Castle Paradox

[msw188]

(reposted from Slime Salad game discussion)

Here is a list of things that I think I need, but don't know how to do, for a working individualized item system that I would be happy with. If anyone has any idea about these, please let me know. I'm pretty sure that none of these are possible even if bug 496 were entirely fulfilled (which means that they will end up as their own feature requests in bugzilla, or additions to 496), but I could obviously be missing things. All that said, I feel that these features would be helpful for many things, not just my own ideas about individualized item menus.

1. Plotscripts chosen from a menu can recognize both what menu chose them (may already be accounted for in 496) AND what slot chose them (I don't think this has been discussed yet). My immediate thought is that all menu-selected plotscripts should have the menu handle and menu slot that they were called from passed to them as arguments. Or did someone already bring this up...?

2. Disabling of the cancellation keys (ALT, ESC) on a menu-by-menu basis. It would be up to the author to make menu choices for cancellation.

3. "use item in slot (slot)" plotscripting command. I can imagine problems with a simple "use item(itemID)" command, but using an item in a slot takes care of the idea of item costs. Basically I want a function that automatically goes through the standard Item menu and double clicks on slot number (slot), but without showing it. It there is nothing there, or if what is there cannot be used, the command would do nothing (and maybe return false). Also, finishing use of the item or cancelling should NOT return to the Item menu. Maybe should only allow one use of item, regardless of how many the player has (can be used in for loop with inventory(item) command if the author desires).

4. "wait for menu" plotscripting command, to work similar to the "wait for textbox" command. Especially helpful if trying to script a menu system with multiple levels, and you would like to wait for the player to pick their choice on the menu (which might set a tag needed in the next line of the script, say). I'm not sure, I guess this may already be possible with the menu suspend player feature. Or maybe this is already the way it is. Do menus pause scripts by default?

5. "Read item usage (itemID, bit for in or out of battle)" plotscripting command, that returns the attack ID of the item. Default would be in-battle, I guess. I'm assuming that items calling text boxes would return a negative argument here. Not a problem if documented properly. If bug

Actually, I have a plan for getting around #5 if I have to do so, but the rest I am really stumped on. Well okay, I can get around #3 too, but it will mean plotscripting all item effects outside of battle from scratch, which is not particularly fun. It will also mean that consumability will have to be defined script-wise, which will further clutter up the already extensive pile of scripts. An organizational headache if nothing else.

If #5 were possible, it might supersede #3 if plotscripting commands to use an attack were made (see bug 516).
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