Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines

Creating an Inventory System is Unsurprisingly Tedious...

A topic by Alex Requiemd created 41 days ago Views: 232 Replies: 5
Viewing posts 1 to 5
(+1)

I'm making the item, equipment and magic system for my game, and man... how boring it is to register each item, magic or equipment with name, damage, effect, description and so on. Unfortunately there is no escape, it is necessary to do it one by one, and there won't even be that much to register, but for those who are immediatist and want to move on to the other parts of the development, the anxiety appears like a punch in our face.

Deleted 11 days ago

Thank you my friend :)

(+1)

In my RPG games I coded a simple database program to take the trouble away from me, well partially. I can just easily edit all the names, descriptions, and of course all other parameters. The program itself can output all this either into code or at least in a "language" that is very easy to parse in game. My database program even contains the feature to duplicate records so I only have to edit those fields that are actually different.

The reason I took this trouble... Because I know this pain. Now it's still a lot of work, I gotta admit that, but at least it did in the end cut the time I needed in half, it it wasn't even cut into less time.  

For enemies you meet in an RPG I also often whip up a quick program that allows me to quickly enter all stats and abilities and link for alternate strategies certain enemies can use against you (so I only have to code those).

Of course, that's my working style, and for me it works.

That's a good idea. I think I'll switch from JSON Dictionaries to Excel Lists in the future.

(+1)

I hear ya.  When I was building an inventory setup for my low kb rpg, I had to be careful in ensuring that each byte spent counted for something.  I ended up on settling on 16 bytes per item: 8 for the name, 8 for details, like cost, damage, etc.   For most equipment I ended up settling on a progression setup where each piece was more beneficial than the last, but the cost went up considerably.  Since I allocated one byte for cost, the number was multiplied by 25 to give me a max. price of 6375 for an item, so my chest and enemy gold drops reflect that max.   If anything costs 0, it's a special item and it gets special treatment like, "It can't be sold or dropped".


(+1)

Honestly though once you get  to the point where you're just spamming item descriptions into your game then you've finally made it to that part of game development where you can focus on adding content - and that's great.  I was once really bored of adding random items to my game, it felt like a total chore, but once I started thinking about how easy I had made it to add items then I realized that I could start experimenting with greater game design principles and exploring the design of my project a lot more deeply.