too much design, not enough implementation.
you need to make a crystal with light now, or this is going to die very very quickly(or start studying on it consistently)
That's nice. Thank you for your input.
I was looking at mood rings earlier today and had an idea for this. I'll put it in spoilers because it sounds like an Easter-egg type thing.
Basically, to have mood crystals. I had ideas on three major things that could be done with the crystals in various forms (lenses, prisms, rings). First, being able to tell what your character's or an npc character's mood is. The different moods could each have both positive and negative effects, and could be based on what has recently happened to a character. Then they might also be used in a way to produce, for example, a beam with an affect based on your mood (angry=fire, happy=water?). Third, they could in one form be used to control your characters mood (but with something to restrict how often that is done). Plus, there could be other cool stuff they could do. Just some food for thought here though. If it sounds too complex or doesn't seem to fit game flavor, Earthsage is still an awesome idea without it.
It's not what I want to work on right away, no, but putting in some personality for NPCs and the player and ways to affect it/be affected by it is good practice for my next game, should I ever return to work on it
I won't even bother putting it down here - I'd get laughed at too much. It's pretty ambitious, but not in a technical sense, more in a dwarf fortress sense.
There was already a Mind crystal type planned for use, and that would play a role. Its purpose would be first to allow the player to sense and affect other creatures through solid stone, but obviously there are other potential uses.
Update for people interested:
I'm in the process of moving in with my boyfriend at the moment. I've worked on the tile engine off and on since the last post, and I've got things pretty well organized to start work on the converter to input a drawn map into the game. In the meantime, I have no internet, and finding a new job plus keeping my old one is extremely difficult.
There's no bus back home after I get out of work, so I've been relying on rides from relatives, friends, etc. That'll get on their nerves quick, so almost all of my effort has gone into finding any employment at all in the city I now live in. Boring, stressful, and nerve-wracking, but preferable to living with my lunatic parents.
So yes, progress has been slow, but I will not be daunted by heartless scalliwags such as eerr!
Onward!
But first sleep.