In the game I am writing the player has a character sprite and the character sprite has a facing indicator. The facing indicator is always hovering over a cell adjacent to the players location. If the facing indicator is over an item with a context action it populates the context action button and the player can press this button to activate the context action.

The tile map has three layers.. from lowest to highest there is the ground, the floor and the blocking entity. An entity on any of these layers can have a context action associated with it.

If the question I have is the preferred priority order for the various context actions.

I think I have narrowed it to two choices.

1) Indicator Blocking ent

2) Indicator Floor

3) Indicator Ground

4) Current Location Floor

5) Current Location Ground

-or-

1) Indicator Blocking ent

2) Current Location Floor

3) Current Location Ground

4) Indicator Floor

5) Indicator Ground

Basically, the question is if the things your are standing on should be considered before or after the things you are standing next to?

By the way you're describing it here, it sounds like the first option makes the most sense. If the facing indicator is always hovering over an adjacent space, then it seems like focus naturally falls there first and can gravitate towards the player as options shrink.

However, also by the way you first described it, I was surprised to find that the player can interact with things in the current space at all, as it sounded originally like the indicator only considered the adjacent facing space. Is there a reason for this? Wouldn't it be simpler to just stick to the "you interact with things next to you, not underneath you" rule?

Wouldn't it be simpler to just stick to the "you interact with things next to you, not underneath you" rule?

I suppose It would be... I just thought it would be awkward if you couldn't pick up something that you were standing over.

Possible, yes, but games like that exist and it isn't hard to grasp the concept. As long as it is relatively easy to move around and position the interactivity cursor where you want it I doubt it would be a big deal - and it would help avoid situations where the player interacts with things they don't want to, which is a potentially more frustrating issue.

Wouldn't "1) Indicator Blocking ent" mean you can't pick up anything any more if you're next to a blocking entity?