This giant thing is a compilation of everything in my notes that's definitely going to be in the final game. It paints a very different picture of the project status than the checklist (which is only for things that aren't done yet) or the notes post (which is sprawling and outdated in a lot of cases).
I'll also be referring to this list when integrating systems together as well as creating Magic and Lore.
Design Philosophy
Palettization / Learning -- This is the main design philosophy of the game -- lots and lots of procedurally generated systems that are set up in such a way that they can be learned and can inspire ideas and strategies.
Choice -- Another core design philosophy of the game is the idea of making choices. There are a lot of items that do multiple useful things, which you have to make hard choices with. Additionally though, there are a LOT of optional systems and so a lot of ways of accomplishing the same goals depending on your playstyle.
Core Mechanics
Reseed -- Done -- Picks a different universe to play in essentially. First step of the game is choosing one that you like the look of.
Control Schemes -- Not yet -- The game is currently a mixture of keyboard arrow keys/wasd and the mouse, which can be awkward sometimes. I'd like to offer mouse-only and keyboard-only modes as well.
Progress-unlocked menus -- Done -- The various sprawling menus of the game only appear once you've unlocked those particular features in the game.
Information Menu -- Done -- On the left side of the screen, you have several information menus for reference. This menu lets you show different ones and manipulate their position.
Interact Menu -- Done -- On the right side of the screen, you get your menus and various context-based widgets.
Saving -- An early v0 -- This feature saves the game. If you're playing online, this will sync with a web database; if you're playing offline it'll save/load as a bunch of text (or a file if I can implement that).
Naming -- Needs more work -- For flavor, random names are given to various things like resources, animals, loot weapons, towns, etc. Many of these are english-like, but there's a few that are truly random.
Naming Languages -- Early v0 -- For even more flavor, the rules of the fully randomly-named entities are concentrated into a small amount of distinct "languages". This should give the game more flavor and tie into the game design better.
Toggle Fullscreen -- Done -- A control that blows various menus up to cover the entire screen. Useful since the right panel sometimes isn't wide enough for complex menus.
Basic Systems
Time -- Done -- The game is turn-based, but instead of just tracking turns, the game has an in-game time system of 10, 100, and 1000 turns. This will definitely influence something somewhere.
Health / Death / Respawning -- Done -- You have health and can die. If you die you respawn at whatever your spawn point is (there are various ways to influence this). Dying makes you drop half of your Tech Aether and half of your Money.
Regen -- Done -- Health and mana over time (in-game time, not real time).
Food -- Not yet -- Eating something every now and then is required. There's a lot of food to choose from and there are some distinct systems at play.
Sleeping -- Done -- At a campsite or bed, you can sleep. Sleeping will increment turns a lot faster, which will make your health and mana regenerate faster. However, it will also make your hunger meter increase quickly as well.
Resting -- Done -- At a campsite or couch, you can rest. Resting allows you to regenerate in real-time, so you're not wasting turns and acquiring hunger along the way. The regen rate here is a lot slower, so resting is a good time to do things in menus.
Camping -- Done -- This mechanic allows access to Sleeping, Resting, some crafting categories and Potionmaking out in the wild. However, it has distinct terrain requirements -- you can't camp just anywhere.
Lore -- Nothing yet -- Whenever the game is done, there will be a lot of lore created to explain everything and also explain a bit of backstory. I do a lot of worldbuilding anyway, so this will be a fun project to put together.
Terrain
Terrain -- Done -- The terrain generation systems are using my own algorithms. The overworld and caves generators are interesting to explore and sometimes very unpredictable.
Leaping latch / Tetrad -- Done -- Given the madness of the overworld (and the fact that you can't jump over solid blocks), this system allows you to switch between three "dimensions" -- or three different terrain layouts. Useful system for getting around these barriers.
Water -- Done -- Water generates in the overworld as well. This influences camping a lot and also influences the depth (or even possibility) of fishing.
Water color -- Done -- Overworld water generates in one of five colors -- These five color types are basically separate biomes, with variations of overworld resources on them and different types of fish. Water colors are also important to accessing Mana Planes -- five of the planes have entrances created while in water, and they correspond to the five colors of water.
Province Looping -- Not yet -- Around the outer edges of a Province, past the Void Sea, the map loops back around both horizontally and vertically.
Weather -- Done -- This is less of a traditional weather system, and more of a framework for random events to happen cyclically. I could program an actual weather system in it if I wanted to.
Items
Resource gathering -- Done -- You collect resources by walking into them. Doesn't require any special tools. Very easy, but has its own challenges because of how the terrain generates. Thanks to the Pools system, there are 25 distinct resources to collect in the overworld. There are others in caves or mana planes.
Resource Discoveries -- Done -- Any resource you collect will go into a menu so you can see what they are. This is useful since the colors of the resources can vary and don't really match what you'd expect.
Extraction -- Done -- Resources you've collected or picked up have to be extracted into useful materials. This system does exactly that, and is also where you pull out potion ingredients and open Crates.
Crafting -- Done -- Materials can be crafted into useful items. Various key items crucial to game progression are also crafted, including the Soul's Pivot at the very end of the game.
Crafting Alchemy -- Done -- Items have various properties, and the materials used in the crafting recipe influence those properties. Each recipe is split among the ingredients in the recipe so it becomes very possible to learn what different materials do and try to combine them together into what you want specifically.
Work system -- Not yet -- A potential system that allows you to create better and better materials (which influence their properties) via special crafting stations and processes. Unlike other games, the mechanics of all of this would be procedurally generated and vary from world to world.
Inventory -- Done -- This menu tracks which items you have in your inventory, sorted by category or eventually by more custom filters.
Inventory Weights -- Not yet -- Items in your inventory weigh you down. You can't carry an infinite amount of them -- you need to drop them or use Base Storage or Banks to store them. Or just sell what you don't want.
Inventory Atomization -- Done -- Various special features require an in-game currency known as "Tech Aether". This function allows you to gain Tech Aether by "Atomizing" items -- erasing them but giving you some tech aether as a result. This can be a tough choice sometimes. The amount of tech aether you can gain varies a lot.
Item Dropping -- Done -- A system that lets you directly drop items and pick them back up again in case your inventory gets too full.
Equipment -- Done -- Various systems require items in certain categories to be "equipped" before they can be used.
Equipment > Expand, Compare -- Done -- In your equipment menu, in addition to just selecting the item from a drop-down, you can also Expand the list to see the items better or directly Compare their properties.
Durability -- Done -- Some items have a "Durability" property that goes down as you use the item (or do special stuff with it), and you then need to repair it later.
Magical Ingredients -- Done -- Occasionally, Potion Ingredients will drop as Magical Ingredients instead. These items are more potent versions of their respective potion ingredients, but are also useful in upgrading Magic, and can also be Atomized or Sold for a lot. They're also always extractable from Monster Fish.
Fishing
Fishing -- Done but rewriting -- A system that allows you to catch fish in pools of water, as well as crates. I'm currently rebuilding this, I'll get back to it when my notes there are done.
Mobs
Random mobs -- In Progress -- Enemies have various procedurally generated properties, such as movement behavior, attack behavior, aggression, fear or water, etc. There are a lot of possibilities, but they're palettized so it's possible to learn their behavior. I use "mob", "enemy" and "animal" somewhat interchangeably.
Spawns -- Early v0 -- Mobs spawn in fixed locations across the world. As you explore mobs will come into your vision if there's a spawn area nearby. Alternately, you can find them through Scout Animals or leave Traps.
Animal corpses -- Done -- When animals die, they leave behind corpses which can be collected and extracted like other types of resource.
Trapping -- Not yet -- A system that allows you to catch animal corpses over time. It's a lot more inefficient than killing or breeding them, but easy to set up in the beginning of the game and quite expandable.
Nests -- Not yet -- In dungeons and similar areas, enemies will spawn in Nests rather than in areas. Unlike areas, Nests can keep producing more enemies until they're destroyed. Enemies produced from Nests tend to be a lot harder as well.
Combat
Melee attacks -- In Progress -- Shatterloop has a very tactical combat system. This set of weapons will allow you to stun enemies, hit an arc of them, pierce through multiple enemies, etc.
Thrown Weapon abilities -- In Progress -- Some types of weapons can be thrown, and then there are various types of techniques that allow you to manipulate the thrown item in various ways.
Ranged Weapons -- In Progress -- Some weapons have a much higher range and don't go out of your inventory when you use this attack. However, they tend to do less damage and they also consume arrows that have to be crafted or bought or looted.
Support Weapons -- Done -- Some weapons offer more support than straight-up attacks -- shields will let you smash enemies into walls, a grapple glove will let you throw enemies to get them in more favorable positions, and an acrobat gauntlet will let you leap over stacks of enemies to be in a more favorable position yourself.
Magic attacks -- In Progress -- One of the things magic can do is magic attacks. These work similar to ranged attacks but have a lot of interesting special effects attached to them, but sometimes also unreasonable limits that have to be overcome.
Elemental System -- Not yet -- Shatterloop makes use of an elemental system where certain elements are stronger against others. Elemental enemies are rare in the overworld but more common in caves/dungeons and ubiquitous in the elemental dimension corresponding to them. This elemental system has ties to mana planes and the Tetrad as well -- it's heavily tied in with the lore and the overall development of the game so far.
Bases
Get Color system -- Done -- This system takes colors in the world that have been naturally generated and adds something similar to them into your base builder's palette.
Dying system -- Not yet -- This system lets you take colors in your palette and mix them together or alter them in various ways to get a wider range of colors to use.
Base Building -- Done -- This system allows you to place floors, solids and doors in the world. This is useful for bases obviously, but can also be used in other ways, like creating permanent barriers or pathways.
Base building energy usage -- Done -- Placing a solid on a solid or a floor on a floor costs a lot less tech aether than placing a solid on a floor or a floor on a solid. Placing doors also costs a good bit.
Base Creation Mechanic -- Done -- Bases have very specific requirements -- placed or natural solid borders, all floors you've placed yourself and at least one door. Thanks to the system above, it's useful to use the natural terrain to your advantage until you can upgrade your building tool a bit.
Base Rooms -- In progress -- Bases have distinct rooms, which change the types of base fixtures you can place there.
Base Fixtures -- In Progress -- Inside a base room you can place various types of Fixtures, that do different things. Placing Base Fixtures costs Base Aether and/or materials. They can also be removed or moved around.
Base Item Storage (accessible everywhere) -- Not yet -- Bases have a centralized storage solution. No matter where you are in a Base you'll always have access to the Base Storage and can transfer items back and forth without interacting with any fixtures. You can also send items to your base with Mount Animals or access your Base Inventory remotely with Mirrors.
Base Item Indexing/Tagging -- Not yet -- These systems let you organize your base inventory a bit better for easier usage.
Base Portals -- Not yet -- This system allows you to connect base rooms together over huge distances or in other dimensions. Not only does this make it easier to move between different areas, but the same base storage is used in both places so it really just feels like some far-flung extension of your base.
Base Fixtures
Storage Modules -- Not yet -- Bases don't have an infinite storage capacity either. Building these modules in an engineering room will upgrade your base's storage capacity.
Other Modules -- Not yet -- These upgrade your Base in other ways.
Atomizer -- Done -- Much like specialized machines in your inventory, your base requires Aether for various things. A Base Atomizer will allow you to atomize items in the base inventory to feed your Base's needs.
Research Station -- In Progress -- This fixture will unlock several optional systems and more generally can be used to research more advanced base features. Research requires time and usually some amount of aether or materials as well. This does however keep the overall base system nice and progressive.
Newflesh Node -- Done -- These fixtures will reset your spawn point. Touching one will set your spawn point there.
Analyzer -- In Progress -- This fixture will let you analyze the properties of a material before using it -- ties into potionmaking and crafting, both of which in the full version won't give you their list of properties until you've successfully wasted them in the recipe. An Analyzer will do it beforehand so you don't waste someting useful in a useless item or potion.
Smelting -- Done -- In caves, metal ores and precious metal ores naturally spawn. This fixture will allow you to smelt them into usable metal and precious metal ingots, at a reduced rate (currently 2:1).
Fuel Refinery -- In Progress -- A lot of Industry-type fixtures in your Base (including Smelting) require fuel. This fixture will turn various thermogenic materials into base fuel, or refine them into more enriched forms over time (which itself requires fuel) which can then be turned into fuel.
Bed/Couch -- Not yet -- Base fixtures that allow you to Sleep or Rest respectively.
Equipment Rack -- Not yet -- A base fixture that allows you to store a full set of equipment and switch easily between it and what you currently have equipped. Very useful if you have multiple playstyles for different things.
Fermenting Vat -- Not yet -- Allows you to turn various types of plants into different types of alcohol over time.
Alloys + Reforging (Blast Furnace) -- Not yet -- Metal items can be melted down into ingots, and ingots can be alloyed together to get useful properties from each. These can then be reforged into newer better items. This system is particularly good for loot -- high-level swords for example could be alloyed together into a new sword with properties of both. This process requires Fuel.
Property Refinement (Refinery) -- Not yet -- This process distills various organic materials into base properties, though it reduces them in number similar to the Smithy. This is however a good way to get really powerful items by processing more random ones into those with a more concentrated form. This process requires fuel.
Delivery Node -- Not yet -- This fixture allows you to buy and sell to shops remotely.
Automation Station -- Not yet -- Late-game fixture that allows you to automate various fixture processes in your base. When combined with the above and/or some kind of agriculture you can basically sit back and let your base create resources and money for you.
Desk -- Not yet -- Lets you track the progress of various fixtures in your base remotely elsewhere in your base. Good to have one in each room.
Specialized Crafting Fixtures -- Not yet -- These fixtures have their own set of crafting recipes for more advanced items or upgrades.
Agriculture
Seeds -- Not yet -- When you've opened this optional package from your research station, you'll be able to attempt to extract Seeds from plant resources. It doesn't necessarily work. In addition to tying into the Crops system, Seeds are a potion ingredient and also atomize/sell for a good bit.
Eggs/Spawn -- Not yet -- Similarly, you'll be able to attempt to extract eggs from animal corpses or spawn from fish. In addition to being useful for Aquariums/Terrariums, you can also hatch them to get Mount or Scout animals respectively.
Crops -- Not yet -- With seeds, you can plant Crops in your base. The Crops system is a basic farming tool, but also allows for breeding / hybridizing more desirable properties, including the properties of the materials you get from the resource. With an advanced enough farm, you can also extract rocks and metals from plants you've farmed.
Crop Environments -- Not yet -- Crops have very specific growing conditions of agricultural fixtures that can and can't be around them. So there's a kind of procedurally generated puzzle for figuring out how to most efficiently place crops in a room.
Aquariums/Terrariums -- Not yet -- Similar to Crops, you can farm animals and fish when you have eggs or spawn accordingly. These have some minor environmental restrictions, but they're a lot more chill. They do however require Food and they have food preferences. They will breed over time but only while there's a supply of food.
Feed Mill -- Not yet -- Turns food in your base inventory to various types of feed which animals and fish can eat.
Bait Farms -- Not yet -- similarly you can farm bait in some capacity. I haven't quite worked out the details here yet, but it'll either be a lot simpler than the other agricultural systems or it'll be a part of them.
Pets
Mount Animals -- Not yet -- Eggs can be hatched into mount animals. Mount animals give you more mobility, allowing you to travel faster in the overworld or a mana plane, get over small barriers, and/or collect resources from a distance. However, they consume food over time.
Mounts item moving -- Not yet -- Some types of Mounts can also serve as a second inventory, storing items and usefully returning them to a Base or Bank when you tell them to.
Summons -- Not yet -- Instead of hatching an animal egg, you can craft it with Quartz to create a summonable enemy. These are essentially enemies that will fight alongside you, consuming Food in the process.
Aether Lens -- Not yet -- This fixture appears naturally in Caves and Ruins but can also be made at a base from Quartzshards. It allows you to upgrade Mount Animals, Scout Animals and Summons with Quartzshards. It can also be blown up with a Gashroom bomb to get quartzshards -- along with other naturally generaated fixtures, this is the only way to get quartzshards and quartz.
Portals
Attractors -- Done -- A type of portal that can be teleported to with a Window or town window service. Tangles can also be connected to these one-way. Having multiple attractors in the same area and portaling to one of them will teleport you to somewhere on the outer edge of the cluster, causing time dilation in the process (this was a bug but I love it).
Tangles -- Done -- A type of portal that can connect to an Attractor. Both Tangles and Attractors are permanent fixtures in the world and cost Tech Aether to place.
Windows -- Done -- A cheaper option that transports you to an attractor you've already placed. Useful if you're just exploring and/or don't want a permanent link. You can also establish a Window to the closest town.
Repulsors -- Done -- A special portal mode that allows you to teleport to a given coordinate. Late-game feature.
Portal Modification -- Done -- Another function of the Portal Gun that allows you to modify portals you've already placed that are on screen.
Information
Item Color-coding -- Done -- Purely a UX feature -- each item in the game has a procedurally-generated color assigned to it. This color is then used in all menus where the item appears, usefully distinguishing it. (Which is good because the amount of items stacks up quick).
Titling -- Done -- Where you are in the universe will show in the top of the screen -- your Base, a specific town, a specific type of house, a dungeon, a mana plane, etc.
Coordinates -- Done -- Also at the top of the screen you'll see the exact coordinate that you're at.
Pointing -- Done -- This is a UX feature -- various systems will tell you where something is, giving a direction and a distance. Sometimes a coordinate or other systems. However they'll also do this "pointing" system where a line is drawn in that direction. These lines aren't necessarily straight or diagonal -- you get a wider range of angles in them.
Libraries -- Not yet -- A special type of town house that has a certain amount of free easily-accessible knowledge in it. You can find this knowledge through other systems, but it can be time consuming and/or expensive; so libraries are a great way to get free information.
NPC Questions -- Done -- A system that lets you ask NPCs arbitrary questions. In the final version there will be quite a lot here. They might tell you directly, but more than likely that answer will be in a different house or even town and you'll have to figure out who knows that information, where they live, how to get there, and then probably mess around with the town routes system as well for more obscure knowledge. However, there is also some palettization here -- towns have "experts" who are always proficient in a certain amount of knowledge.
Scout Animals -- Not yet -- Instead of using them in aquariums, spawn can be hatched into fish scout animals. These animals can be sent out through the world's various deep waterways to collect information, aggregating useful knowledge, finding points of interest, or even in some cases bringing resources back. This process does unfortunately take time, but there is a lot of useful information they can collect.
Maps -- Early v0 -- You have a basic mapping system that tracks areas you've visited and where you are, both in the world and in a town. However you also have various Map items that will mark the world map in various ways, pointing out things you didn't know -- such as the locations of lakes, specific shop types, water colors, etc.
Treasure Maps -- Not yet -- These are also Maps but they're a lot more specific -- pointing to an exact coordinate. If you plant a Gashroom bomb there you'll warp into a mini dungeon with some really good loot in it.
Journal -- An early v0 -- A system that aggregates all of the knowledge you've learned in all of the game's systems and also lets you take your own notes, as well as leave reminders for yourself in various menus. Pretty essential for the game because there's always a lot to learn.
Civilization
Provinces -- Done -- There are three sizes of town and they're spread out in a fairly unique way across a 9x9 grid. This system creates this map of towns, and also distributes various other types of locations like dungeon entrances.
Province Routes -- Done -- Towns are connected to each other in a complex but very learnable way. There are four route types with various levels of convenience and expense. Learning efficient town routes and how things connect together is a big part of the game.
Town Repulsor Service -- Done -- A service that teleports you to a specific coordinate, for a price. The cost is based on distance, so it's in your best interest to be close to wherever you're trying to get to first via the province routes system.
Town Window Service -- I forgot -- A service that teleports you to an attractor you've already placed, for a price. Overlaps with the portals way of doing it obviously, but useful when money is more available than tech aether.
Towns -- Done -- Towns are quite distinct from each other, similar to one another in a province, and have things in them that aren't houses. The houses themselves have a lot of variation with some occasional weird colors so that town navigation is easier.
In-town fast travel -- Not yet -- When the town map is in place you can teleport to any house you've already visited seamlessly. Saves a lot of walking time.
Houses -- Done -- These are the actual things in the town that have stuff in them. Inside houses you'll find furniture, NPCs and shopkeepers, as well as staircases going up or down levels and walls sort of holding everything together.
Furniture -- Done -- Various types of furniture will spawn in a house. They have loot inside, which is sometimes valuable and sometimes not, but always based on whatever type of furniture it is. Furniture is sometimes locked and you need to use the Lockpicking mechanic to access it. Either way, stealing items from someone's house is challenging to do without being caught and isn't consequence-free.
House Staircases -- Done -- These appear in houses and allow you to go up or down a floor.
Shop Fixture Services -- Done -- Shops can have clones of base fixtures which work similarly. However they cost something to use.
Townsfolk -- Done -- Townsfolk that appear in shops can either be NPCs which you can ask questions to or Shopkeepers where you can buy or sell items. Either way though they might have Quests for you.
Push/pull system -- Done -- A system that lets you push/pull NPCs or furniture in houses because the procedural generation can sometimes be wonky. It should influence the theft mechanic in valuable ways as well too however.
Shops -- Done -- In addition to housing NPCs and furniture, each house is also a specific shop type. Shops can have various useful service fixtures, but they can also buy and sell items and offer services.
Shop Generalization / Specialization -- Done -- There's a large variety of shop types because there's a large variety of item types. Some are more specialized towards specific sets of categories, and others are more general. Specialized shops will have better buyback rates and offer better items, while general shops are more convenient but not as good.
Inns -- Not yet -- This is a special type of shop that has Beds and Couches available, as well as a Bank portal. There's always an Inn in every town.
Collectors -- Not yet -- NPCs can sometimes be Collectors. Throughout the world there are special types of items you can get that form a set. Collectors will buy collections for a good bit of money. Figuring out where Collectors are as well as the items requires use of the other information systems or maybe just grinding/blind luck.
Wholesalers -- Not yet -- A special shop type, these will sell you grab-bags of loot similar to Crates. Rather than being put in your inventory, they're transferred to either your Base or a Bank. You have some kind of idea of what you're getting, but the items inside can be quite random. It's almost always worth it though.
Banks -- Not yet -- Banking is a special service that lets you store items for a fee. Having a base is probably better, but banks offer a lot of perks beyond what bases can do like having fixtures in inns, storing money and tech aether, as well as whatever storage capacity you can afford. They can also integrate with your actual Base. Unfortunately there are three Banks in the province and they compete pretty fiercely across all the Inns there as well -- you can use the Banking Portal of another bank, but it'll cost you, and having three bank accounts is cost-prohibitive. Banking service prices are procedurally generated -- choosing a bank is going to depend on your needs and what those values are for each bank.
Trading -- Not yet -- Once other Provinces are opened up, you can buy special Trading items which are worth different prices in different types of provinces. Playing different provinces against each other is a good way to gain wealth, but you don't get an infinite amount because large shipments will equalize prices.
Quests -- Not yet -- NPCs and Shopkeepers can give you Quests, which have you do various things you'd be doing anyway, plus courier/fetch type quests. These are procedurally generated but they won't feel like it.
Palaces -- Not yet -- With enough Quests performed in a region, you can do Quests for the ruling class as well. Palaces are larger buildings that appear in cities and nexuses. They have good loot, but it's well-guarded. you can also get those special ruling class quests here, which pay very well.
Theft
Theft / Noise -- Done -- Stealing things from houses has consequences -- it adds to a noise meter, which will make NPCs come running from elsewhere in the room or from other floors. If they have a line of sight to you, you get caught, and there are some consequences there you don't want.
Lockpicking -- Done -- Some furniture is locked and has to be lockpicked if you have a lockpick equipped. This system is a kind of procedurally generated puzzle game where clicking one tumbler flips some amount of other tumblers and the goal is to have them all be up. The amount of tumblers varies, but every puzzle is solvable.
lock/lockpick precision -- Done -- Locks can have less or more tumblers, and lockpicks can have more or less precision. More lockpicking precision means less tumblers will appear, so better lockpicks will make harder puzzles easier.
Lockpicking special abilities -- Done -- Also helping you along, different lockpicks can have different special abilities (like jamming tumblers open) that influence the puzzle mechanics in different ways.
Modifiers
Potion Ingredients -- Done -- Once that optional system is unlocked, potion ingredients can be extracted from raw resources that could have them. Like extracting Seeds, this process isn't always 100% successful, but it gives you control over when you want ingredients exactly. Ingredients can also be found as loot, and they're fairly common. Lastly, the chance of extracting a potion ingredient from a rare fish is 100%.
Potionmaking -- Done -- This system allows you to mix potion ingredients together to get potions. Ingredients have some fixed number of potion effects attached to them (currently 3), and you have to have a match between all potion ingredients in order to successfully create a potion. Matching at least two ingredients is required, but matching more will increase the intensity of the potion.
Potion Ingredient Identification -- Done -- You don't automatically know what any particular potion ingredient does. You learn what it does only once you've successfully crafted a potion with that effect. Alternately, you can Analyze it -- but that takes time and/or money.
Potions -- Done -- Potions themselves can restore health/mana, add buffs, remove debuffs, or do some small specialized things.
Alcohol -- Not yet -- Alcohols will increase one stat(s) at the expense of some other stat(s). Drinking too much will also affect your vision -- darkening it and giving it the second type of quantum effect (where colors aren't what they're supposed to be).
Buffs -- In progress -- Buffs do various things that affect gameplay over their duration, such as improving your vision in caves or increasing health regeneration.
Debuffs -- Not yet -- Debuffs are similar to Buffs but have negative effects.
Activity-based Leveling -- Not yet -- The game's leveling system is based on activities -- doing more combat will increase those stats, while doing more magic will increase those stats.
Skill Perks -- Not yet -- Other types of activities will instead increase Skills, which in turn can eventually give you Perks -- Perks influence gameplay in various ways usefully and permanently, or sometimes grant new mechanics (such as Fast fishing which is an early fishing skill perk).
Armor -- Not yet -- Armor increases your defensive stat in a more useful way than levelling up. These can tie into the elemental system as well.
Jewelry -- Not yet -- Jewelry can hold some more useful effects permanently as long as it's equipped. They can also hold Enchantments. There's a lot of overlap with Potions here, but Jewelry is a lot harder to craft and find.
Ouroboros -- Not yet -- Late-game set of items that remove various limits inherent in core game mechanics like the item weights system or the inability to fly.
Caves
Caves -- Done -- A special kind of terrain generation, and the fourth part of the "Tetrad". These have unique resources and fixtures, a light-limited torches system, specific dangers, and at the very bottom, entrances to the Quantum Plane and occasional Quantum Storms to reinforce that idea. Caves have ten floors, with Cave Holes connecting them.
Torches -- Mostly Done -- In caves your vision is limited. Torches have various properties that influence this in some way. Unfortunately, torches lose fuel over time and have to be refueled with Fat or Gashrooms occasionally. Gashrooms refill way more, but they're also probably one of the main reasons you're in caves so once again you have to make a difficult choice.
Ropes -- Done -- Ropes are required for going down Cave holes -- both the kind found in the Caves Ruin in the world and in Caves. Some Ropes can also have special properties, such as being able to escape from liquids or snag materials remotely. Ropes however have durability -- as you go down cave holes this decreases and they have to be repaired with hide, bark or fiber.
Grappling Ropes -- Done -- Grappling ropes have less durability than other ropes, but more useful special abilties, like the ability to leap over solids or leap from one solid to another.
Bombs -- Done but rewriting -- Bombs allow you to blow up solids, creating passageways in a cave permanently. They have different types of explosions and different ranges as well, depending on the materials used to craft the bomb.
Gashroom Bombs -- Done -- A special kind of bomb that can create arbitrary Cave Holes, either in caves or on the Overworld. Gashroom bombs are also the only way of blowing up fixtures, and thus the only way of collecting Quartzshards outside of really really advanced farming, which are essential to game progression but also widely useful in Summons and upgrading Scout Animals and Mount Animals.
Metal/Precious metal veins -- Done -- In Caves, Metal ores and Precious Metal ores generate in chunks known as "veins" rather than individually.
Underground Rivers -- Done -- In deeper levels of caves, water will spawn that will jostle you around, run you down currents, or slam you on top of solids. This can be hazardous but also useful if you *want* to get on top of a solid (though this does damage).
Lava -- Done -- Also in deeper levels of caves, you'll find pools of Lava. Lava is hard to swim through and it damages you all the way. It also has a mild quantum effect, so it's hard to see where exactly it is sometimes. In addition to being a Hazard though, it's essential to reaching the Fire Plane -- you have to be in Lava when you play the Fire song on your Manaflute.
Crystals -- Done -- Crystals will rarely generate at lower levels of caves. You'll almost certainly want to collect them because they have a lot of useful effects (including being the sole source of magic in the game), but they'll also light up the caves a lot with lightning-like flashes so they're good guideposts.
Magic
Spells -- Not yet -- Instead of learning spells for magic, you instead collect Crystals, which have some kind of basic spell embedded in them (with probably some rough conditions associated with it) that can be upgraded. The magic system ties into literally everything -- it has as much depth as the events system in NIFE. It's also completely random -- you have no idea what you'll get from a crystal when you pick it up.
Spell upgrading -- Not yet -- Spells can be upgraded at an Altar, removing some deleterious effects or improving them. The cost for this is either other crystals or magical ingredients. Magical ingredients are probably the better choice, but they're quite rare. Crystals are more common, but that's a huge sacrifice to make -- sacrificing spells for other spells essentially. Plus Crystals are highly valuable and worth a lot of Aether as well.
Wands/Scrolls -- Not yet -- These forms of magic are non-upgradeable and have a limited number of uses. However, they don't cost any mana, so you can make some really potent spells and embed them into these and use them for basically free. Wands and Scrolls can be recharged with Magical Ingredients.
Enchantments -- Not yet -- This form of magic is a permanent effect embedded into some kind of jewelry. Making an Enchantment requires turning a Crystal into a Starshard, which is a costly process in more ways than one. Starshards are sometimes findable as loot, but they're quite rare.
Altars -- Not yet -- Altars are a fixture that naturally generate in caves and ruins, or can be made a fixture at a Base if you collect enough Quartzshards. They allow you to upgrade Crystals, as well as Transmute magic between Crystals, Wands/Scrolls, and Starshards. Transmutation is expensive in more ways than one, though converting an enchantment into a crystal or a crystal into a wand/scroll isn't too bad.
Manaflute
Manaflute -- Done -- This is a special item that lets you play "songs" that have various magical effects central to game progression. Playing songs costs Tech Aether. Songs themselves are words that you type into the Manaflute input box, along with maybe a direction or some other words. All of these words are procedurally generated from one of the naming languages, so it's again something to learn (and adds a bit of flavor to the game), although you could just consult your Manaflute menu if you wanted to.
Finder -- Done -- This song teleports you to the closest dungeon in that direction, if there is one. There are six dungeons in a province corresponding to the six elemental planes.
Activator -- Done/Alpha only -- This song activates a Rune Stone found on the dungeon, turning it into an active dungeon. This set of mechancs is changing, so this song will be removed eventually.
Ruin Hint -- Done/Alpha only -- This song points you towards the Song Fixture in a dungeon. Again, mechanics are changing, so this won't exist eventually.
Rune-Seek -- Not yet -- This song will teleport you to the closest Rune Stone in that direction in the current overworld dungeon entrance -- this is how the system actually works. It'll do something similar inside dungeons as well.
Song Fixtures -- Done -- These fixtures in dungeons will teach you the appropriate elemental song.
(Elemental) song -- Done -- These songs will create the appropriate kind of mana crack, provided you're in the correct color of water (or lava in the case of the fire plane one).
Unfurl -- Done -- This song will turn Entropic Holes found in the Void Sea into Active Entropic Holes and Quantum Holes found in the bottom level of Caves into Active Quantum Holes. In either case if you go into an inactive hole you'll just teleport around the hole, but if you go into an active one you'll go into the appropriate Mana Plane.
Uncoupling -- Not yet -- This late-game song will remove Aleph Cores from Aleph fixtures such as Aleph Conduits or Aleph Rune Stones, deactivating them but giving you a valuable Aleph Core item in the process.
Genesis -- Not yet -- This late-game song will create arbitrary structures temporarily such as dungeons.
Aleph Naught -- Not yet -- This late-game song will delete various things from the game world, giving you a Soulshard. You can't use this in your starting dimension, which is good because you can absolutely wreck a dimension this way.
Locations
Caves Ruin -- Done -- This structure is your only Access to the Cave Layer, outside of Gashroom bomb holes and natural cave holes that generate in other provinces.
Mines -- Framework ready -- These structures are places where it's way more convenient to get metals and precious metal ores. However, the Theft mechanic applies here and it counts as stealing to rob them.
Abandoned Mines -- Framework ready -- These are like the above, but appear in Caves (with the light issues). They don't have a theft mechanic, but they do have enemies and less resources.
Outposts / Hermit Houses / Farms -- Framework ready -- Structures that aren't full towns but have similar features. Feature heavily in Quests.
Mana Caves / Labyrinths / Statue Ruins / Shrines -- Not yet -- Other things on the Ruins system. Probably similar to Dungeons and probably also mostly appear in Mana Planes.
Lakes -- Framework ready -- Regions that are pure water and have currents. Good places to fish obviously but might also have other mechanics. If I get to them.
Inactive Dungeons -- alpha in place -- Entrances to Dungeons. These have their own mechanics which involve removing and moving around Runecores.
Active Dungeons -- alpha in place -- Dungeons whose point is collecting one of the elemental Manaflute songs. These have their own section below.
Mana Cracks -- Done -- Structures which are created when playing the appropriate Manaflute song in the appropriate pool color or lava. They look pretty cool, but more importantly they have a fixture in the middle which transports you to that mana plane. Mana Cracks are permanent structures.
Water Plane -- In progress -- An alternate dimension where the goal is to collect Watershards. This dimension has huge seas with slowed movement, occasional currents and a strong possibiltiy of drowning.
Fire Plane -- In progress -- An alternate dimension where the goal is to collect Fireshards. This dimension has a lot of pools of lava, as well as Heat Storms that occasionally deal damage.
Ice Plane -- In progress -- An alternate dimension where the goal is to collect Iceshards. This dimension has patches of ice that you slide on and smash into things with, causing damage. There are occasional blizzards that deal damage as well.
Wind Plane -- In progress -- An alternate dimension where the goal is to collect Windshards. This has big Voids which deal damage, as well as Windstorms that can throw you over solids but usually into Voids. The Solids here are also gnarly and hard to get around.
Earth Plane -- In progress -- An alternate dimension where the goal is to collect Earthshards. This dimension occasionally has Earthquakes that shift the terrain generation around you and generally plunge you into its own hellish version of caves.
Wood Plane -- In progress -- An alternate dimension where the goal is to collect Woodshards. The terrain here is very similar regardless of where you are, and there are also invisible fixtures that will teleport you around, making things even more confusing.
Void Sea -- Done -- A big black space around the outer edge of the province. You can travel faster while out here, but take damage. The enemies also spawn in big scary clumps. And you get some crazy "melting" effects on anything out here or bordered by this. However this is also the only place to find Entropic Holes.
Quantum Plane -- Done -- An alternate dimension where the goal is to collect Exotic Matter. The terrain here is sane, however there are frequent Quantum Storms that make it hard to see, alter the terrain, the color palette, or all three.
Entropic Plane -- Mostly done -- An alternate dimension where the goal is to collect Solid Light, which occasionally sparkle. No weird weather effects here, but certain systems just don't work right, especially magic which is completely disabled.
Chimera -- Not yet -- A manaflute song that takes any string as its input and transports you to the province seeded by it. Basically gives you infinite dimensions /resources to work with (or like 9x1021 or something).
Pivots -- Not yet -- 1% of provinces will instead be Pivot Provinces. These are areas that are nothing but repeating diamond terrains around a central Pivot fixture. Pivot fixtures tie in heavily to the late game and are basically a special crafting station.
Dungeons
Runecores -- Not yet -- Special items that can be removed from or placed in Overworld Rune Stones. Rune stones with at least one are capable of teleporting you to other rune stones, while those with three will teleport you into the Dungeon. Once you have an active ruin link, runecores can also be crafted into Runekeys.
Dungeon Keys/Doors -- Not yet -- Dungeons are progressive -- there's a key/door system for making your way through several doors and finally into the room with the Song Fixture. Every single Room won't be like this, but some will be.
Dungeon Rune Stones -- Not yet -- Dungeon Rune Stones when activated can teleport you to other activated rune stones in the dungeon, easing transportation. Additionally, you can use your Rune-seek song to teleport to an active one in that direction. They naturally spawn near dungeon rooms, making them convenient.
Core Doors / Runekeys -- Not yet -- Core Doors randomly spawn sometimes in the long twisting hallways of dungeons. Runekeys will allow you to access them, which will transport you to a special minidungeon with some useful loot.
Fountains -- Not yet -- Fountains can be drank from to give you Potion effects a fixed number of times. You can also dip other potions in there to add those effects to them. The rarer Magic Fountain fixture will let you pour an arbitrary potion inside and create a fountain with that effect, effectively duplicating the potion a lot. Fountains can also be blown up for Quartzshards.
Aleph Rune Stones -- Not yet -- There's one of these in every dungeon. When activated, you can use it to teleport to any other dungeon's aleph rune stone, provided it's activated. Useful way to teleport around the map for free, but also a good way to unlock Core Doors constructively since Runekeys aren't dungeon-specific.
Mirrors -- Not yet -- Rare fixture that can be blown up for Mirrorshards, which have several uses, or can connect to a Mirror in your Base to give you remote access to that inventory from within a dungeon.
Quantum Mushrooms -- Not yet -- A special resource that can be crafted into several "hint" items that help with exploring or navigating dungeons.
Developer stuff
Soul's Pivot -- Not yet -- The end of the game. This item is cross-seed if you're playing online, and basically gives you tools to manipulate the game code itself.
Fly Mode -- Done -- Lets you fly over barriers, and fast too. Will eventually be available as an Ouroboros.
Map Routes -- Done -- This is a map of all the towns/cities/nexuses and their routes. It might be available in some capacity in the main game.
Warp -- Done -- A shortcut to portaling to the closest town. Won't be in the full game.
Town warp -- Done -- This is a map of everything in a province with links that let you warp there immediately. Very useful for debugging.
Torch Cycling -- Done -- Pressing T in a cave will cycle through different random torches. Won't be in the final game.
Resource Scan -- Done -- Pressing M will scan ALL of the resources in the dimension and "discover" them. Less useful now that there's only 5 overworld materials so probably won't exist in the main game.
