I found a bug in the item-system used in the tech-demo that I thought I should tell you about. It isn't a big deal as far as the tech-demo is concerned and it has been fixed for any future versions I release.
What is the bug?Items used in battle are not removed from their item slots. This means that the game will think you have more items than you actually have if you use items in battle. This is problematic when your pack is full before using an item in battle as the game will continue thinking that your pack is full (even though it no longer is!). If you were then to try and pick up a new item you would be told that your item slots are full (even though they aren't) and will be forced to drop an item in order to pick up a new one.
Fortunately, in the tech-demo you cannot find more than 6 items and so you will not come across an occasion where you need to swap one item for another. As a result, although your pack might show an item being there that is not there, you won't run into any actual gameplay problems. Your pack will just be broken graphically.
Understand all that?
So, you idiot, why are these bugs present?Testing is important in any game and it looks like I didn't properly test the item-system before releasing the tech-demo.
My original testing involved me using items via the main menu on a specifically designed test-map. Doing it this way, the item-system seemed to keep track of when you used items quite well: It removed the item from the backpack, set that slot of the backpack to empty and didn't take any duplicate items out of the pack. So far, so good.
However, in an extreme oversight, I didn't test what happened if you used an item in battle. This is where the main brunt of the bug comes from as the system is unable to consistently track when you use an item in battle. I say inconsistent because it works
sometimes, although more often than not it will not work at all.
What are you doing about it?First off, the problems have been fixed now. I am telling people about them since these problems are still present in the tech-demo release and I want people to both be aware they are there and to be aware that I already know about them.
Second, I will
not be releasing a fixed version of the tech-demo. I don't see any point in releasing a fixed download for something that barely effects the gameplay considering this is only a tech-demo. I will repeat: You cannot find enough items in the tech-demo that you'd ever need to swap one for another so the problem isn't all that prominent - you might become aware of it graphically but it will
not effect the gameplay.
SummaryThere is a bug present but it shouldn't effect the gameplay in your tech-demo playthrough (I hope).