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[Lord Dullard]

I'll admit I google image-searched 'inventory screen' just to get some ideas. Frankly, though, I didn't find much that I considered helpful. Most inventory screens are designed for games with different graphical capabilities than Cult, and the one for text-based roguelikes tend to be very barebones.

[Epithemius]

What about a Diablo 3-type system? Here's a link with a bit more details on that one: http://www.diablowiki.net/Inventory It's probably one of the better approaches I've seen to an inventory.

[nenjin]

Diablo 3's inventory is the kind of inventory system he can't use with Cult, not without some serious work.

Consider Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. It's basically DF's inventory system, but it makes some assumptions.

-Functional Inventories will be small, and not quantum.

-Inventories have a maximum cap.

It's hard for me to shake off the fuzz of Today's designs when it comes to rogue-likes, but the problem with his is that it just gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger, especially as you start finding exceptions to getting stuff put in bags. It also does a poor job of sorting and categorizing things.

Reducing it down to a much simpler system (Say 25 slots average, 40 slots max) has the benefit of both being simple to conceptualize and forcing some decision making on the player. Which DF really only accomplishes through bag size restrictions.

I don't recall you talking much about the inventory system up until now, are you wanting to do something novel there?

And as long as we're on the topic, where does Cult stand on mouse support, either currently or in the grand scheme?

[Askot Bokbondeler]

-containers as equipable objects: bags that can be held in either hand, backpacks that can be worn on the torso, pouches that can be hung on the belt, weapon scabbards, quivers, etc.

-containers would have a maximum volume and a maximum length and items would have a volume and a length, so you could fit a stack of pebbles several times the volume of a spear inside a backpack, but you couldn't fit single spear. soft containers would increase in volume and take the lenght of the longest item they contain, so you could fit an empty bag inside a bag, but not a full bag inside a full bag.

-large items could be strapped and hung on the shoulder

-depending on whether you want to make the game turn based or real time, each of these containers would use a different number of ticks to access from a collapsible tree list, or some containers could be accessed from quickslots while others would have to be accessed from a slightly more cumbersome inventory screen

-pack beasts

E: theres's the fact though that non humanoid, procedurally assembled body shapes crank up the complexity of this type of system by a few degrees of magnitude

[Lord Dullard]

I don't recall you talking much about the inventory system up until now, are you wanting to do something novel there?

I'm not really looking to do anything groundbreaking - just to put something together that's relatively easy-to-use and understand, and that doesn't create any terrible sense of 'going through my inventory is a chore' for the player. I do like the idea of using bags to expand the inventory to some degree, and agree that it probably shouldn't be able to add on TOO much inventory space. I may also consider weight restrictions.

And as long as we're on the topic, where does Cult stand on mouse support, either currently or in the grand scheme?

As it stands, the game can be run by the mouse alone, or the keyboard alone, or any combination of the two.

[nenjin]

I assume click-drag functionality is a whole 'nother thing though, right?

I do like the idea of using bags to expand the inventory to some degree, and agree that it probably shouldn't be able to add on TOO much inventory space. I may also consider weight restrictions.

DC:SS does weight restrictions which seem to balance out pretty well against the max inventory size. And conceptually, an inventory item which when placed in your inventory expands the size of your inventory seems pretty easy and game appropriate. It's just abstracting away questions of what ultimately goes where. Which is fine by mean, inventory management definitely has a threshold of fun for me.

The only funky part would what happens to items in slots created by a bag when you take the bag out of your inventory.

[nenjin]

derp, why did i double post.

[Lord Dullard]

I assume click-drag functionality is a whole 'nother thing though, right?

Nope - click-drag will also be supported for at least several types of menus/dialogues. You'll also be click-dragging to specify building dimensions (unless you use the keyboard) in addition to the fact that you can already click-drag the map around. Also, I don't think I've ever used the phrase 'click-drag' so much.

The only funky part would what happens to items in slots created by a bag when you take the bag out of your inventory.

I was considering a WoW-type bag system (I know I may be tarred and feathered for saying this, but I actually didn't mind the inventory system in WoW too much) in terms of presentation - i.e., each bag up to a limited number has its own small dialogue window. Dropping a bag could simply mean dropping its contents.

[nenjin]

Oh ok. I think I see what you're thinking at now.

I guess it does save the presentation from looking like DF's rolling lists of stuff in tabulated fashion. So you'd click a line item in a list to open a bag dialog window, or are you thinking of icons and and a grid inventory? If you're still basically running on text, I think the benefit of having bags essentially hide their content is somewhat diminished. To me that sort of seems like "one more screen" despite it being a dialog box. If you want to go graphical icons and representations, then I think the case for separate bag dialog boxes is a lot stronger.

[Neonivek]

I just hope there is some sort of organisation and visual representation of some type for your inventory.

[Willfor]

I made a fairly nice inventory using libtcod and highlight-able items/click-to-move interfaces. The red dot in the following images is where my mouse pointer was.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Unfortunately, there are still bugs with it. And it's from a project I haven't touched in ... well, possibly a year. I'll probably reuse some of its code later on. Also, I'm a fairly big fan of WoW's way of dealing with inventories. Its inventory wasn't a factor in my decision to stop playing it at all.

[Neonivek]

Well one issue is we don't know how many bodyparts the main character may end up having.

To admit I am quite interested in armor HUMANS DON'T USE!... I always find it odd when creatures like Ratmen leave their tails entirely unprotected even if they are dressed entirely head to toe with 5 inch steel.

Heck in Captain Planet I remember how the Monkey's snowsuit actually left his tail exposed... and they go to the North pole.

Maybe be interesting to see Tail guards and Wing Guards (mind you they would probably stop you from flying, but that is what you pay for when you armor your wings). Heck even Wing and Tail clothes for once.

[Lord Dullard]

Wing and Tail clothes seem like logical enough additions. Although I think for creatures that use their tails for balance, any kind of heavy armor on the tail might come with some big agility penalties - probably better to stick to light stuff that allows freedom of movement.

[Neonivek]

There is also always the idea of enhancing natural weapons with real weapons.

Though... Even humans don't do it that much outside our hands.

This is starting to remind me of Lands of Lore a lot... in it there is this huge monster race guy you get on your team, he has four arms so you can equip him with two quarterstaffs. He isn't even a warrior he is actually a magician, he is just so naturally strong (and having four arms helps) that he will pretty much pummel all but the strongest characters at that point.

Kinda makes me wonder if any of the standard civilisation races can actually have a genuin supperiority over others. Which I don't mind in a game like this. Though that makes me wonder what role the actual creature has on the balance of the game. Is it just mild adjustments, huge difference, huge difference that melts away with experience?

Yes I know what I will do, I will gather the world's magic to alter my character's body to become a titan! (ok not really)

[Servant Corps]

Since you play as a human, the only purpose of tail/wing accessories is for you to sell them for money (preferably right back to the monkeys/birds that you killed to get them in the first place), right?

That'd be kinda cool, a useless trade good that does serve a purpose in-game, just not to you.