Hey followers!

 
 
Another week, another dev-log. This is the next part in the series about my game Ekstratia, a 
single player medieval exploration game. This week I’ve implemented items and an inventory 
system. 
 
Items 
 
I think it’s pretty obvious that a game about - and named after - 
expedition should have items. While I’m mainly going to talk about 
holdable items and weapons, all materials in the game are important to 
give the player a reason to explore. The first item I created for this game 
was a simple sword to use as an object for the player to hold to get 
basic item handling taken care of. The model pictured was created in a 
free, open source program called Blender.  
At the moment, there’s only one type of weapon in the game, a 
sword, however I’ve created an object that can be expanded upon to 
create new weapons to add into the game. While variance is good, I’ve 
learned that it can also come back around to bite you.  
Mojang, a swedish development studio, made a little game a few 
years ago named Minecraft; have you ever heard of it? Sarcasm aside, Mojang did a few great 
things with Minecraft. Weapons are simple to use, and don’t require an explicit tutorial. This was 
important to me, as I want my game to be accessible to all people, and not a specific group of 
seasoned players. Games like Dark Souls, Skyrim and Fallout all have very extensive and 
nuanced combat systems, however they also all have lengthy tutorials that force the player to 
pass a gauntlet of tasks in order to play the game. My goal with weapons was to make them 
easy to use, and require little in the way of a tutorial. 
I decided to keep things simple. Every item is used with only two buttons: these buttons 
can be configured the player, and can be mapped to any keyboard, controller, mouse, or other 
apparatus. By default, it uses the two mouse buttons. Every item’s “main” function is bound to 
the left mouse button. This would include swinging a sword, drawing a bow, or readying a 
shield. If an item has a secondary function, it’s bound to the right mouse button. An example of 
this would be cancelling the draw of a bow. Ideally, to make things as easy and intuitive as 
possible, the player is never ​required​ to use the secondary action.  
An easy question to ask when presented with the decisions of ease of use is “Why is 
ease of use important? Shouldn’t the player learn the game and it’s mechanics?” This is true, the 
player should learn the mechanics of your game, it shouldn’t be a chore. The joy of my game is 
to explore the land, get better weapons, and conquer your foes. In Tetris, the objective is to 
stack blocks and get the highest score possible. The objective often requires the use of 
designed mechanics, however if those mechanics are overcomplicated, many players may 
become bored, and stop playing.