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[Octopus Tophat]

RogueWorld: Proc-gen action adventure platformer

^Newer Gif^

https://twitter.com/OctopusTophat

Hi! My name is Brett  
I've been making a game since May 2014 that I call "RogueWorld".
So why did I start making this game?  Well, I play a game called towerclimb, http://www.davioware.com/towerclimb and it was done by "Davioware" and his brother in their spare time.  They made all of the art and music by themselves.  After talking to davioware for a few months, I wondered if I could make my own game. I started with heavy inspiration from towerclimb, and now it's kind of become it's own thing.

My background:  
I'm 18 years old.  I've always been interested in making games since I was a kid.  I used to mess around with gamemaker when I was like 12, just making sprites move.  But I never made anything that could be called "a game". I used to be obsessed with little big planet.  I've made some crazy things, like a bejeweled twist remake, and a cpu.  So I started to understand more about logic, and how games were put together. At around 15, I developed an interest in programming, and due to some home-moving issues, I stayed home for an entire year of school.  We said we were homeschooling... we totally weren't...  BUT!  I learned C++ in that time. I started making music at around 14 with korg ds 10, and beaterator for the psp.  Eventually I learned about chords and stuff on my own, and picked up piano. I've been making music in LittleBigPlanet 2 for a while(https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL31102FBB687545A7), and now I've finally moved on to a professional program, fruity loops.  So I'll be making all of the music for the game.

The freakin game:
Okay so what's the game about?  Well..... there's a lot.  It's draws inspiration from games like towerclimb, spelunky, vagante, borderlands, dark cloud, mario 64 (yeah really), risk of rain, terraria, and much more.
So what makes it different from the other roguelike platformers you ask? Here:

-COMPLETELY procedurally generated levels
    The levels won't consist of premade rooms stitched together.  Each level will look vastly different from the last, and you will never know what kind of terrain to expect. You might ask how, and the truth is, I haven't implemented this yet.  But, I have come up with a theory(is that what it's called?) that I think will work well.  It ensures there is an open path from the entrance to the exit of the level, but other areas/secrets might require you to use a grappling hook or portal gun to get to. You'll just have to trust me on this bit for now.  This was an absolute must for me.  I hate seeing the same room in rogue legacy/spelunky/etc. over and over again.  It gets stale seeing the same obstacle you've seen MANY times and utilizing the same actions to overcome it.  My generator will make obstacles on the fly.  They won't be perfect, and you might end up in impossible situations, like "there are just too many spikes to get up to that ledge."  But there's going to be LOTS of items/abilities dedicated for movement.  Plus, you can climb, so jumps that are too high aren't even a thing. There's also bombs to blow up blocks.
-Procedurally generated weapons
   "Well that doesn't sound THAT original." Okay okay, I hear you, but these things are different in my game.  There are only 5  classes of guns and 5 classes of melee weapons, but the amount of randomization in each one is ridiculous.  They're not just stats like damage/knockback/rate of fire... I mean those are there, but there's much more.  For instance, a gun might have gravity bullets, splitting bullets, bullets that move in a wave, instant bullets that don't have a travel time(they just hit the enemy immediatly), charging shots that turn your gun into something like out of a metroid game.  Those are called "fire modes", which each gun has 5 of.  Additionally, there are "alt fire modes" on each gun.  Each gun class has 3 different alt fires that it will associate the gun with, for example, a grenade launcher. There's even more, weapons can have elemental effects.  So far there's fire, electric, slime, poison, ice, and virus.  And also the bullets are procedural.
-Weapon upgrading
   Each weapon can gain xp from killing enemies.  When it levels up, you can fuse attachments to it to upgrade it. There are two types of attachments: Boosts and Mods. Boosts work like in dark cloud, for the ps2.  You find a gem looking thing in a chest that says Knockback+2, which does the obvious. Mods work like gun attachments in any modern FPS.  They can give weapons special abilities.  But they are a little more crazy than the stuff you'd find in COD.  Things like bouncing bullets, penetrating bullets, homing bullets, instant bullets, bullets that ride along walls. And there's more "normal" ones like silencers (the game will have stealth!), auto fire, burst fire. These are different from the "fire modes" listed above, because a weapon never generates with mods, you have to find them and attach them.  I'm sure this all sounds complicated, but it will be more simple and understandable when you see it. So each weapon has a stat for "attachment slots", so if it has 3, when the weapon levels up, you can select 3 things like knockback+2,reload speed+4,homing shots, and it will fuse them to it, thus, making it awesome. Damage increases automatically after each level up.
-Overworld and level selection
   You will be able to save NPC's to move into your town and give you new abilies, like fishing/shopping.  You'll have a house that you can customize and hang out in whenever you want.  When you feel like going into a dungeon, you can pick which one, and what floor to go to, similar to dark cloud.  If you feel like taking it easy, or just grinding, you can go to an early floor.  Or if you want to make some actual progress, move to the next floor. There are 10 dungeons, and each one will have 999 floors (FOR THE HARCORE!) Of course, to beat the game, you'll just have to kill each dungeon boss at the 10th floor, then the final level opens.
-Dungeons have lots of variety
   Ya know spelunky?  The level types are pretty different from each other.  The mines are tight and cramped.  The jungles have trees you can climb.  The ice levels are very open and have no bottom.  That's pretty good, but they generally involve you descending.  And they all mostly have the same shape.  They're all taller than they are wide.
The dungeons in rogueworld are all super different. One has you climbing a tall, narrow tower.  One is a long horizontal jungle.  Another type is completely random, like catacomb kids.  (The entrance is anywhere on the level, and the exit could end up being 5 tiles away from the entrance, or 200.)  One level is almost completely underwater, with a few surface islands.  Another one takes place in space, where blocks are REAAAALLY far apart and there's low gravity. Playing a different dungeon almost feels like playing a different "game mode".  Each one requires a different play style and different item/weapon choices.
-Randomized enemy stats
  While the enemies aren't randomly generated, they will have a level. So a level 1 slime might move really slowly, and have a pretty lame attack, but a level 25 slime will be able to totally own you if you are underpowered. Each enemy type will have it's own set of unique stats, like an eyeball that shoots tears will have a "tear size" stat.  There can also be elite variations of each enemy. So an enemy might heal other enemies, it might leave a trail of fire, it might blow up when killed.  This is 100% inspired by risk of rain.
-Gadgets!
   These work like badges in paper mario.  You can find gadgets all over the place that will change various things about the game. Each one takes up a gadget slot, which you earn by leveling up.  So you can't just buy a load of them and equip all of them.  Also, each one stacks infinitely.  There are no caps at all.  Here's some examples:
-enemies take damage when hit player
-killing an enemy damages all enemies on screen
-last longer under water
-jump height increased by 1 block
-increased range for throwable items
-if player has full health, increased running/climbing speed/jump height
There's LOTS more.  These will give a good sense of progression and becoming powerful.  At the end of your run, your character might be completely insane, just like in binding of isaac.
-The game is long
  Most roguelikes take around an hour or so to complete.  I'm tired of that.  I want an experience like minecraft, where I can just come in and play, save, then quit. I'm not sure how long, in terms of hours, it will take to beat the game, but once you beat it, you can just keep going forever.  There are no level caps, and some achievements might require to "get to the 100th floor of any dungeon" or something like that.  (achievements unlock gadgets for future runs)  The game uses a revive system.  So it's not quite perma-death.  You can buy revive potions, which scale with your player's level, but having more than one exponentially increases the price, and revive traders are hard to come by.  So most often, you'll only have 1 or 2.  And when you run out, it's game over, for good.
-Crafting!
  You can find materials around the world to craft items.  They can all be found in dungeons, or from enemies.  For instance, you can get wood by chopping down a tree in the jungle dungeon, or you can find gears by killing turrets and other mechanical enemies.  You can also get materials by creating farms in your town.  If you save a beekeeper NPC, you can make a bee farm. As long as flowers are planted nearby, you can have an endless source of stingers and honey. And there's plenty of crops.  Some are used for food, but most are used for items. The crafting system is fairly simple.  Materials don't act like other items.  You can hold infinite amounts of them, and they take up no inventory slots.  Recipes only require 2 materials, and you can craft anywhere in the world. Here's some examples:
-grappling hook: string+metal
-torch: wood+wood
-spike grenade: tech+stinger
-rope: string+stinger
-bombs (for blowing up blocks): blastroot+blastroot
All items are consumable, to keep the player looking for materials. Everytime you use a grappling hook, it goes away. But crafting things makes lots of that item. So combining 1 string and 1 metal actually makes 5 grappling hooks. And items stack up to 99.  You can think of having a stack of 20 grappling hooks as just 1 grappling hook with 20 durability left.
-Roguepedia
  Are you tired of looking at the wiki of a game to figure out what some item does all the time? Me too. I hate that. In rogueworld, there's an encyclopedia that you can read at any time that has information about EVERYTHING in the game. Of course, you'll have to unlock each page as you discover items/enemies/dungeons.  There will be a page for every enemy type, every weapon class, gadgets, dungeons, items, chests, materials, characters, npc's, abilites, etc.  Even game mechanics will be explained, such as how to dash, or how the health system works. Forgot where to find string for that rope you want to make?  Look it up in the roguepedia. It'll tell you exactly where you can find it, what enemies can drop it, and what recipes it's used in.  There will be plenty of flavor text that you just can't get from a wiki. Like "I've seen string drop from a spider after I killed it. It's really strong. Might be good for making ropes!", then it will follow to list recipes and other information in a more wiki-like fashion. This is something I wish binding of isaac had. And considering my game is more complex, I'd say it's a necessity.

[johnhackworth]

I like a lot the procedural weapons idea. It's a great addition to this kind of game!

[RenegadeNinjaNL]

The controls look really tight. Keep up with the good work.

[Octopus Tophat]

Thanks a lot guys    This is the first time anyone's seen this game.  Glad to know it's not just some piece of shit 

[alvarop]

Looks interesting man. Good work

[Octopus Tophat]

Here's the first "actual" art for the game.  These are the materials for crafting.
From left to right. Wood, ore, gears, stingers, string, tech, mushrooms, blastroot, honey, beans, metal, glass, sand.
Please let me know if anything doesn't look right
I think they turned out pretty good

[Octopus Tophat]

Got a super basic level generator in place, just to test things out.

[Kytin]

As another solo developer, I salute you. I tried my hand at a procedural platformer once, but I didn't get very far. Nowdays I'm working on a more prebuilt platformer with a proper narrative.

I see that you have focused your efforts on getting the movement fun before doing anything else. Excellent. I get so annoyed by platformers that have bad movement.

From my own experience with creating roguelike games (although admittedly I have only finished one and it only has procedurally generated enemies. You can try it out here if you are interested.), I found that too much randomization actually makes everything feel very samey. It's an odd paradox.

It ensures there is an open path from the entrance to the exit of the level.

What will this path be like? Will it be a twisting maze of narrow corridors? A series of open rooms? Climbing up and down tall shafts? If you don't consciously try to make distinct styles for your level generator, then you will end up with just the one style repeated over and over.

I'm not trying to discourage you. I'm just trying to warn you about an obscure pitfall that you will need to overcome if you want the game to be as great as you imagine it will be. It's a problem that goes to the fundamentals of the game, so if you don't solve it early on you will have to completely redesign the game part way through (or move onto something else like I did).

[Octopus Tophat]

Thank you for the response.
This was the very first pass of level generation, and I'm actually working on it this very minute.  It literally just makes a grid, and each spot has a 1 in 2 chance of spawning a block.  This is only to prototype the idea of random generation, to test things like procedural tile decorations, performance, and size of the dungeons.
The final generation system will be much better, and make much more appealing results.  I didn't want to talk about how it'll work, because I worry people will copy my idea, but I'll just give a general rundown of how it will work.
Think of spelunky, that game uses premade rooms and stitches them together to make a full level.  My game will work on a similar idea, but the individual rooms will be randomly generated. First the game creates the room path, which is a path of rooms linked together.  Other, possibly non-connected rooms, will be created to fill in the empty spaces, so here's what that would look like:
X-rooms that are linked to make a path
0-rooms that may or may not be linked to adjacent rooms
E-dungeon entrance
D-dungeon exit

00E00000
00XXX000
0000X000
0000XXX0
000000X0
000DXXX0

So there will always be a path from the entrance to the exit, and other rooms might require you to bomb a wall to get to, or they might just be open. Certain rooms like 'locked rooms' will be surrounded by indestructible blocks with one 'door' block, that you need a key to open.

As for the actual room generation, it will be fairly simple.  Each room starts full of tiles, just a X by X block of tiles.  Then the game carves out the room until it links with all adjacent rooms.  It will carve it in rectangular sections with random dimensions, so it won't just be chaotic noise.  Here's the best example I can come up with it, with a 10x5 region.
So here is a room that has to link with a room above it, and a room to the right of it.

X-block
0-empty space

1ST phase
XXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXX

2ND (start carving, random result will be 3,2, at the coordinate 1,2)
XXXXXXXXXX
000XXXXXXX
000XXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXX

3RD (random result will be 1,4, at the coordinate 6,1)
XXXXX0XXXX
000XX0XXXX
000XX0XXXX
XXXXX0XXXX
XXXXXXXXXX

4TH (random result will be 7,2, at the coordinate 4,3)
XXXXX0XXXX
000XX0XXXX
0000000000
XXX0000000
XXXXXXXXXX

At this point, this room has open space at the top, and at the right, so it will stop carving and move on to the next room.

This is a simplified version of it, just to explain the general idea of the system.  When it's done, it'll make sure the exact walls of each room line up with the adjacent one, so you don't have rooms that you can't get into because the openings are off.

Also, each dungeon has different generation parameters.  So the jungle might be more open, and the crypt will be more tight.
The parameters will be something like this: Room size X, Room size Y, max carve X, max carve Y, min carve X, min carve Y, dungeon dimension X, dungeon dimension Y.  Dungeon dimension will be based on rooms.  So the jungle will be like 10, 2, which is 10 rooms by 2 rooms. So the jungle will be very flat, but wide.  There will be additional parameters like 'roof open', which will basically cut the whole dungeon in half longways, so there will be a sky, like in terraria, as opposed to spelunky.

It's going to be hard, but I'm doing it.

Also worth mentioning.  The levels won't look like they're made up of rooms.  I'm just using rooms as a way of making it less random-feeling.  You probably won't be able to see the borders of the rooms, it'll just look like the underground areas of terraria, with a little more structure.
Of course, this is what I'm imagining.  Once I implement it, I'll post some giffy gifs.

[Kytin]

I think you might be underestimating the difficulties you will face in getting the procedurally generated rooms to A: not break the game, and B: be interesting and distinct.

I can already see some ways that your room code is going to break unless you refine it further, but I realize that you were just giving a basic overview, so maybe you already solved it.

More problematic is the question 'How are you going to make randomly generated rooms feel distinct and interesting?'. It basically boils down to this  - if you only use the method you just described to create your roooms, then all your rooms will feel pretty much the same.

For example, here is a room layout that your proposed method will practically never generate:

Code:

XXXXXXXXOX
XOOOXXXOOX
OOXOOXOOXX
XXXXOOOXXX
XXXXXXXXXX

To get that shape you would need to 'carve away' at least seven times in a very precise sequence. Sure it's theoretically possible for it to happen, but but it's vastly more likely that you will get a shape defined by a few large 'carved out' rectangles.
It's like rolling dice. If you roll two dice you can say that there are 11 different possible totals, but it is much more likely you will get a total of 7 rather than 12. It's the same for generating terrain procedurally - your code might be able to generate any 20 x 20 shaped block in theory, but in practice it will tend towards a particular type of layout.

[Octopus Tophat]

I think you might be underestimating the difficulties you will face in getting the procedurally generated rooms to A: not break the game, and B: be interesting and distinct.

I can already see some ways that your room code is going to break unless you refine it further, but I realize that you were just giving a basic overview, so maybe you already solved it.

More problematic is the question 'How are you going to make randomly generated rooms feel distinct and interesting?'. It basically boils down to this  - if you only use the method you just described to create your roooms, then all your rooms will feel pretty much the same.

For example, here is a room layout that your proposed method will practically never generate:

Code:

XXXXXXXXOX
XOOOXXXOOX
OOXOOXOOXX
XXXXOOOXXX
XXXXXXXXXX

To get that shape you would need to 'carve away' at least seven times in a very precise sequence. Sure it's theoretically possible for it to happen, but but it's vastly more likely that you will get a shape defined by a few large 'carved out' rectangles.
It's like rolling dice. If you roll two dice you can say that there are 11 different possible totals, but it is much more likely you will get a total of 7 rather than 12. It's the same for generating terrain procedurally - your code might be able to generate any 20 x 20 shaped block in theory, but in practice it will tend towards a particular type of layout.

I have thought about this in the past... making more interesting room designs. I simplified my carving example to only 4 phases, but the rooms will have a higher resolution, and the carvings will be smaller in tighter dungeons. I also updated my previous post to explain that the rooms aren't really....rooms.  They're more like 'chunks' from minecraft. A series of regions of blocks generated to produce a full level.
I could also add special rooms that are generated differently from the rest.  For example, I could make a room that generates in a snake-like pattern, like you mentioned above.  Combining these different room generation methods together in one dungeon could make some really interesting levels.  But it WILL be hard, no denying that.
This game is the biggest project I've ever worked on, and I want it to be as good as possible.  I don't care how many years it takes, I want my vision for this game to be a reality. I've been working on this game for almost a year, and I'm not stopping till it's awesomesauce! 

Also, could you explain what you mean by my code will break?

[Kytin]

Having a variety of 'room' generating algorithms might well solve the issue of making the terrain varied and interesting, as long as you have enough methods that produce distinctly different types of terrain. I can't say for certain since I never really solved it. In any case it sounds like you're determined to make it work, which is probably the most important element for success.

Also, could you explain what you mean by my code will break?

It isn't so much that your code would break, but that the simple description you gave sounds like it probably wouldn't actually produce a clear path to the exit.

For example, lets say that you have two 'rooms', one above the other, that are both meant to have a clear path from the top to the bottom.

Let's say the top one looks like this:

Code:

XXOOXXXXXX
XXOOXXXXXX
OOOOOOXXXX
OOOOOOOOOO
XXXXXOOOOO

And the bottom one looks like this:

Code:

XOXXXXXXXX
XOXXOOXXXX
OOOOOOOXXX
XOXXOOXXXX
XXXXOOXXXX

So when you put them together in the level, they look like this:

Code:

XXOOXXXXXX
XXOOXXXXXX
OOOOOOXXXX
OOOOOOOOOO
XXXXXOOOOO
XOXXXXXXXX
XOXXOOXXXX
OOOOOOOXXX
XOXXOOXXXX
XXXXOOXXXX

Which you will notice does not actually have a clear path from top to bottom.

[coldrice]

it might be worth taking a look at what spelunky does for level generation http://tinysubversions.com/spelunkyGen/

[Octopus Tophat]

Which you will notice does not actually have a clear path from top to bottom.

Yes, I mentioned that in my response. 

When it's done, it'll make sure the exact walls of each room line up with the adjacent one, so you don't have rooms that you can't get into because the openings are off.

This will be fairly simple.  I'll just compare the two rooms and make sure at least one open block on the bottom of the top room has the same x coordinate as an open block on the top of the bottom room. Once again, you could say this is broken because of this situation:

top room (connects right and down)
XXXXXX
XXX000
XXX0XX
X0X00X
X0XX0X

bottom room(connects up and down)
X0XXXX
X0XXXX
X00XXX
XX0XXX
XX0XXX

put together
XXXXXX
XXX000
XXX0XX
X0X00X
X0XX0X
X0XXXX
X0XXXX
X00XXX
XX0XXX
XX0XXX
Here the openings connect, but the actual path doesn't connect.  I'll solve this by marking the tiles of the open path with a 'path' variable, or something.  So the path tiles have to align, not just any open tile.  Finding which tiles are part of the path is just a matter of flood filling, mentioned below.

There's also a few other issues I will address. Such as, if it's carved 30 times, and there's still no open path, just make the whole room open blocks, or make a simple L,T,or I shaped carve through the whole thing to force it to be opened on the required sides.

There's also this situation, for a room that needs to be open on the top and left:
XX0XXX
XX0XXX
XXXXXX
00000X
XXXXXX

As you can see, both sides are open, but they're not connected, and the player can't navigate through the room without using bombs to blow up blocks.  The solution to this will be flood filling.  I'll start at one of the openings on a side, and flood fill to see if all open-sides are connected together, if not, keep carving.  If the flood fill pours out of every required side, I'll mark those tiles with a 'path' variable, check if the paths line up with previous room's paths, and move on to the next room.

What I'm trying to show here, is that I'm totally aware of how much work this will take.  My examples were just to show the basic idea of it. I guess I should have more in-depth, complicated examples, considering I'm on a forum with a bunch of fellow programmers/designers. 

it might be worth taking a look at what spelunky does for level generation http://tinysubversions.com/spelunkyGen/

Yeah I looked at this while researching a while ago.  It actually helped me develop the method I'm using. 

Edit: here's some new music https://dl.dropbox.com/s/dmn7l8u8f6caik9/Rainy%20day.mp3?dl=0
This is when it rains in your town.  Tried to go for an animal crossing-y feel.

[Kytin]

Yeah, it seemed like such an obvious problem that I didn't bother going into it in my first response since I assumed you were probably aware of it.


It sounds like you have things under control. Best of luck to you. I do hope you are able to make the game eveything you want it to be. It seems like exactly the sort of thing I would like to play.

[Octopus Tophat]

Yeah, it seemed like such an obvious problem that I didn't bother going into it in my first response since I assumed you were probably aware of it.


It sounds like you have things under control. Best of luck to you. I do hope you are able to make the game eveything you want it to be. It seems like exactly the sort of thing I would like to play.

Thank you very much!    I hope you will like it when it's released.
By the way, I was checking out your game before I even made an account on here.  It's looking good! 

[mokesmoe]

All those movement options look really cool!

[Sebastian Brandt]

I concur to that,  it looks nice a acrobatical sign me up when you need testers! :D

[Octopus Tophat]

Thanks!  I'm really into climbing/parkour in games.  I really enjoy wall jumping and slopes in the new super mario bros games, and climbing walls in towerclimb/assassins creed.  I've never seen a game with the kind of ledge jumping I have, though. I like to think that's pretty original.  Ledges are an important part of the game.  You can practically get through a level just by jumping from ledge to ledge and climbing up walls, without touching the ground.
There will also be jump potions, to double jump, inspired by towerclimb.  Grappling hooks inspired by worms.  Chain-hook, like the Hookshot from zelda.  Portal-creating gun.  Placable ladders/ropes.  Teleport grenade.
LOOOOTS of movement options.
Not only does this give players a lot of options when encountering an obstacle/enemies, it also means I don't have to be very careful with the level generator.  It can fill a whole room with spikes, and the player could still get through it. (But I'll make sure that doesn't happen ) It all depends on what ingredients they have, and what they want to craft. Only thing that can't be crafted is the portal gun.  That you need to find in chests.
Basically, I can put traps and hazards anywhere without having to worry about them being impossible to avoid.
I am once again, making a response that is WAAAAY longer than neccessary, but I can't help myself 

sign me up when you need testers! :D

I might put out a free alpha at some point, like vagante did.  Not quite sure yet. But if I decide to do a private beta instead, I'll be sure to give you a key :D

[Octopus Tophat]

Before the game gets too complex, I've decided to re-write some code.  My last physics system was really inefficient and didn't work perfectly. I've totally re-written the physics code, and it's a lot faster and perfect. There's no clipping through corners or any nonsense like that. The red blocks are the ones being checked for collisions.  SUPER EFFICIENT, YO! 


I've got a few more things I'd like to add.  Moving platforms is an important one, and I think that'll be fairly easy.  I also want to add different terrain properties.  So ice blocks could be slippery, and bouncy blocks could make objects....bounce more. This is all easy peasy, I just want to move on to gameplay stuff for now. I'm sick of physics coding for the time being 


I've also simplified a lot of movement code so I can have a little more control over the player.  Also runs better.
And I've completely re-made grappling hooks. My old ones were all springy and used some weird canned movement that I came up with on my own, using sin and cosine to try to figure out how much velocity to apply to the player. That was dumb . The new ones make the player move in a perfect circle, by limiting the player to a certain distance if going past the length, then gives the player a new x and y velocity based on where the new position is relative to the old position. If you're interested in putting something like this into your game, this article is what I used
http://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/tutorials/swinging-physics-for-player-movement-as-seen-in-spider-man-2-and-energy-hook--gamedev-8782
It doesn't wrap yet and the player can go through walls, but these will be easy fixes, I'll just use the same code from the old grappling hook system. 

Sorry I don't have any new content to show off. I've been doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work. I have a SUPER basic inventory system right now, and I'll be working on that from now on.