The item grids said which item you were on ("a torch, slot 3") but nothing
about what it was -- no description, no condition, and no "what does this
refine into", which is the whole of alchemy.
The game already composes all of it in one place: item.getPopupMessage()
(modules/item.lua:199) returns the cursor popup's line list, so read that
rather than re-deriving anything from templates.
It also already gates it behind a dwell -- the popup only fades in after
examinationPopupFadeInDuration (0.4s), so a sighted player who arrows past a
slot never sees the details either. Mirror that instead of inventing a
modality: stop on an item for 0.6s and the details speak themselves, queued.
"=" reads them on demand, Shift+= keeps the name line too. ("r" was the
obvious mnemonic but is a game-claimed scancode, and getCommand() dispatches
on scancode ignoring modifiers.)
New generic hook descriptor.details() returning a LIST of blocks, so each is
also pushed into the console history and [ ] \ walk a long description back
afterwards -- the journal page trick. Only _itemgrid.lua implements it so far.
The other half is the hint panel craft/refine/trade draw permanently beside
the grid, which the popup never contains: recipe components, and price, which
appears nowhere else in the game. The three panels share a shape, so one
reader covers them. Affordability survives only as a red colour in the hint
table and decides whether enter does anything, so it is decoded and spoken.
59 testbed checks, 0 failures: a synthetic ivy_leaves item as the version-bump
canary for getPopupMessage, hasUpvalue over every hint-panel local, four
assertions on the pure settleStep, and an end-to-end "=" press. Not yet
exercised against a live item -- the prologue inventory is empty.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Game-file footprint unchanged: still one line in main.lua.
- describe.lua: shared spatial formatting. 8-point compass and Chebyshev
distance, since the game moves 8-directionally and Euclidean would overstate
diagonal travel. Verbosity setting, because sweeping eight neighbours and
inspecting a single tile want different amounts of detail.
- states/ingame_observe.lua: narrates the game's existing examine cursor.
- surroundings.lua: probe one direction, scan all eight, or report location,
without moving anything or touching game state.
- patches/popups.lua: wraps inventoryCursorPopup.set, covering inventory, craft,
refine and trade in a single patch.
Q3 resolved as augment rather than relay: the game's descriptions carry no
position, which is fine on screen and useless by ear, so distance and direction
are appended.
Examine mode is polled rather than driven by levelCursorPopup. That popup is set
from an animation-completion callback, so unless the player has enabled the
game's quickExaminationPopup option the text arrives a full keypress late -- in
testing you heard the previous tile while standing on the next. Polling
level.cursorX/Y is same-frame and setting-independent.
hotkeys.isCtrlDown/isShiftDown are now overridable fields rather than direct
love.keyboard calls: real hardware state cannot be faked by love.event.push, so
without that seam every modifier-gated hotkey would be untestable.
11/11 testbed checks, history unit tests passing.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Game-file footprint unchanged: still one line in main.lua.
Console (Q4: speak everything queued, cancelled by explicit action):
- history.lua keeps our own unbounded history, since the game's console buffer
expires entries after 3s. Mirrors the game's (xN) coalescing so what is heard
matches what is on screen. The review cursor holds position while new lines
arrive rather than being yanked to the tail mid-read.
- patches/console.lua wraps console.print, calling the real one first so a bug
on our side cannot swallow a message the player would otherwise see.
- Any keypress reaching the game silences the pending speech backlog.
Hotkeys: [ and ] review, Shift+[/] jump to ends, \ repeat, Shift+\ copy.
Chosen from scancodes the game does not bind. Note keybindings.getCommand()
ignores modifiers, so Ctrl+Up would read to the game as a movement -- our keys
are consumed and never overlay a game-claimed scancode.
Wall tones (Q5: on step, 3D-positioned, radius 5):
- Direction and distance are deliberately decoupled. The listener sits at the
camera 4 units above the plane under an inverse distance model, so placing a
tone at the wall's real position would make distant walls quieter (the
opposite of the request) and collapse the stereo pan. Instead the source sits
at a fixed radius in the wall's direction at listener height, and volume is
computed explicitly from distance.
- Step detection polls player coordinates rather than hooking movement, so it
covers walking, pathing, portals and pushes for free.
- Respects FoV/rememberedFoV; never leaks unseen geometry.
tests/test_history.lua: 16 assertions, all passing, pure Lua.
Not yet verified in actual play -- needs a human at the keyboard.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Accessibility ModandClaude Opus 5