shows the simple tooltip, but right clicking on it brings up the description too.
Definitely a Factorio Engineer we found here
This
Hi, I have two ideas, one is to make a sort inventory button, it would be very useful in my opinion. The other one is related to item descriptions, you could make a small button in the tooltip with a question mark, when the player clicks on it the description will appear. The game is looking awesome, keep up the good work!
I agree! Add a few sorting buttons: alphabetical, quantity, and category at the least
Yeah I definitely want to add some sorting options, or maybe have different tabs for different types of items.
@@ThinMatrix That is a great idea, probably would make the inventory more organized
@@ThinMatrixtabs absolutely😊
+1 on the sorting/grouping by type. (E.g. tools first, then materials, etc ) - terraria has something like this
I honestly think a basic looking inventory is better than a too-interesting looking one. Since the player is going to be seeing it a lot, I'm of the opinion that you want the player to not even notice the inventory, for it to just be perceived as a natural part of playing the game. And for that you just need something that looks serviceable and basic, while fitting the overall UI visuals that you went for in the game. I wouldn't stress too much about how the inventory looks, and instead just focus on how using it feels for the player and ensure that it feels easy and intuitive to use, since the player will be using it a lot. Great work!
Edit: in terms of item descriptions, I think it's best to show the item's description as well when the player inspects it. You never know if for example a player is coming back to the game after not playing it for a while, and doesn't quite remember what every item does. It's useful to see the descriptions in the inspect panel, and it'll just be basically not noticeable for players who are just looking for the item's stats.
Thanks for the feedback!
Sitting here feeling quite unwell and very sorry for myself. Refresh the page. ThinMatrix devlog just dropped.
Thank you god.
Hope you feel better soon!
These devlogs are so good, you are a big inspiration to me as an artist working in game dev. I love the simplicity of the art in your game
Thank you!
The UI is looking pretty good! My only tip would be in the item display, you could show the name of the item when hovering, and the stats and description of the item when right-clicking. That would remind the player what the item served for. This is just an opinion, because once you put many hours into the game and with a lot of items bought, it can get overwhelming to know every single item by head. But keep up the good work can't wait to play the game! :D
Nice idea, thanks!
Your devlogs are so captivating that they inspired me to make my own cozy farming game haha. I am suuperr excited for Homegrown and I wish you all the best! 💌
Hi! Not sure if you'll read this - I love your devlog series, it's food for the soul! And I really appreciate your filming and editing style, it all fits so well together with your balcony and the cooking and the walks with Rufus, just a really great series!
Not sure if your audience overall would be interested in this, but I recently started learning Java (web dev rather than software, though), and I would really love to learn more about how you're building games from scratch, how you made camera and graphics work, your sound system - anything like that. In my brain there is a big yawning chasm between, "oh yeah, I can get game logic to work and print it to the console (or maybe have a super simple gui with javafx or something)" and going to a fully fledged game with just, you know, plain Java.
I know videos are a lot of work, and it may not be the best thing for your channel, and I definitely appreciate any and all videos you make, so it's of course completely understandable if you didn't want to make a video about it! Just if you ever wanted to talk about the under-the-hood stuff, there's at least one subscriber who'd geek out about it!
Thanks for all the work you put into this!
Gardener, chef, teacher, programmer, designer, artist
12:27 it’s always good to show the description. If a user doesn’t open the game for a bit and later comes back to it, they may have forgotten.
I love this! I think it would be really nice to have a button that sorts the items in some way. I love having an organized inventory in games but doing that manually would become a pain at some point. Great video😁
Always excited when you drop a new vid. So calming and inspiring. :)
Always make seeing the description again an option. I have a terrible memory and would appreciate being able to see it again if I forget.
Glad you enjoyed your stay in Thailand. Feel free to come back anytime, and good luck with the game!
As a UI designer I think you’re missing a categories level to your inventory. Imagine going to the supermarket and every item is in the same aisle. I suggest thinking about the action the user is trying to perform when they open the inventory. Eg ‘I want to plant a seed’. You don’t need to see all the other categories of items, this gets in the way of finding what you want. Animal Crossing has a hard limit on the number of items a user can hold so it still runs into that problem but it can mitigate.
As some previous comments suggested, the inventory needs some sort of sorting. But instead of a sorting button, I would add tabs for tools, vegetables, furtulazers etc. The reason is, when you will add more content to the game, the inventory will be cluttered. Imagine having 50 different seeds, plants, fertilizers and 15 different tools all displaying on one screen.
That vacation though! Seems like a dream. Congratulations to your friends!
This game is looking more and more fun every video! I was watching when you made the new items go into the inventory and I think it would be nice if a pop-up appeared above the inventory button telling you how many of what item were stored :D
Thanks! And yeah I agree, that's something I've been considering :)
I have been reminded about this channel by a different video (Sasquatch B Studios) mentioning you and I have to admit that your content was one of the first devlogs I've ever seen. Subbed, not to loose it again :) good luck on your project and thank you for such a great content
Love this vloggy devlog! Your trip and your dish both look amazing!
I think it's always nice to have an easy way to see the description of the items. For example, even though I've been playing Pokémon since forever I always find myself checking the description of moves and items to see what they do even though I probably used them thousands of times before.
Also, in my gamedev journey, I found that you can't always rely on the player's memory, in some of my playtests I saw players completely lost even though the game had explicitly told them what to do prior
Thanks for the feedback!
Your trip looked amazing!
The inventory should have tabs at the top for categories like tools, produce, fertilizer etc. thats a better overview then one big list!
Hey Karl, regarding the user interface decision about the description box. It is always a good habit, to show contextual detail info where applicable so showing it again might not make sense from a programmers mind or point of view but does for a lot of users. The reason is that, if the UI is snappy and works well, people tend to think they know and move fast across our UI but then realize that they still need the extra info at the next interaction point. So it is a nice courtesy to show it again. :) It will help your users and their acceptance level will rise. I'd say, try it out. :) If you really think, power users would be distracted by it then add an option in your UI preferences dialog as they as power users will maybe use that to disable the detail info box.
You are such an inspiration to me! Not just as a game developer but as a human an all around person too! Thank you!
Finally had a chance to watch the video! Recently moved from the UK myself to Denmark, so its been a bit hectic!
Loving the UI updates, as for whether you should show descriptions, I'd personally say yes or to have another way of finding out the information somewhere, without having to go the shop, maybe like a journal or something?
It's very good progress so far. It's worth the wait for your new Devlog.😉 Anyway, I'm so excited to know that you've been visiting to Thailand (cause I am Thai🤭) And I'm glad you were having a good time in my country!🤗
This is going to sound really silly, but seeing the slightest peak of runescape gives me so much confidence; i often get angry at myself for playing games instead of being productive; but seeing someone as talented as you "switch off" and have some time to chill it's a breath of fresh air :)
Very good vibes from your video, as always! So motivating and chilling!
For the tool tips in the inventory, I'd not put any additional info by default, but I'd rather add a small icon with a question mark that allows the player to show the additional info in a secondary panel, if needed.
Scrolling panels are the bane of our games, i salute you for getting to work nicely!
For the item descriptions it would be super useful to have in case we have gaps in between playing. Maybe you could have a hotkey to get extra info on the tooltip that contains description / max rolls for stats similar to ARPGs? Great video this week. Always excited when the notification pops up for the devlog!
would be awesome to see a Trello quick tutorial ..... all of the best ❤
FINALLY I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR A NEW VIDEO ^_^ ! you inspired me to start learning and creating my own game engine. I've always wonder why and how you looks like you know everything while me struggling to even figure out my own obj loader :D. I will work hard so I can be like you thanks for making such a great content ^_^. Cant wait to play your new games soon ^^
Great work and super chill and cosy devlogs as always. I think the popups should stay. Not everyone has the same attention spam; players might buy the item without noticing the description or reading it thoroughly and then later wonder what the item does. And going back to the shop or opening another menu that recaps all the tools you already have is another step for a simple information. As is, it's convenient, it's not intrusive and in case you haven't used an item for a while, or you come back to the game a long time after playing, it's great to have an easy reminder.
On another note, I'd be interested to see how you organize your projects. Idk if you already have a video on how you split your tasks, set up your trello, how you decide what you are going to tackle next on the todo, how you version your game etc. I think it's a very overlooked part of any game dev, but especially for solo devs.
Please add a tiny "Lock bottom bar" button. It helps to avoid accidental dragging things when I become too excited!
With dragging items in the inventory/moving them to your hotbar - maybe add an empty slot (empty grey box) to fill the currently empty spot? Love the videos
I absolutely love these videos, it's like they were made specifically for me. Coding, gardening, foraging and cooking! So wonderful.
It would be good to have a sorting feature in the inventory. If there are going to be as many items as you had in your showcase, it would be useful to be able to sort by type, value, recent, etc.
Also, wondering about how you structure you work days - do you have an allotted time that you will stop working, or do you just go until you have had enough. I've never worked for myself, so I find it interesting how you'd structure you workday!
Brilliant progress! The inventory is coming along really nice.
The semi-transparent inventory was definitely the best.
I think it's still a good idea to have item descriptions in at least some form, especially if someone hasn't played the game in a while or just wants a quick look without having to go all the way back to the shop
For the inventory and hotbar, I would have made it 1 array or list. The first 12 elements would always be the hotbar and after that is the inventory. This makes dragging and dropping a lot easier.
Also, when dragging and dropping is implemented for the hotbar, maybe clicking an item would show it's stats and description to the right of the inventory.
I was thinking the same thing. And you can make it also visually be the same list in the UI. When you trigger the inventory button, the hot bar moves up and reveals more rows underneath it instead of a disconnected window. Maybe you don't even need boring borders around it!
"...if you've bought it, and you own it, then you must already know what it does..." Bold of you to assume I remember what I had for breakfast let alone what an item in a game I haven't played in a week is for, lol.
Absolutely amazing work! It is insane how far you have come since I started watching you feels like forever ago now. Keep up the amazing work I cannot wait until I can play this!
For the inventory it would be neat if all the items had color coded backgrounds based on category and there was an auto sort button that organized things based on category, so you'd have sections for different things.
You are so inspiring, when I grow up, I want to be just like you. That is why I'm starting now.
Wow two years! I remember when you started this after working in the city builder game
Hey dude! Big fan of your content! You are so inspiring! you have been thru a lot but you didnt gave up! Have a great day!!!🎉🎉🎉
I know it would be a bit of a bigger change but you could make it that the hotbar is the actual inventory and then you have boxes or other storage containers that are placable, forcing the player to not have 500 items on them but choose the ones that they value to have on in the moment. This could lead well into some processing of raw resources (like carrot bread, or raps oil to fuel some machines)
You could even make it so that the hotbar does have limited space, and you can only access more inventory slots if you buy a shed or similar from the market?
@@tomsteadman9544 you could even have specialized storage like a silo for grains and crates for veggies and the shed for tools
For blank slots in inventory, maybe a ui checkbox to let the user decide if they want to have blanks removed or not. People like to organise their inventory in special ways, and having a blank can let them do that
You are doing a great job with these Devlogs. Really enjoying them ! Keep at it :D
Your devlogs are a huge inspiration to me. I love your laid back style, simple editing, and the cozy feeling. I'm taking notes, as always.
Developing your own UI framework has got to be the most soul-sucking aspect of this project. Any time i see you dealing with a monumental task like that, it gives me newfound motivation to tackle whatever problem I'm dealing with.
As for the inventory being basic looking, I think that's fine? It's going to be filled with all kinds of colorful and interesting stuff. So maybe less is more there.
For item popups, just add a 'hold shift' modifier or something to show/hide the item description when hovering as well :)
Been a joy watching you work the past few years
Some sort of sorting of inventory or even dividing inventory into different categories (tools, seeds, compost, etc.) would be useful. Great video as always!
Another option for the descriptions could be a second right click. The first click would bring up stats, and the second click would bring up the description.
i was just talking to my partner how i want to create a cozy game, and i used this as my argument.
Love watching your updates, this is looking absolutely beautiful.
for the item descriptions, you could have a little 'i' information button that a user can click to be reminded but otherwise they just get the stats
Definitely a yes from me on the item description in the inventory itself. It would be really annoying to come back to the game after a break from playing, having forgotten what the items do, to have to go back to the shop in order to find out.
I think you should definitely show the item description, it looked really good while also providing some more information.
I'm not a garden expert therefore I would quickly forget what certain items do.
These video's are always so calming and nice :)
I think this is called living life and I love to see it 👍
I think the addition of a greenhouse building would be cool. For growing tropical things like oranges, bananas, or pineapples or something. Also, farm animals please!
For item descriptions, what I have seen in other games and I enjoy, is for mouse over to show a small mouse over (just important information). And then if you hold that for long enough, the mouse over expands to show everything.
In Stardew Valley we can use Tab key to iterate the hotbar over the rows of our inventory. It's really useful when esspecially with this type of gameplay where you manage many resources and opening up the inventory is tedious after a while.
I highly recommend you implement this. Of course this means a fixed size of row in your inventory and overhauling the inventory management. But just wanted to let you aware of the situation. I love your content and follow you since the middle of the development of equilinox.
You should make another channel for growing fruits and vegetables where you show your journey of growing them.
I think most of us would watch your videos because it's chill and relaxing 😀
Having the description available in the inventory would be nice, and it wouldn't be necessary for the pop ups in the toolbar to have them. It allows your players to refresh their knowledge if they forgot. Yeah they can go back to the shop, but their will be a natural game play cycle in which a player wants to check items in their inventory and might wonder how to use them or what some do again.
You neeeeed the item description in the inventory!!! Plenty of people forget things fast and also the idea of someone coming back to the game and forgetting what everything in their inventory does is very discouraging!
One idea I have for the descriptions would be to show it in your inventory, but not in your hotbar. My thinking is that if it's already in your hotbar, you probably know what it does, but you might not know what some random item in your inventory is. Anyways, great video as always.
idk how often you get this, but I really think you should revisit that RPG you were working on 8-10 years ago. I still go back and watch those videos from time to time. it's so cool how you were able to make a game like that in java
If you plan to make the inventory infinite, I would definitely consider implementing a search bar along with a sort/filter button! Definitely would make a huge difference in QoL.
100% agree, especially since mod support means it is inevitable that somebody will have too many items to manually arrange
For the item description you could have a side panel in the inventory the same way you have it in the shop when selected with one click. And if you want to equip it in the lower bar, you could double click.
Great video and work! 🎉🎉🎉
Amazing work. For the item dragging between the hotbar and the inventory what you could do is get the closest inventory spot to the mouse and make a temporary slot at that position shifting every item after it. Additionally, leave the description in there, on hover would probably be better aswell (just, not instant)
To your question whether or not show the description in the quick info: I would show it, because it would lower the mental overhead of remembering each items description. To save space it could be collapsible and down the line it could be hidden by the users preference either from the options or with a little option on the storage inventory screen.
Re the tool tips it's useful to have a reminder what it does. Especially for those of us who have memory problems for any reason.
at the end you asked about the item description box - i was thinking maybe change it to show the info window on mouse over and then also show the description while holding right click, with a little "hold right mouse for more info" indicator, for people that forget what something does :)
I always push for options, especially if you are stuck between design choices: If you would like your default hover behavior to just show the item title in the tooltip, that is okay. However, perhaps in an options/settings menu for UI elements provide a way to turn on "extended" tooltips or something to that effect. Let's the player decide what they'd prefer. I think being able to see a detailed description for the item is important after purchase.
Great update video, can't wait for the feature/content videos!
For real, I do this all the time with small, non-gameplay-changing features. Someone else has an opinion on how it should work? Add it to the config file and call it a day lol
I had a spontaneous idea. Maybe you like it: Maybe also add an automatic sorting of the items in the main inventory (not the hotbar) depending on their type. All tools go first. Then all seeds. Then. The products and so on. Might be helpful if the inventory is very full. That would mean that the manual sorting of the main inventory is not used but in exchange you gain some cleanliness. I think the hotbar should not stay like it is.
Regarding the tooltip. I think it would be nice to have this little description.
Overall very nice video. I really enjoy allyour devlogs! And the game looks very nice and calming! Keep going :)
Hey, I'd have a video suggestion, partially bcs it would probably (or at least hopefully for you) beneficial and also VERY much interesting and helpful to share with people curious about that topic and looking to pick up something from your vast experience!
Namely, a vid where you would perhaps go into at least the overview level of your engine architecture or even a bit deeper depending on how comfortable and/or amount of effort you would max want to pour into such a topic/vid.
Because, by now your SURELY have a vast and amazing experience in how to deal with architectural issues especially on such a scale and given your exceptional organisational skills, I am sure we could learn from you that is of course if you are/would be willing to share this with us - your community :D
Hope you have an amazing, lovely and HEALTHY time!
Cheers!
I would make Alt/Shift/Ctrl modifiers when held down show the additional description.
I would also use one of those modifiers. Probably shift as a hotkey to move items faster between the inventory. Etc.
adding buildings that can be upgraded like silos for inventory space will be really good, just an idea
i love your devlogs
Just one quick suggestion. Maybe you could add a toggle switch which allows the player to keep the empty spaces in the inventory. This way you can use these empty spaces as dividers when rearranging and organizing your items. Other than that, great video! Cheers
Looking great! I think maybe the item counts would match the rest of the UI better if you used dark text on a light background, instead of the other way around.
Maybe shift/alt + hover for a detailed tooltip?
Awesome progress :)
I'm always happy to be watching these videos, if only because they get me excited to cook myself
Drag'n'drop will never cease to be one of the most fliddly things to implement, even though once you figure it out it's really not that complex.
12:18 hover to show pop up, then CTRL, that expands the pop up to show description. That means of the time you can avoid the clutter. But if in does you can see what it does by tapping control.
I agree with WakanaSora, if someone doesn't play for a while and comes back they might not remember the description. You could make a smaller name plate for just scrolling over an item then if you right click or tap a button it could give a whole description. Loving the game so far, been a huge fan of your work for years now
Looking good!! I think it would be nice to have some kind of filter for item types or any other relevant field in the inventory. If it starts to grow a lot it will be difficult to find what the player is looking for.
I think its a nice way to refresh people's memory if they come back after a few eeks off (tool tip decriptions), you don't lose anything from having a short single sentence descriptor, and you might lose a little from not having it so you might as well.
About the tooltip, it's always great to have one, but remember, the icon should be enough to understand what ther item is supposed to do. (blue = water, rouind = good, spikky = bad, ...)
Descriptions: YES.
Also: the Animal Crossing shape looks fun and cosy. You can take it and file under “being inspired by” no worries.
I think right click twice to add description. Or hold down a button while right clicking to enable an "advanced tooltip"
It might be nice to have two inventories, one for tools and one for crops and seeds. You could even have them both on screen when you open the inventory. So instead of 1 square box in the middle of the screen, there would be two separate areas allowing for more options for visual design. Oh you could even go similar to the save file design, two solid backgrounds for the separate inventories with a larger transparent background tying them together
Maybe for the rearranging of stuff in the inventory you could add some auto-arrange/auto-sort buttons, e.g. by type, by value, by quantity. As for the description of the item, either make it configurable, or display it all together. It doesn't harm. If you are a returning player and forgot what this tool does, and the description is absent, you will have to travel to the shop, find the item and read the description there.
When i play games i LOVE when devs let me choose between modes. As here when you ask "should this always be visible?" or maybe "Should tooltips always be visible, fast or slow or instant?" Well, that is what the options menu is all about :) Perhaps an "android button" on/off in the inventory for "always show tooltip" or simply collect all the "Should i have this or that" thoughts in the options menu. If i, the player is allowed to choose these settings i feel well taken care of and thought off instead of strictly following the devs vision!
One way to hide/show the description is with the user holding e.g. shift and it shows it, and hides when releasing. Makes it easy for the user
Definitely show the description! It starts with some default items, and I can’t always remember what an item did.
Other comments may have mentioned it, but my number one desire for any sort of inventory like this is a way to sort (by type/category/weight/value etc.) and filter (search for specific tools or items). That kind of functionality would be hugely appreciated!