Rob, the todo list link (and full history, etc.) have gone AWOL in your topmost post. Also you might want to mention Team17 on the site to make it clear they owned the original. Also, is *all* of the imagery on the web site *ours*? In particular, the alien gfx in the background?
As for health pickups, and whether they act instantly or not, I'd prefer not.
For one - consistency. If we're going to have objects to pick up like a circuit board, it will be inconsistent not to allow players to store health until it's actually needed.
For another, by using this mechanism, you'll likely end up needing to leave health pickups in non-sensical places. i.e. just after you kill a whole host of aliens, and you are on your last legs, it turns out they were hoarding health packs. WTF? Why?!? I'd rather we hide health packs away in med rooms. I also tend to think the same kind of logic should apply to (some) keys, although it'll be harder to apply. Keys don't just get left lying around in the corridor, but it's reasonable they might be in offices / side rooms / hidden behind the plant pot / whatever.
Having said all that, what I *do* propose is that if the player gets down to near-zero health, we automatically apply any health packs for them. Why make the player work on trivial tasks? They're gonna do it anyway, and if not, they'll just be annoyed that they didn't get to the 'use health pickup' key fast enough. (yup, another of my pet hates in modern videogames...uneccesary drudgery...)
As for health pickups, and whether they act instantly or not, I'd prefer not.
For one - consistency. If we're going to have objects to pick up like a circuit board, it will be inconsistent not to allow players to store health until it's actually needed.
For another, by using this mechanism, you'll likely end up needing to leave health pickups in non-sensical places. i.e. just after you kill a whole host of aliens, and you are on your last legs, it turns out they were hoarding health packs. WTF? Why?!? I'd rather we hide health packs away in med rooms. I also tend to think the same kind of logic should apply to (some) keys, although it'll be harder to apply. Keys don't just get left lying around in the corridor, but it's reasonable they might be in offices / side rooms / hidden behind the plant pot / whatever.
Having said all that, what I *do* propose is that if the player gets down to near-zero health, we automatically apply any health packs for them. Why make the player work on trivial tasks? They're gonna do it anyway, and if not, they'll just be annoyed that they didn't get to the 'use health pickup' key fast enough. (yup, another of my pet hates in modern videogames...uneccesary drudgery...)