Hey all, Bela here! Take a look, been working on this for the last couple weeks:

I’m really excited to dig into our progress on this brand new inventory system, but first, just wanted to apologize for not keeping up with my weekly posting. Not surprisingly, game dev is incredibly time consuming and I’m still kinda new to this, so figuring out everything from writing save data - to business finance (kill me) - to sprite animation - all on the fly - takes time and mental space.

But I don’t want to bore you with first time indie dev tribulations. Nope, instead I want to give you all a first look at our brand new Lunchbox Inventory System. In the demo we had a similar feature: you could collect items in your jar, but they had pre-defined places and your collection didn’t save. With our new system you can discover, organize and save up to six items in Nyah’s Lunchbox. Here’s me adding a “mushbrown” (working title) to an empty slot:

Hana and I created a detailed list of around 40 small treasures that you can find through out the game in their respective biomes. You might pick up a juicy banana slug in the redwood forests or a tattered cat collar on Nyah’s street in the city. Unlike the demo, these items will often be off the beaten path, so you may have some exploring to do if you want to find them all. Each item has flavor text from Nyah’s perspective that references the game’s lore or the item’s natural environment irl. Our artist Nina has already made some really beautiful treasures, and these are just placeholders:

Since you only have 6 spaces, it’s up to you what you keep and what you leave behind. Dropping an item summons the ghost cat Roadkill, who appears and takes the item as an offering for his altar. The item will then be visible on his altar forever. This part isn’t finished yet, but Hana and I tossed around the idea of his altar as the opening menu screen, so each time you open the game, all your dropped items are there to see. That will come after I get to a good stopping point with the Lunchbox UI next week. For now, here’s a rough idea of what roadkill will look like in game:

I used to love making Dioramas so I absolutely love designing this new system. The goal here is to provide an inventory that functions as a respite from “Gamey-ness” and let players take a no-pressure moment to collect and read. Hopefully by next monday I’ll have some new Roadkill art to share, stay tuned!