Nothing is a Part of Something

Yesterday I added two new Components to the game: Part and Nothing. These are intended to help simplify a couple object interactions I ran into.

Part

A Part is a regular object in most respects, but it’s directly connected to another object. A button on a shirt, a branch on a tree, etc. Parts don’t have much in the way of unique behavior (yet). For now it allows me to easily restrict objects from being taken when they’re part of a larger object.

Part Component


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parts.c('part', {
    'dependencies': [],
    'onAction.TAKE':function(){
        queueGMOutput("That's part of the "+getNameTag(this.parent)+".");
    }
});

Later on, parts might interact with their parent objects in more complex ways.

Nothing

A Nothing is a thing that isn’t really a thing. The specific use case was creating a hole in something. You can look at a hole, and possibly put things in a hole, but some activities don’t make sense with an abstract object like a hole. For example, you can’t take a hole. The response to a player trying to take a Nothing is slightly different than a Part. You can’t take a Part because it’s attached to something; you can’t take a Nothing because it’s fundamentally not a thing that can be taken.

Nothing Component


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coreModule.c('nothing', {
	'dependencies': [],
	'onAction.TAKE':function(){
		queueGMOutput("That's too abstract to be taken.");
	}
});

As part of building the bird feeder item, I added a hole (nothing) that is a part of the feeder. The feeder also has a part called a post (which is not nothing), and together it all makes a whole.