Revamping The UI and Starting The Weapon Equipment System

Hello everyone and welcome to the 5th devlog for my 2D JRPG indie game, Magical Girl Saga! In this devlog, we'll be touching upon a minor change in the inventory UI as well as discussing my progress so far in creating the equipment system, so without further ado, let's jump into devlog[5]!

Part 1 - UI Revamp

First off, I'll discuss what changes I made to the UI. The first major change was changing the background of the inventory UI. I simply changed it from a whole book outline to just a basic menu with a book like interface on the side of the inventory. I also updated the bookmark tabs for all the features of the inventory, instead of having larger tabs with words, I went with smaller tabs and icons to indicate which menu is currently open. I then also added in the player's portrait to tell player status, as well as the currently equipped weapon and the player's currently selected party members and their status and stats. A change I made was an ability to toggle between the player weapon and party settings to the player's stats by pressing the 2 key on the keyboard, so that way, the user can use the 1 key to cycle through the three inventory types and can press 2 to toggle between player stats and player information.

Part 2 - Weapon Equipment System

The next thing we need to focus on now that we have a sub menu to select a party member to equip and unequip a weapon to is to actually implement the ability to assign a weapon to the selected party members.

In that regard, we added the ability for a sub menu to show up when selecting a weapon to equip to one of the player's party members, so now when a weapon is selected, the description text changes to say select a character who the weapon will be equipped to and switch the control focus from the inventory menu to the new equipping sub menu. We then added in some logic for equipping weapons, with additional logic for if a character already has the selected weapon equipped and if so, reassign it to the newly selected character.

                private void EquipWeapon(Node characterNode)
                {
                    if (selectedWeapon == null)
                    {
                        GD.Print("Weapon is null!");
                        return;
                    }
                    
                    // Call ReassignWeapon to ensure the weapon is removed from any character that has it equipped
                    ReassignWeapon(characterNode);
                    
                    // Now equip the weapon to the characterNode passed into the method
                    if (characterNode == player)
                    {
                        // Equip the weapon for player_jeanne
                        player.currentWeapon = selectedWeapon;
                        player.attack += selectedWeapon.damage; // Apply the weapon's damage modifier
                        GD.Print($"Weapon {selectedWeapon.name} equipped to player_jeanne");
                    
                        // Update the equipped weapon slot in the UI for player_jeanne
                        equippedSlot1.Texture = selectedWeapon.texture; // Display the weapon's sprite in player_jeanne's slot
                    }
                    
                    else if (characterNode is Entity entityCharacter)
                    {
                        // Equip the weapon to the party member
                        for (int i = 0; i < playerParty.party.Length; i++) { 
                            Entity partyMember=playerParty.party[i]; 
                            if(partyMember==entityCharacter) { 
                                // Equip the weapon to the party member 
                                partyMember.currentWeapon=selectedWeapon;
                                partyMember.attack +=selectedWeapon.damage; // Apply the weapon's damage modifier 
                                GD.Print($"Weapon {selectedWeapon.name} equipped to {partyMember.Name}"); // Update the corresponding equipped slot sprite if (i==0)
                                equippedSlot2.Texture=selectedWeapon.texture; // First party member 
                                else if (i==1) {
                                equippedSlot3.Texture=selectedWeapon.texture; // Second party member break; 
                                }
                            
                            }
                        }    
                    else { 
                        GD.Print("Selected character is not of a valid type."); 
                    } 
                }

            	private void ReassignWeapon(Node newCharacterNode)
                {
                    GD.Print("Reassigning weapon!");

                    if (selectedWeapon == null)
                    {
                        GD.Print("Weapon is null! Cannot reassign.");
                        return;
                    }

                    // Handle if the new character node is an NPC (party member)
                    if (newCharacterNode is Entity newEntityCharacter)
                    {
                        GD.Print("Entity selected!");

                        // Check if the NPC already has the selected weapon equipped
                        if (newEntityCharacter.currentWeapon == selectedWeapon)
                        {
                            GD.Print($"Weapon {selectedWeapon.name} is already equipped by {newEntityCharacter.Name}. No need to reassign.");
                            return; // No need to reassign if already equipped
                        }

                        // If the NPC has a different weapon, unequip it
                        if (newEntityCharacter.currentWeapon != null)
                        {
                            GD.Print($"{newEntityCharacter.Name} has a different weapon equipped. Unequipping...");
                            UnequipWeapon(newEntityCharacter);
                        }

                        // Check if the player or any NPC in player's party currently has the selected weapon equipped
                        CheckAndUnequipWeaponFromPartyOrPlayer(selectedWeapon);

                        // Equip the weapon to the NPC
                        newEntityCharacter.currentWeapon = selectedWeapon;
                        GD.Print($"Weapon {selectedWeapon.name} reassigned to {newEntityCharacter.Name}.");
                    }
                    // Handle if the player is selected
                    else if (newCharacterNode == player)
                    {
                        GD.Print("Player selected!");

                        // Check if the player's party members have the weapon
                        CheckAndUnequipWeaponFromPartyOrPlayer(selectedWeapon);

                        // If the player has a different weapon equipped, unequip it
                        if (player.currentWeapon != null && player.currentWeapon != selectedWeapon)
                        {
                            GD.Print($"Player has a different weapon equipped. Unequipping current weapon.");
                            UnequipWeapon(player);
                        }

                        // Equip the selected weapon to the player
                        player.currentWeapon = selectedWeapon;
                        GD.Print($"Weapon {selectedWeapon.name} reassigned to player.");
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        GD.Print("The selected node is neither the player nor a valid party member. Cannot reassign.");
                        return;
                    }
                }
            

And with that, we now have a weapon equipment system that is fully functional! Though, this is all for this devlog since the next step is to implement the battle system using these newly equippable weapons, so in that regard, Adieu! See you in the next devlog!