Hi all! No update this week, as Diablo 4 has taken over my existence. Instead, here's some insight into what's coming next, what's being designed, and what's being planned!

Character creation + save slots

With the shift from server-side to client-side, there's no (easy) way to pull the player's Itch.io username for the ingame display name, as well as their profile picture. Additionally, there's not much point in limiting the player to one save slot, so I've been designing/implementing a character creation flow, using the same character generator used for patient portraits.

(image here, itch.io can't handle my images apparently!)
Left - WIP implementation, right - design

I expect this to be done early next week so it should be in the next update... hopefully!

Changes to case selection

As it is right now, you can choose between up to 4 cases from the case selection window. This was designed for the server-side stuff to be cheaper on my wallet, but it is no longer used. In addition, the "Refresh case selection" button was added which trivialises the whole point of having a limited selection of cases.

The new design will instead have a list of N patients every "day" that you can choose from. Once this pool of patients is exhausted, or a minimum amount has been reached, you can request a new selection of patients. Later down the line, you can acquire upgrades from levelling up that will grant more selections, refreshes, XP rewards, etc. This gives you more choice in what cases you want to take, which will come in useful when the game gets...

Department specializations

A big part of the medical profession is deciding your specialization. Luckily, this is a videogame and not real-life; you want to specialize in all things? Great! Want to be a damned expert on a single specific topic? You should be able to do that too! 

At the moment, there's just one progression mechanic; your doctor score (or 'XP'). This would allow for sub-progressions within departments to unlock unique perks or skills, things that will make completing cases of this discipline (or presents with symptoms from that discipline) much easier.

Check back next week!

That's all for now! Hopefully Diablo 4 won't dominate my life all week and I can get the next version out on time, but if not I'll drop more info/designs for upcoming content. Thanks!

And as always, you can check out the Trello page for The Diagnosis Game here: https://trello.com/b/ufJ74iFq/the-diagnosis-game