Map teleporting and gifts from strangers

I have made nice progress again. I implemented an  item transfer to the quest system, and I also have a world map teleport functionality up.

Now in the quest system, you can evoke three kind of dialogues:

• notification dialogue, where the NPC just says something to you
• dialogue that leads to accepting/denying getting an item from NPC
• dialogue that leads to losing an item in your inventory (and usually getting another item)

With these simple options its possible to create pretty much any kind of storyline and narrative. Items act as “flags” showing the story phase, and current story phase is tracked by checking your inventory.  One can have many ongoing stories, and tracking them is effortless.  I think this is simple and elegant.

I have had some design problems regarding dying in the game and saving progress, and also seeing the “big picture” in game, and not getting “lost” in the game world.

Now I have complete solution to all these issues. There is a world map, that acts as visual progression viewer, and shortcut with teleports to importants  spots in the world.  And these teleport spos act as resurrection spots if you die.

So its all quite clear and easy to understand. Once  you reach new “Map teleport” in the game world, you get it registered and it will show up in the map. When you die, you get teleported to this spot, so you always know where you are.  You cant use the map teleport function in dungeons, so its no easy ticket out of any situation.

I do know that these designs are not unique, and others have reached similar design decisions earlier, but its satisfying to come to “reinvent” these things still. I have seen these mechanics in a game, and taken them as granted but once I have to go thorugh the process of solving all the problems finding out how they are linked to each other,  it becomes clear how ingenious all the commonplace rpg conventions are.

Here is the map, with some test teleport spots, and the actual telport is show on the ground: