Environments

Environments are a special set of properties that affect the gameplay in several ways. The most common way they are used is to show background behind characters during dialogue. For instance, in Taodal, every area (map overview, the market, the tavern, etc.) is a separate environment.

However, there is another, no less important function of environments. Every blob you step on on the world map as you traverse it has a defined environment that controls what happens when you step on it. For instance, the Sejan lake blob will always offer you to start the connected encounter dialogue. On the other hand, most of Sejan blobs are used for random animal encounters where most of the time, nothing happens, but sometimes the player will find themselves face to face with a creature.

Currently, implementing environments is limited. You can create new ones and use them in dialogues, but there is no way you can add new ones on the world map as that needs to happen in the game's less accessible code. This is meant to be rectified in the future.

File structure
Environments are stored in, you guessed it, the environments folder under database in the game's installation folder. Each environment has its own folder and it contains only a handful of files.

Stats file
The stats file contains the following attributes that, unless stated otherwise, don't have to be specified:

There are some attributes that can be specified but currently have no effect on the gameplay as they're not implemented yet. These concern ambient sounds of each environment (eg. a wind loop in a forest, etc.):

Examples
This is the Witch's house stats file, serving as an example: interior: 		 yes ambient: 		 0.5 discoverable: 		 yes dicovery_message: 	 You have discovered the Witch house! Do you want to enter the Witch house? default_message: 	 Do you want to enter the Witch house?  This is the Sejan forest stats file that shows how random encounters are specified in the game. 0 signifies no action. interior: 	 no 