Well shoot me, but I love both. So when I set out designing Opac's Journey, I insisted that we include some light RPG elements. There's a long list of benefits that come from an RPG fusion - stronger character progression, fun collectible loot, upgrades/abilities, immersive story and lore, (to name a few). The mainstream comparison would be richness found in Metroid/Super Metroid or Castlevania, when compared to say a Sonic or Mario Bros. So it's with great pleasure that I can show our inventory screen, with development/design help from our friend Alex Weldon. Alex does some great GUI design work and he took our sketches, listened to our goals, and pumped out the piece of beauty that you see to the upper-left.
Some things to note:
1. The green crystal theme carries over from the gameworld and lore of Ophidian Wars. For the Quan Spectrals, it is a green crystal that composes the Core of their kind (more info on Core in previous posts). So Alex put them to good use.
2. The items you see are also tied into the Ophidian Wars world. You may notice that these are some of the same items that will be included in Maya's arsenal for The Legend of Kilflame. How Opac uses them, however, is yet to be seen of course.
3. Opac will not start with any of these items, but most will be necessary to progress through the game. It will be up to the player to navigate the (often-times non-linear) world to find them.
4. Each item grants Opac an ability. For example, one of the items will allow Opac to glide for short distances. That ability can then be upgraded as to glide for longer distances.
Hope you like the look and feel of the inventory screen. Open to feedback as always.
