WEBVTT 00:06.780 --> 00:07.740 Welcome. 00:07.860 --> 00:13.620 At this point in the course, it's time for us to start thinking about a way to manage our abilities. 00:13.650 --> 00:21.990 Now, for this game project, I've chosen to design a spell menu that makes a sort of compromise between 00:21.990 --> 00:25.410 overly complex and overly simple. 00:25.440 --> 00:34.950 I didn't want this spell menu to be too simple because this project is a bona fide RPG and an RPG deserves 00:34.950 --> 00:39.660 the respect of having a good spell menu and by a good spell menu. 00:39.660 --> 00:43.830 I mean it should have at least a set of minimum features. 00:43.860 --> 00:50.880 Notice in the widget diagram here that we have an offensive abilities section. 00:50.910 --> 00:53.440 Now this is a form of spell tree. 00:53.460 --> 00:56.010 In this spell tree, we have three columns. 00:56.040 --> 01:00.840 Now, it doesn't really matter how you organize the columns in this game project. 01:00.870 --> 01:04.740 Each column will represent a type of offensive ability. 01:04.770 --> 01:10.630 Offensive meaning attack abilities or abilities that harm the enemy characters. 01:10.660 --> 01:16.360 These will be abilities that we typically activate, such as keyboard presses and mouse clicks. 01:16.450 --> 01:19.610 Beneath it we have a passive ability section. 01:19.630 --> 01:25.910 Now, this will be abilities that once active, they will remain active. 01:25.930 --> 01:33.160 So things that will constantly give the character perks or strengths as opposed to the offensive abilities 01:33.160 --> 01:37.240 which will be activated throughout the game by spending mana. 01:37.270 --> 01:43.030 Now notice at the very bottom we have what looks like something that we have in our overlay. 01:43.060 --> 01:45.430 This is our equipped abilities row. 01:45.460 --> 01:52.120 This shows us which abilities we currently have equipped, including offensive and passive abilities. 01:52.150 --> 01:58.720 Now, this is not exactly the same as what's in our overlay because this widget is going to have much 01:58.720 --> 02:00.050 more capabilities. 02:00.070 --> 02:05.340 You see, I'd like the capability of reassigning abilities to different inputs. 02:05.350 --> 02:09.190 Switching from left mouse button to right mouse button and so on. 02:09.280 --> 02:12.490 I'd like to be able to switch them around and change them. 02:12.490 --> 02:16.520 This is an important feature that I thought would be worth covering. 02:16.540 --> 02:22.600 So this row down here is going to have more features than appears at face value. 02:22.630 --> 02:25.070 Notice at the top we have spell points. 02:25.090 --> 02:30.580 Now we've been talking about spell points and how we're going to earn them when leveling up. 02:30.610 --> 02:37.060 Now we're about to see how these spell points can be functional as our spell menu will have a spend 02:37.060 --> 02:43.540 point button and the spend point button is going to allow us to spend points on abilities. 02:43.690 --> 02:46.450 Now we will discuss more about what that means. 02:46.450 --> 02:50.480 But when spending points, I want two main features. 02:50.500 --> 02:56.770 One is I'd like the concept of locked abilities that we don't have yet, and as long as we're eligible 02:56.800 --> 03:01.060 to meet the level requirement for a given ability, we can spend a point on it. 03:01.060 --> 03:03.910 Then we can equip it to unlock it. 03:03.940 --> 03:10.150 Another feature is that I'd like to be able to upgrade abilities so if we've already unlocked an ability, 03:10.150 --> 03:15.570 I'd like to be able to spend a spell point to upgrade that ability to its next level. 03:15.580 --> 03:19.450 So individual abilities will have their own ability levels. 03:19.570 --> 03:24.280 This allows us to take advantage of gases built in ability level feature. 03:24.430 --> 03:27.280 Notice we have an equip spell button as well. 03:27.280 --> 03:35.530 So as spells are unlocked, they now become eligible for equipping and we can equip them to whichever 03:35.530 --> 03:37.060 input that we like. 03:37.300 --> 03:41.920 So we're going to need a way to select abilities by clicking on them. 03:41.920 --> 03:49.060 And with a selected ability, we can then equip with our equip button and select from among our equipped 03:49.060 --> 03:53.890 abilities row at the very, very bottom which input to assign it to. 03:54.130 --> 03:57.370 Now what are these two boxes here on the right? 03:57.400 --> 03:59.710 Well, I'd like a spell description. 03:59.740 --> 04:06.340 Usually a spell menu has some way to inform the user what each ability is going to do. 04:06.760 --> 04:11.190 Otherwise, there'd be no incentive to unlock or upgrade the ability. 04:11.200 --> 04:15.190 So the spell description tells us a little bit about the ability. 04:15.220 --> 04:19.900 Perhaps some of the stats involved such as mana cost and damage caused. 04:19.900 --> 04:27.100 And I'd like a second description box that will describe what the ability does at its next ability level. 04:27.130 --> 04:34.260 Again, this is incentivizing the user to want to upgrade the ability and not just ignore that ability. 04:34.270 --> 04:38.980 If there's a temptation to spend ability points on one ability to upgrade it. 04:39.010 --> 04:41.480 Then there now becomes a choice. 04:41.500 --> 04:47.470 Does the user upgrade their current abilities or spend a spell point to unlock abilities that are now 04:47.470 --> 04:49.300 eligible for unlocking? 04:49.450 --> 04:54.160 I feel like these are all features for a spell menu that are relatively serious. 04:54.160 --> 04:55.900 RPG must have. 04:55.930 --> 05:01.660 Now of course, there are RPGs that have spell menus that are much more complex than this. 05:01.810 --> 05:06.250 So again, I had to make a compromise without going too complex. 05:06.250 --> 05:06.430 But. 05:06.480 --> 05:10.350 It also giving this game the spell menu that it deserves. 05:10.380 --> 05:16.380 Also, the features covered in this spell menu are expandable, so I feel like we'll be covering enough 05:16.380 --> 05:23.940 information to equip you with what you need to make those more complicated spell menus for the RPG projects 05:23.940 --> 05:25.260 you're working on. 05:25.500 --> 05:31.770 So now that we know what our spell menu is going to contain, it's time to create the spell menu, widget 05:31.770 --> 05:34.680 and all associated widgets that will go into it. 05:34.680 --> 05:40.510 And then we'll work on making this spell menu functional so that we can handle our gameplay abilities. 05:40.530 --> 05:43.890 And of course this comes with the need for more abilities, right? 05:43.920 --> 05:46.710 We have one offensive ability, the Firebolt. 05:46.740 --> 05:52.950 We're going to need more so that we can make sure our spell menu works and also to make our game more 05:52.950 --> 05:53.820 exciting. 05:54.000 --> 05:58.330 So we'll begin making the widgets for our spell menu in the videos to come. 05:58.350 --> 05:59.640 I'll see you soon.