MudEngine Part 8: Inventory & Chat

Open two browser tabs side by side:

Tab 1 — Alice

1. Enter name: Alice
2. Click Enter the World — Alice spawns in Town Square
3. The room items list shows "loaf of bread" under "📦 Items here"
4. Type take loaf of bread in the command input and press Enter
5. The item disappears from the room list and appears in Alice's inventory panel
6. The floating player list shows Alice carrying "loaf of bread"
7. A system message appears in chat: "⚡ Alice picks up loaf of bread."

Tab 2 — Bob

1. Enter name: Bob
2. Bob spawns in Town Square and sees "loaf of bread" is gone
3. Bob's floating player list shows Alice's inventory item
4. Bob sees the system message about Alice taking the bread

Chat

1. Alice types say hello Bob! and presses Enter
2. Bob's chat panel shows: "Alice: hello Bob!"
3. Alice's chat panel also shows the same message

Chat is room-scoped

1. Alice walks north to Hilltop
2. Both tabs show the move. Alice is in Hilltop, Bob is in Town Square
3. Alice types say Can you hear me?
4. Alice sees her own message
5. Bob does not see the message — he's in a different room

Drop items

1. Bob walks north to Hilltop to meet Alice
2. Bob types drop bread — but Bob doesn't have the bread, nothing happens
3. Alice types drop loaf of bread
4. "loaf of bread" reappears in Hilltop's room items
5. Alice's inventory is empty
6. Both see the system message

Inventory edge cases

1. Alice takes the bread again
2. Bob tries take loaf of bread — fails (Alice already has it)
3. Alice walks south to Town Square while carrying the bread
4. Alice drops the bread — it appears in Town Square, not Hilltop
5. Bob walks back to Town Square and takes it — succeeds

Persistence — items survive server restarts

1. Alice picks up the "loaf of bread" from Town Square
2. Close Alice's tab — a system message shows: "⚡ Alice drops loaf of bread." The bread is back in Town Square
3. Refresh Bob's tab — Bob reconnects and the bread is in Town Square where Alice dropped it
4. Open game.toml — the file now has an empty [[players]] section (Alice disconnected) and her items were returned to the room they were in

Disconnect drops all items

1. Alice takes "loaf of bread" and walks to Hilltop
2. Alice closes her browser tab
3. Bob sees: "⚡ Alice drops loaf of bread." — the bread appears in Hilltop (Alice's last room), not in Town Square
4. Bob walks to Hilltop and takes the bread — it works

Items are persisted in game.toml

Open game.toml after taking and dropping items. Each room's items list reflects the current state:

• When you take an item, it's removed from the room's items list and added to the player's items
• When you drop an item, it's removed from the player and added back to the room
• When a player disconnects, all their items are dropped into their current room

Stop the server with Ctrl+C and restart it — items are still in their last known locations in game.toml.

The floating player list always shows every connected player, their current room, and the items they carry. It never scrolls away because it's fixed to the viewport.