Move interact prompt label to HUD

[wjt]

Currently, when the player-character is moved near to something that can be interacted with, we show two indications:

1. Near the object, a verb or phrase, such as "Tap", "Talk", or "Talk to Oscár". In theory this label is meant to float above the target so that neither the player-character nor the target is obscured.
2. At the bottom of the screen, "Interact" appears along with the button to press.

I think it would be clearer if the verb were shown in the bottom bar, with a glow or arrow behind/above the target to highlight it. Something like this quick mockup:

interact-glow.webm

though I wonder if an arrow, exclamation mark, etc. floating above the object would be more practical to implement & look better.

This would also allow us to WONTFIX #725.

XP Summary (total 600)

Subdomain	Skill	XP
Game Design: Game Feel & UX	Problem Solving	75
Game Design: Game Feel & UX	Creativity & Design Thinking	150
Game Design: Game Feel & UX	Technical Literacy	75
Engineering: Gameplay & Systems Programming	Problem Solving	75
Engineering: Gameplay & Systems Programming	Creativity & Design Thinking	75
Engineering: Gameplay & Systems Programming	Technical Literacy	150

[wjt]

Before sinking too much time into implementation, I would suggest first making a mockup of the various options for how to indicate the target:

1. floating arrow pointing down
2. highlight behind
3. your idea here!

My theory is that adding a highlight/glow behind will be a very tedious change because one will need to make sure to get the stacking correct so that the glow appears above any props but below the NPC/rock sprite. A floating arrow may also more clearly indicate the target - and it may be possible to reuse the existing marker that interactable objects have for positioning the label (though this will need to be adjusted).

[manuq]

Before sinking too much time into implementation, I would suggest first making a mockup of the various options for how to indicate the target:

1. floating arrow pointing down
2. highlight behind
3. your idea here!

My theory is that adding a highlight/glow behind will be a very tedious change because one will need to make sure to get the stacking correct so that the glow appears above any props but below the NPC/rock sprite. A floating arrow may also more clearly indicate the target - and it may be possible to reuse the existing marker that interactable objects have for positioning the label (though this will need to be adjusted).

Yes and, indicator_down.png delivered by PixelFrog in #2116 could be used for it.

[wjt]

Good idea! Though I think we will ultimately want them to be different shapes so that one can clearly distinguish between hookable and interactable things.

For interactable things you could imagine having a semitransparent thing always above the entity, which becomes opaque and animated when that thing is the target.

[wjt]

I started hacking this together a second time, this time with an indicator owned by the InteractArea.

Screencast.From.2026-04-23.18-29-56.mp4

[wjt]

An interesting side-effect that can be seen here is that the use of modulate to tint the rocks means the arrow gets tinted too, so that would have to change.

Also I think it is confusingly similar to the player's aim arrow.

[manuq]

An interesting side-effect that can be seen here is that the use of modulate to tint the rocks means the arrow gets tinted too, so that would have to change.

Maybe we can change the rocks to use self-modulate instead of modulate? That should fix this particular issue.

[wjt]

It's not so simple because the thing we modulate is the root node of the musical_rock.tscn scene, which is a StaticBody2D, not the AnimatedSprite2D.

I think the path of least resistance is to add a “tint” property (name up for discussion) which is documented to modulate the AnimatedSprite2D within.

[wjt]

I made that change in #2147. I pushed #2150 as a draft for discussion.