Idea: Brief item descriptions

[Local Dunce]

As it stands, the only place where items are explained is the shop, and the player can only learn about what's in stock there. New players aren't going to intuit that the soda is actually a projectile, or that WD-NoSquee is an area-of-effect, or that Dirty Chalk Erasers let you hide. A potential solution to this is to make a short 2-4 word description of what the item does for the player and display it below the item name while an item is selected.
Some potential examples:
Quarter - For vending machines
Diet BSODA - Push things away
BSODA - Push things far away
Baldi's Least Favorite Tape - Temporarily deafen teachers
Safety Scissors - Cut wires or gum
WD-NoSquee - Area of silence
Dirty Chalk Eraser - Smoke for hiding
Bus Pass - For the Pitstop
Big Ol' Boots - Resist pushes and pulls
'Nana Peel - Make someone slip

[Abilalau]

That's actually very clever, however the tape actually deafens everyone, so i assume it should be switched to "while playing, send everyone away"

[WhoKnowsWhoIAm]

That'd be really circumstantial, though - it'd only really be useful for the new players, and for anyone who's played the game for over half an hour it'd just clutter up the screen.

Plus, the brief descriptions could be misleading as they're, y'know, brief. Your proposed descriptions don't say that BSODA is a projectile that can push all entities, or the 'Nana Peel is physically thrown on the ground and even the player can slip on it, or that the Bus Pass allows you to go on field trips, or that the Quarter can also be used to unlock coin doors, or that Baldi's Least Favorite Tape causes all NPCs to flee from it and only deafens Baldi, or that Safety Scissors can cut Playtime's jump rope.

[Local Dunce]

Originally posted by WhoKnowsWhoIAm:

That'd be really circumstantial, though - it'd only really be useful for the new players, and for anyone who's played the game for over half an hour it'd just clutter up the screen.

Plus, the brief descriptions could be misleading as they're, y'know, brief. Your proposed descriptions don't say that BSODA is a projectile that can push all entities, or the 'Nana Peel is physically thrown on the ground and even the player can slip on it, or that the Bus Pass allows you to go on field trips, or that the Quarter can also be used to unlock coin doors, or that Baldi's Least Favorite Tape causes all NPCs to flee from it and only deafens Baldi, or that Safety Scissors can cut Playtime's jump rope.

The descriptions can have an option to turn them off, or even a mode where you can toggle them with a key press so you only have them taking up screen space when you actually need the reminder.
The descriptions have to be brief to avoid having an outright wall of text on the right side of the screen, and the point isn't to tell the player the precise details of the item, but just the basic function so the player is a little less lost. Instead of a new player having to use the item and potentially waste it trying to figure out what it does, they at least know the item's main purpose and can experiment from there as they learn the game better. Instead of returning players having to look up what an item does if they forget, they get a brief reminder if they want it.

[|i.c.c.n|]

a bit mixed on this idea.. I get the idea and see how it'd be helpful, but I suppose I just don't get how shorter descriptions would be much more preferable to Johnny's descriptions

like yeah having a quick resource could help in the moment, but Johnny's store is typically away from the main gameplay so you can take your time, the descriptions are more detailed, and (for the most part*) they're easily accessible since you just need to look at said item.
*items already in your inventory can have their description viewed, but requires buying an item with a full inventory which will swap what you're holding with what you just picked up

if anything, we mainly need to somehow bring back the ability to view the description of items in our inventory without the roundabout method of swapping it with a bought item- it was possible in the 2D store thanks to the cursor, but was sadly lost in the 3D version

[Brix]

I like this idea, though instead of having it be part of the regular UI, I would probably add it to the pause screens somehow- like a feature of the YCTP while looking at the map.

Though I think the real solution to this is to bring back the ability to have johnny 'explain' items to you. Previously, as iccn pointed out, you could simply hover the cursor over an item in your inventory to see the description of it.