event highlighting (Patreon)

so i really like it when explorable environments have little details and things you can actually interact with as opposed to them being just Rooms

but i don't really like it when it's unclear what things you can interact with so you feel the need to click on every single bookshelf JUST in case there's a hidden item there
reborn is modeled after the canon pokemon games in that way, at least they have item finder though. a lot of jRPGs Just Don't.
better check every bookshelf or you'll miss the permanent stat up item, dumbass

i want to respect players' time by making sure there is no ambiguity about what is going to be worth their moment to click on

but then if everything is just immediately visible, then that kind of takes away from the 'exploration' factor.

so what are we to do?

the answer was something marcello started working on the code for ages ago but i only just finally got around to shaping up into a fully usable state with particles. there was an old commitlog where we posted the line: 

'if we implemented this in reborn we could have clown music play progressively louder the closer you got to terra'

which is tempting. but it was for this. 

basically, if you're within a certain range of an interactable thing/person, it'll sparkle. might make it more subtle. might shrink the range. we'll see.
my hope is that this will solve both cases-- reward people for walking around and exploring the maps (maybe even in-battle? we'll see), while also being completely clear about what is and is not a thing

short post today because holiday break and also i burned my hand and typing hurts