Just read Lar's article The Grand Idea Behind [Div:OS] again and was reminded of a completely different game from my good old days -- Ambermoon.

Now, I'd like to think that Ambermoon was for Amiga what Ultima VII was for the PC. And it had a unique feature that I've never really seen like that anywhere since:


Some UI elements have to be acquired as actual items.

The benefits were twofold:

1. gradual increase in complexity, so the player isn't overwhelmed in the beginning and always gets new gameplay elements throughout the game, i.e. less boredom

2. reduction of micro-management, like an item that makes you not worry about food anymore wink. A boon every once in a while.


Items from Ambermoon:
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  • Clock. Shows the time of day (duh). Before you got it you had to guess (the game featured day/night cycles and you could wait for x hours if you needed to in front of a store that was closed for the night).
  • Monster's Eye. An Item that was fairly expensive, so required a certain amount of investment before it could be acquired. It added an element to the UI that warned of nearby monsters.
  • Compass. Helped you navigate on 3D maps (the game was 3D in towns and dungeons, but top-down in houses and on the world map).
  • Locator. Added coordinates to your UI/map so you could easier track your location in the game world and reference them elsewhere. You could literally fly around the whole world at some point, so eventually you'd be back at the same coordinates.
  • Wind Chain (?). Enabled you to use ancient wind gates for quick travel around the world.
  • Map. The world map was an actual item you could get in the first or second big town you visited, which was a bit of a unique case as it just told you that you were now allowed to use the actual, physical world map, which was a big, hand-drawn poster (the automap in towns and dungeons on the other hand was always available). Before that you had to remember where you were on your own, although that wasn't difficult since the first area was pretty small and there was no real danger to get lost. So you got access to the world map when it was necessary.


Most of these items you got relatively early, but only when you started to feel you really needed them -- and then were happy to have them.


Another feature from the game: Mounts.

Same deal: mounts served as gear checks and made the world easier and faster to navigate as it opened up. They were both fun to have and necessary.

First you had to walk, which was slow and didn't get you far during a day. To reach the second town you needed a raft, which let you cross a shallow part of the ocean to the next isle, but you couldn't cross the deeper parts. For that you needed a real boat, which you got even later. You gradually got gates to quick-travel to certain points in the world (they had to be visited first?) The ultimate form of transportation was a huge eagle you could summon with a flute. So gradually you could reach more parts of the world that were previously closed to you, but at the same time you could revisit older places quicker.