Did I already use this item in my creature?

raitonchidori • 17 April 2025 at 10:29 PM

So, for those who like to collect items on a certain creature, it would be very nice if we could know what item we already used or still miss. Due to the massive number of items, it's hard to know if we miss something. For example, I used 1,651/1,698 travels on my Cetopia, but what are the 47 that I still miss?

So what I am suggesting is: once we click on "Items Collected" by a creature, instead of only showing the number and percentage of unique items, there would also be all usable items there, just like the items database, separated by the shops they belong. And then, if we didn't use this item, it would show black and white or a bit faded, and then if we used it, it would appear as it is (and of course, its name and number of times we used it).

It would make our lives way easier. Who thinks the same?

@Ian hope you can find this useful too!

minnie298a • 18 April 2025 at 12:37 AM

@raitonchidori
So like a checklist on the individual creatures "used item" page? I kind of like the idea. Especially for creatures that have used a lot of items. But for creatures where you are only planning on using a couple of items I can see the list on every creature taking up a lot of "computing power" that could be better utilized. Maybe something that can be toggled on (having off as the default), or something that kicks in at a certain number or percent?

Although being able to sort the items used by alphabet would be helpful. Or being able to sort the database by shop. Or ideally both. I'm invested enough to spend the time to curate my own list, it's just not feasible with the current set up. One of my creatures is reading books. The list is only roughly alphabetical because I'm going through the database using "book" as my key word. This means any books released since I started are kept on a separate list to be tracked down as they become more available. I'm sure I've missed some, being on page 14 of 16 in the database and having used 549 / 892 items from the Library.

raitonchidori • 18 April 2025 at 4:55 AM

@minnie298a I agree. But doing this on our own takes more energy than needed (I also did that for travels, but just the idea of making it for other 5 shops takes away my will to complete them). And is also more likely to have mistakes.

jlya • 18 April 2025 at 8:16 AM

@raitonchidori
As someone who collects items on a creature I would love some method like this to keep track of what items I have used. Right now I just have to manually type out every item in the creature's profile.
Honestly what I would love is just a search bar that I could type the item name into to see whether it has been used on that creature.

raitonchidori • 18 April 2025 at 10:44 AM

@jlya that would be helpful, but still would take some work

doublechin • 20 April 2025 at 10:36 AM

I would love something like this to be implemented as I collect unique items with Smiling. Great idea @raitonchidori!

List out all the items in the creatures' Items Collection under each store category in release date/alphabetical order, and have the # Uses indicated as 0 could already be one way of doing so. It'll still be many clicks for the user to flip through the pages but would do the job of showing what's never used.

I do have a fairly organized spreadsheet that tracks all the items I've used on Smiling, and I ctrl+f to check if I've ever used an item, and add it in if it's not in the spreadsheet. However, there were many instances where item names changed (i.e. St Patrick's to St. Patrick's, and many more examples) which ended up not being another unique item used.
I think as a start, even just the phrase that shows up after giving a creature an item that says "My creature has not consumed this before" would be extremely helpful - I've always wondered why it's just books that would indicate that (apart from the fact that a different old school pet-raising game also does that with books).

raitonchidori • 22 April 2025 at 6:38 AM

@doublechin totally agree

nut • 24 April 2025 at 11:46 AM

was just thinking about this as I try to finish my library collection here, I've resorted to scrolling through hundreds of strongroom pages and trying to find items I might not have used yet.

it's also strange how the order of our creature items used is just the order they were used - I think it would be much more satisfying looking if they were arranged in the usual groups of 4 (by item release date).

raitonchidori • 25 April 2025 at 11:26 PM

@nut I know, right? I'd love them to be in cronological release order too

Ian • 8 May 2025 at 12:40 PM

@raitonchidori 😉

Hope you're enjoying the latest blog post. I am still looking into a way (which may not be on the Item Collection page itself) to determine which items individual creatures need to "collect."

Displaying the entire list of items might be too much at once for all creatures—so I'm trying to think creatively about that.

raitonchidori • 8 May 2025 at 12:54 PM

@Ian I loved the new addition! Thank you so much for the support and for improving our lives! Thank yooou!

Would a searching bar be possible? Anyway, I trust your creativity!