Junk and Fishing Spots

FISHING SPOTS

Yesterday I drew the first fishing spot. This is a serene little pond you'll visit as your first fishing spot just outside the starting town of Pondward;

There are two fishing hotspots there, just to make the image look pretty, but in the game there'll probably be only one fishing hotspot per body of water; unique items will be found depending on the fishing spot they're located in, and not by where in that fishing spot you happen to be fishing.

Regarding alchemy and cooking, you'll also be able to click around the scenery for a chance of harvesting alchemical or recipe ingredients. There won't be icons for these nodes, but you can click on the distinct components of the scenery (e.g. in the image above you can see trees, flowers, bushes, mushrooms) and on occasion you'll find items. A scene like the above might have several possible harvesting nodes, but only one or two of them might be active in any given period. After exhausting the nodes, there'll be a cooldown period before the nodes become available for harvesting again, and they won't necessarily be the same nodes as last time (you might harvest a piece of bark from a tree on one visit, and a flower and a mushroom on another visit).

JUNK!

Today I got started drawing the junk (and a few gear) items you might fish up. I haven't shown all of them here, but here's a little preview - a cracked goblet, some tangled fishing wire, little tacks, and a pair of boots. You'll only fish up one item at a time, and then clicking on the item in the 'you reel in' box will move it to your inventory and dismiss the box.

INVENTORY

The inventory will be grid-based with items occupying different amount of space (a small square, vertical two-square, horizontal two-square, big square, etc.). I've always loved managing a grid-based inventory in games - shuffling everything around and having to manage your space just feels more fun. You'll always be just a couple of clicks away from returning to a town to sell your gear, or to your home to store things, so you'll never have to worry about filling up and leaving things behind. If you're running out of space in your inventory and you catch something that won't fit, each fishing spot will have a little wooden box that overflow items will get added to for you to pick them up later. They won't despawn, but they'll have very limited space, only really meant to catch one last item that wouldn't fit into your inventory.

That's all for now! If you have thoughts on any of the systems I'm mentioning, or if you get any ideas you'd like to contribute, please leave a comment :D