"Memory Inventory," Ideas and suggestions...

[Hollister Man]

Inspired by Ultima 9's ""journal" feature, I dreamed up a new GUI style.  I don't know quite how to implement it, or how it even should work, for sure.  Here is a sample for reference.



I thought, what if, as you discovered clues or tips, lets say an NPC broke their sword and needs it fixed, or maybe the Blacksmith said that he's a miracle worker.  Well, a new icon would pop up in your "memory inventory."  This icon you could use like a usual inventory item, to ask another NPC about that SPECIFIC topic.  Unlike a dialog list, it would be less certain who would respond to a given "icon."  New forms of puzzles could be designed with this system.  

Let me know what you think, and suggestions on implementation.

[Ginny]

Well I'll start with the actual design otherwise I'll forget it: Looks great, very nice design. Are you planning on this popping up this way though? Shouldn't it be a sort-of seperate inventory, not a part of the regular look talk use icons etc?

In any case, the idea sounds interesting, at forst when I didn't finnish readin yet I thought that you meant to use these icons just to make you remember the specific fact, which wouldn't be a good idea because many puzzles build on using something (memorable of course) said or done earlier, to help solve a problem later on, and this would make them much easier, however if they're point is to ask someone about that specific topic then it's an interesting idea. It could also be used as an action on an object to 'use that knowledge to perform an action'.
In my opinion though, it's much easier and possibly more natural to have dialog topics on the subject appear in the options when talking to a character, and being able to use the object in connection with the thing you remembered. It would require making sure the player would notice and remember what was said of course. But if you want to create a GUI to do this, go for it, it's a very interesting idea!
Another possibility is using a notebook interface where the protagonist would automatically take notes (and perhaps the player can add notes of his own aswell). I think I heard a notebook was used in Discworld Noir, I haven't played it yet unfortunately. Also, in Post Mortem (I played the demo) you have a notebook where the main character takes notes.
Has anyone heard of Amazon Trail or Oregon Trail? They're games which are not exactly adventures (not traditional ones defiently) but they still have recognisable elemts of adventures I guess, orgeon more than amazon. There are also other games in the spirit but I haven't played them. Anyway in oregon Trail you have a diary where the protagonist automatically writes down the daily events, and you too can write down what you want to. (Not that there's much to write except add emotional impact to the occurances, and just use your imagination, though).

Also, the Israeli members of the forum might've heard of "Julia slides through time" in a free translation (some people from france might've heard aswell, it became famous there). The game is in hebrew and basically isn't very interesting, but it's an adventure, and I metion it because I seem to recall it had a notebook where the player could write down things and make notes. The game wouldn't automatically make notes for you though.

In any case, good luck with the new GUI idea!

[HollisterMan at work]

I thought of using it like this, but a separate GUI would be much easier.  Besides, I would get frustrated going back and forth trying to find the right thing to talk about.  I figured it out.  Set it up so that your inventory and speech cursors can be "scrolled" like right-click usually does.  Lets say you click the center button, it would go to the next inventory or speech choice.  If you do not have a third button, you could use the arrows or some keyboard setup.  Great, eh?

My main idea was like in the old Lordof the Rings from Interplay.  Im that you could "ask" characters questions. EG: If you ask most people about "skull," you get no answer, but one in particular, who you *might* remember was the person to speak to about it will say, "Oh yes, I found a skull in my garden yesterday."

This way you don't automatically find out who is the right person when you see the dialog topic in their list.