Inventories

The space containing game elements carried by diegetic characters.

There is often a need to support functionality for managing items in games where players control characters that can carry several of these. Inventories prove a solution to this by letting players examine, discard, upgrade, repair, and in other ways through a separate representation that the main game world.

Examples

Roleplaying Games grew out of Miniature Games by focusing on individual characters, including their equipment. This lead many such games, e.g. Dungeons and Dragons, GURPS, and Mutant, to have Inventories and rules for how much the players' characters could carry (although these were often ignored).

This was carried on both in text-based computer versions (e.g. Kingdoms and the Zork series), "character"-based ones (e.g. Nethack and Slaves to Armok II: Dwarf Fortress), and graphical ones (e.g. Maniac Mansion, Minecraft, the Fallout, Elder Scrolls, and Dragon Age series). [[Dragon Age II] make use of a common Inventory between the player's character and his or her companions.

The storage areas available to players in FarmVille and Zombie Lane can be seen as Inventories also.

Using the pattern

Game Items

Limited Resources

Characters Torchlight Game Worlds Free Gift Inventories Resource Caps Props Transferable Items

Sockets have similarities with Inventories, and may in some cases be a feasible alternative to Inventories. Dragon Age II does a combination of Inventories and Sockets by having a common Inventory for the Player Character and the Companions but Sockets for the Game Items actually equipped by them.

Interface Aspects

Inventories are often instantiated as Secondary Interface Screens, e.g. in NetHack, the Fallout or Dragon Age series. Dragon Age II combines this with functionality for exchanging Transferable Items while Minecraft provides support for Crafting in its Inventory. It is quite common to begin Game Pauses when these kinds of Secondary Interface Screens are entered, although this can break Diegetic Consistency (Minecraft is an example of a game which does not do this).

However, Inventories can be shown in other ways. Tabletop Roleplaying Games often make the Inventories part of Character Sheets while games with Illocutionary Interfaces, which are typically text-based, do it as part of the main interface.

Consequences

Inventories may conflict with a Diegetic Consistency simply because they represent Game Items differently than in the Game Worlds or that they allow unrealistic amounts of Game Items to be carried. However, this is significantly magnified if entering Inventory game modes through Secondary Interface Screens invokes Game Pauses.

Relations

Can Be Instantiated By

Character Sheets, Illocutionary Interfaces, Secondary Interface Screens

Can Be Modulated By

Game Pauses

Potentially Conflicting With

Diegetic Consistency

History

New pattern created in this wiki.

References

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