Graphics ~ Graphics Sandbox

The future of Graphics in Chiventure:

In Spring 2022, the Graphics team decided to focus its efforts not on the existing code of the Chiventure gui, but, with inspiration from previous work and a new vision for the game, develop a foundation in the team sandbox for future years.

The 2022 team identified a number of issues with the current codebase:

• The code is difficult to read
• Documentation is ambiguous
• The code is inflexible and unfriendly to adapations
• There are few / limited opportunities for growth and development

The Graphics team has expanded the horizons of the Chiventure UI in the following ways:

GDL:

Description: Please refer to the GDL wiki tab for more elaborate documentation. In a nutshell the Graphical Description Language is to the GUI what the WDL is to the Game-State. In other words, the GDL allows the author to specify HOW items in the world are displayed and conveyed.

Future Directions: The GDL file currently supports very few features as of now but has a wishlist of game elements that could use author customization. The statistics feature has some progress to it, but will require completion. Moreover, there are infinitesimal ways in which the author can specify graphical elements of their game. It is up to you to imagine what they might want to include and how to facilitate that.

Input Box:

Inventory:

The inventory module currently supports a custom size (ie the author can specify the number of rows and columns they want for their inventory) as well as a color for the inventory background. One aspect of the inventory that has not yet been figured out is how authors can customize graphical displays of elements in the inventory through the GDL. This is one immediate next step. Another is how to continuously update the inventory pop-up window, so that once updates occur revolving the game state, they are directly reflected in the inventory rather than requiring the user to fire up a new window.

Map:

NPCs:

Statistics:

Quests: