844 Realistic Inventory System

Realism in gaming is something I’m big into. It’s not that I’m not into things that are exaggerated or simplified or obfuscated. That’s all fine. But something is particularly interesting to me about games that more closely imitate reality.

In this idea, I’m interested in the realism of “inventory” systems that are commonly found in RPG-style games. My primary reference for this as a system is from The Last of Us. The systems in this game are nearing realism in many ways. Particularly how much you can have with you, how long it takes you to swap between things, and the logistics in general of managing an “inventory,” which in real life is really just “the things I have with me.”

I’d love to see this taken a step further though. Maybe the character’s belt can be visualized on the screen as a UI element (like the image below). Or even further, depending on the FOV of the game’s camera, maybe you know what you have by looking at the actual belt of the avatar, and use a button press to cycle through selecting an item on the fly.

A backpack could work similarly, when selected the character must take it off (like in The Last of Us), and maybe actually rummage through it, or only a certain amount of things would fit. Think of the Diablo 2 inventory grid system, but more robust and… realistic.

The system could go even further, if there were guns or items or whatever other useful things that didn’t fit in the bag, maybe the player could find string or rope to attach things to the outside of the bag, or sew extra pockets onto the outside for more storage.

A screenshot of my notebook for Veda, an old game idea from 2011.

[ Today I Was Playing: nothing… ]

#game-design-topic, #game-opinion, #game-ui