Part 1
When every single plant can be interacted with in multiply ways, a simple button press is not enough. That said, a simple button press is just so user friendly!
Imagine being in The Forged Kingdoms. There is a small creek flowing right beneath you, there are countless rocks and pebbles, there is mud and soil, there is some algae in the water, there is grass in the area too, a small tree is right next to you with fruit, a sweet potato plant is there, a thorny bush with berries is there, a caterpillar is on a flower, a few gold coins are scattered about, and a rusty sword is stuck halfway in the ground.
How can a diverse micro environment like this be fully exploited by the player while still keeping the spirit of a simple button press?
The wrong solution is basing interactions off camera direction. In Skyrim and many other games, objects have to be directly looked at in order to be interacted with. It's a good system for looting a house but it's a horrible system for nature. Standing around staring at the ground and finicking with the controls to make the correct object highlight is just not fun.
A more interesting yet still not perfect solution is to translate every interaction to a menu button, exactly like opening a chest in most RPGs. Instead of using the camera to select the real items in their real places, a mouse/joystick can select them from a grid with icons. This abstraction has the same issues as a minimap however. It moves gameplay from the world to a small section of the screen. It also has issues with player movement. Either the "nearby interactions" chest must be reopend continuously, or the items would appear and disappear as the player moves. A consistent system would be near impossible.
One last partial solution I'll profile is prioritizing certain interactions over others. Standing in our example scene, picking up the sword is an obvious priority. The prompt to pick it up would appear like in most games, and after it has been picked up a second prompt would appear for picking the berries. It'd repeat in this manor till everything in the scene cannot be further interacted with. Most games do this behind the scenes to a degree but it's a really poor system when there are lots and lots of overlapping items and inventory is limited.
At this point maybe you're thinking there is no full solution. You would be right.
The problem is that players in most RPGs are vacuums. You don't care what it is, you just suck up everything you encounter. Button pops up on screen? Click it!
In Horizon Zero Dawn every interactable item has an icon popup before you reach it, and the player is rewarded for interacting with every single one. The only thing stopping the player is boredom and an eventually full inventory.
In Divinity Original Sin 2 as another example, "take all" options are included when looting because players are pushed towards taking everything every time.
In The Forged Kingdoms, I'm embracing this vacuum concept. While the "forage" button is held down, your character grabs everything they want as they walk around. Pulls up carrots from the ground, grabs apples off trees, takes mint leafs, retrieves gold coins, etc. The player has full control over what the "vacuum" sucks up and how it sucks things up but you don't have to worry about individually selecting stuff.
To make this system even more accessible, on screen button prompts can appear whenever highly valued things are within range of being "sucked up." Click the button once and it works exactly like traditional item pickups. Hold the button and your character just keeps on going.
Just as a bit of extra special video game magic, the player character can enter forage mode on their own when idle. They might kneel down and refill a bottle in a stream instead of just yawning and waiting for you.
This forage system takes care of picking up and collecting things, which is 99% of all object interactions. Reading signs, picking locks, talking, inventory management, etc. are handled by separate systems. Instead of a part 3, they'll be covered in dedicated dev posts.
When every single plant can be interacted with in multiply ways, a simple button press is not enough. That said, a simple button press is just so user friendly!
Imagine being in The Forged Kingdoms. There is a small creek flowing right beneath you, there are countless rocks and pebbles, there is mud and soil, there is some algae in the water, there is grass in the area too, a small tree is right next to you with fruit, a sweet potato plant is there, a thorny bush with berries is there, a caterpillar is on a flower, a few gold coins are scattered about, and a rusty sword is stuck halfway in the ground.
How can a diverse micro environment like this be fully exploited by the player while still keeping the spirit of a simple button press?
The wrong solution is basing interactions off camera direction. In Skyrim and many other games, objects have to be directly looked at in order to be interacted with. It's a good system for looting a house but it's a horrible system for nature. Standing around staring at the ground and finicking with the controls to make the correct object highlight is just not fun.
A more interesting yet still not perfect solution is to translate every interaction to a menu button, exactly like opening a chest in most RPGs. Instead of using the camera to select the real items in their real places, a mouse/joystick can select them from a grid with icons. This abstraction has the same issues as a minimap however. It moves gameplay from the world to a small section of the screen. It also has issues with player movement. Either the "nearby interactions" chest must be reopend continuously, or the items would appear and disappear as the player moves. A consistent system would be near impossible.
One last partial solution I'll profile is prioritizing certain interactions over others. Standing in our example scene, picking up the sword is an obvious priority. The prompt to pick it up would appear like in most games, and after it has been picked up a second prompt would appear for picking the berries. It'd repeat in this manor till everything in the scene cannot be further interacted with. Most games do this behind the scenes to a degree but it's a really poor system when there are lots and lots of overlapping items and inventory is limited.
At this point maybe you're thinking there is no full solution. You would be right.
The problem is that players in most RPGs are vacuums. You don't care what it is, you just suck up everything you encounter. Button pops up on screen? Click it!
In Horizon Zero Dawn every interactable item has an icon popup before you reach it, and the player is rewarded for interacting with every single one. The only thing stopping the player is boredom and an eventually full inventory.
In Divinity Original Sin 2 as another example, "take all" options are included when looting because players are pushed towards taking everything every time.
In The Forged Kingdoms, I'm embracing this vacuum concept. While the "forage" button is held down, your character grabs everything they want as they walk around. Pulls up carrots from the ground, grabs apples off trees, takes mint leafs, retrieves gold coins, etc. The player has full control over what the "vacuum" sucks up and how it sucks things up but you don't have to worry about individually selecting stuff.
To make this system even more accessible, on screen button prompts can appear whenever highly valued things are within range of being "sucked up." Click the button once and it works exactly like traditional item pickups. Hold the button and your character just keeps on going.
Just as a bit of extra special video game magic, the player character can enter forage mode on their own when idle. They might kneel down and refill a bottle in a stream instead of just yawning and waiting for you.
This forage system takes care of picking up and collecting things, which is 99% of all object interactions. Reading signs, picking locks, talking, inventory management, etc. are handled by separate systems. Instead of a part 3, they'll be covered in dedicated dev posts.
