Doors now open as you walk into them (and stop being obstructive), and are examinable. However, closing them requires a different handler. Half of it is written, and half is not. 

Right now, by default, when you try to INTERACT with a door, you talk to its owner. It may or may not be a good idea. If the owner is dead, you get "There's no response."

Doors can be opened by walking into them (no security), talking to the owner through the door, using "Science" on them, or by carrying security items matching the door's requirements. Some of this functionality is still in progress. The latter example can be interpreted as either

a) standard security cards
b) as someone looking at you through a camera, spotting the said item (such as a specific armor), and letting you in.

Last week I guessed the manager would give me another pointless assignment. He gave me 4. Yet I persist.

I finished handling of picking up items from the floor when player is behind walls (that become transparent so you can see him & items at his feet). Inventory auto-opens if it was closed. It works almost perfectly. Also, found the right approach to serialization of doors. That is the only progress made this week.

Friday is deadline for "evaluation of my work performance" that happens every 6 months. Manager continues to terrorize me. Hopefully things will pick up after the "evaluation"... unless he gives me another assignment like the one I just completed. These assignments have no real use, he just comes up with them because they give him the sense that he matters.

Good day.

Items can now be picked up, for better or worse. This week has been a perfect storm - two different family events, manager at work bullshit, and dental visit.

Next - doors.

Then, the content-implementing fun starts. The point we've been working toward since, er, at least 2006. Although right now I'm too beat to fully comprehend it. Technically, though, Shelter was born in January 2000.

Proof: http://insane-worlds.8m.com/ (News page, first post) . Yes, that's our cooky website of that era, complete with two early screenshots. 

Items can now be dropped from inventory to the ground, and "used" (but not fired) without being in inventory, but I haven't finished the part where they get picked up. Sounds simple and trivial, doesn't it.

When the items are finished, then I get started on real doors ! Doors are important for controlling passability in a number of places. Far as the game's logic goes, each door will be tied to its "owner", and the skills needed to hack it will be compared against those of the owner (dead or alive, doesn't matter). Having "owners" doesn't make a ton of sense, but it is convenient for putting down multiple doors in a single area.

After the doors, I'll start migrating NPC/location/quest content from external document into the game. It will result in adjustments, for it is a learning path. 

In general work has been slow lately due to my equivalent of Lumbergh at work putting pressure on me about my equivalent of TPS reports. It is very hard to work at a software company and then work on software at home. It sucks all the enthusiasm out of you.

This need for generating enthusiasm is why we've been making Shelter videos. They're goalposts signifying progress and reminding us of why we're making the game. We were planning to make the next one when we have original graphics, but I just may release one when we have solid gameplay first. There hasn't been a decent video out in over a year.

I'm now back to Shelter engine. I was adding quests to the main document, but the code got cold, and I stopped comprehending it. That was a mistake. I'm now working on "dropping items on the ground" and proper implementation of doors.

Ground items are quite a pain in the ass, because I have to determine when you're supposed to be able to click on them, i.e. when the objects in front of it are transparent so you can see it... among other things.

Then I'll be putting in the first area (Hillside Penitentiary) and quests directly into the game.  Also, the quest document will be merged with Zorlag-quest-editor, because plain-language quest descriptions inevitably differ from their implementation, and I don't have the time to keep them in sync.

It was initially planned to not have intelligence-influenced dialogue, and now I'm back to that idea. Nobody REALLY wants to play dumb ass characters, but people still want to have unique dialogue options each time they play.

This is why instead of INT checks, a lot of dialogue will be dictated by Player's in-game accomplishments (and failures).

I'll see both of you next week.