Comic #680: On Use (Patreon)

Man, this one was hard to write. I came up with the concept earlier in the week, namely, "Keydar ends up with 2 on use trinkets and deletes his character". It seemed pretty simple, but when I got into the specifics it had a lot of problems.

I needed to communicate to the reader that he got a new trinket, that he already had another on use trinket, and that he was ending up with 2 on use, instead of replacing his current on use. Plus, I wanted to put in the macro joke.

At first I thought I would show what trinkets he was replacing. He couldn't have already had two on use trinkets, so I would have had to show three tooltips total: his new trinket, and his two old ones. One of them had to be obviously bad to warrant his replacing it, so do I call it "Trinket of needs immediate replacement?". How do I fit all those tooltips?

How do I make it clear he's now wearing two on use trinkets? Do I show his inventory now, with two tooltips? Do I have him hold both his trinkets with tooltips? This can't be the first panel because you have to show him getting a new trinket.

How do I communicate why this is bad, and his realization? Do I have him talk to another person? Do I have him give awful exposition and have him literally say out loud "They are both on use"? Ugh.

It was a struggle.

I had to put in some expositional dialogue. The "Finally" in the first panel communicates this is a very good trinket and he's been trying to get a new one for a while. The second panel shows he has two trinkets, though it is a little more subtle then I would like (but it lets me make my lazy macro joke). The third panel makes it very clear he has two now, and that it is a bad thing.

I'm glad I thought to put "Thiccdar" from #677 in the character select screen, still in Boralus because he never touched that character again.