I've missed a lot of this, so I'm unsure exactly where we are, but perhaps you could start looking into menus? Main menu and so on, then later once the basic mechanics are in place we can implement an inventory (and maybe a map?) with ease.

Menus? Alright.

In fact, I've been starting work on some internal engine handling, like data values for an inventory. It's practically in place. Of course, nothing will be visually represented until physics come in.

I guess I can start menus now. Should it be button-clicking or arrow-key scrolling or something else?

Eeeyrrgh, I generally would say that menus should be the very last thing you'd implement in a game, after all the gameplay elements are done. But that's just my opinion; do it whatever order you'd like to do it in.

Menus would depend on the control scheme we had for the game, just so it'd be coherent. Did we decide on WASD+mouse, keyboard only, or that sort of thing? Yet another reason to do menus last: you already know what control scheme you have for your game so you don't have to rewrite anything later.

Personally I just thought menus would be something Red could do since he wanted a break from physics. However your point about the control scheme being undecided makes it kind of logical that we should do it last.

I personally think that we'll settle on keyboard-only, but then again that depends on exactly what features the game will have.

Keyboard-only. Definitely.

I had wanted to do a special control scheme with both hands on the keyboard. Also, I disagree about doing menus last. I don't find them difficult to implement, and in-game settings could come in handy. It wouldn't take long either, for that matter.

EDIT: I found a nifty tool for figuring out RGB color schemes that text elements use. http://www.colorschemer.com/online.html

Sweet, the keyboard should definitely be 2-handed. I agree that once menus are done then you might want to create a settings menu so that we can mess around with variables (and other stuff) ourselves when testing builds, instead of asking you to change it every time (like when we were testing walking speed).

Yes, I'll work on a data file for saving information and settings as well. This will all be in the next update.

maybe we will have "->PRESS START<-" blinking, and you press enter and it makes a deedoo sound. Backspace would be back, and it would make a errnt sound.

Oooh, ooh, my favorite menu sound of all time for a game has to be the disabled menu option sound in Commander Keen. It's the closest thing a SoundBlaster card can make to saying "stoppit". It's genuinely hilarious. XD

The engine has been updated

Link in signature

Pretty self-explanatory

Use arrow keys to scroll through the options, enter to choose

@kirdneh: Maybe "Press Enter" instead, since heaps of people will be looking for a Start key on their keyboard.

@Red: Will try it now.

EDIT: Awesome stuff! It's nice to see how customizable the main menu is with XML, although I assume that'll probably be totally changed once the game's done.

Yeah, I'd assume so. I'm just trying to introduce some sort of event-handling system.

Should I do sounds now? Or should I man up and just implement physics already?

Nice work! I love the menu implementation, very clean.

And I think it's time to implement physics.

Me too. Once you've got it out of the way you'll be glad about it, and everything else will feel like a piece of cake in comparison.

That's how I'm doing my Flash game: game mechanics first, then deal with the menus and stuff.

Yes! Get it over with! Besides, we need that outta the way before anyone can make levels, story, art or music to implement.

Don't you guys think he'll have to tweak physics along the way too?

Of course he will, but it needs to do the general physics anyway. Once more ideas and features get implemented there may be minor changes to be made, but most of it should stay the same.

Indeed, once we have basic player mechanics and movement, every new addition will seem minor in comparison.

I'll get started then.

Good luck! Who's doing the artwork?

Howitz, mostly.

He's practically disappeared though. Someone needs to contact him.

HOWITZ!!! WHERE ARE YOU?!? Lol...

I've been emailing him. He's working on some character sheets.

Ah OK, that's sweet. Shouldn't work too hard on it though, they'll probably need changing later on.

Can i Join?

I don't know. We have a lot of people.

Please tell us how you would contribute.

Sure, if you want to make levels or designs.

haven't seen you in a while!

Have you gotten more physics done on the engine yet Red?

I'll update when I update.