Item cursor w/o GUIinventory [SOLVED]

[Mr Games]

Hi everyone,

I am making a game that initially has 2 mouse modes active (interact and look)

I would like to make it so that item cursors will be added to the cycle of available cursors, once said item has been added to the player's inventory, bypassing the need for a GUI inventory.

I have tried to piece together how to do this on my own but I am not good at scripting and would be grateful for any pointers (no pun intended) on how to approach this.

[Khris]

Initial post: Just disable all other modes in the editor, then call mouse.EnableMode(eModeUseinv); when the user gains the item.

I've just realized that this is about multiple items; how many are there going to be? You can use additional cursor modes and "any click" events, but I'm not sure about the UX.

[ManicMatt]

Can I also interject, that if the player has to right click through a lot of inventory items just to get back to look, it would cause frustration. Additionally no player could look at an item, right? So you'd have to make sure it's very clear what that item is, and what it does.

[Crimson Wizard]

I've just realized that this is about multiple items; how many are there going to be? You can use additional cursor modes and "any click" events, but I'm not sure about the UX.

Another option is to have all items on 1 cursor type and switch cursor graphic instead.

Script-wise, when cycling between cursor modes:
- when switching from a normal mode, you simply set next cursor mode;
- if next mode is inventory item mode, then you switch and set its graphic to the first item's sprite;
- when switching from inventory item mode you first check if there is next item, and if yes then change cursor graphic instead. If this is the last item, then switch to the next cursor mode.

But I agree with ManicMatt: this kind of UI sounds risky, people generally dislike having to cycle cursors because it may take more time to get to the wanted command, and it's easy to skip the one you need.

[Mr Games]

Thank you kindly for your replies.

I'm going to attempt Crimson Wizard's suggestion.

ManicMatt is right that it would be frustrating to cycle through lots of items before returning to "look".
However, items will be used and removed from the inventory, so typically you'd have 2 or maybe 3 at any given time.
I'll also make the sprite for the cursor very explicit.

Maybe it won't go down well, but I'll give it a try!

[Cassiebsg]

Also, since this might not be intuitive, I would suggest you to make the 1st inventory puzzle as a tutorial so that you/the character explains where the inventory item is and how to use it.
Not doing this might just en up frustrating the player cause he/she can't find the item he just picked up and wants to use.

[Slasher]

People even hate clicking twice let alone multiple times