Inventory limitations: good or bad?

[Scott Nixon]

It seems like a polarizing issue, I'm curious what people here think in general about limiting inventory size. Should certain items that are large preclude the ability to pick up other large items? Should you be able to have a limitless bag of holding? In ATTWN we allowed the player to pick up whatever he or she wanted - the decision was made that backtracking to get an object would be frustrating, and yet people ridiculed the notion. In a comic adventure, it's easy to get away with by simply making a joke about it. In my mind, limiting a player's inventory is nothing but frustrating. I suppose, ideally, if you are going for realism, you should never have the need for dozens of inventory objects. And yet I find that I enjoy having a large bag of items that I can root around in to see if there is anything that might apply to the puzzle I'm up against. This thread is in response to the recent 'should items be pickupable at any point or only when needed' one, which I think provided some insight. I'd love to get some insight into this issue as well...

[Fairygdmther]

No limits, plain and simple!

Lynsie

[bigjko]

No limititions is what I'd go with every time. Instead just design the game so that the player isn't carried an ass-load of crap in his inventory at any one time. That's more realistic, and IMO more fun.

[Maquisard]

I always thought that a sideline comment about the character storing all the larger items in say, his car's trunk (with the player actually skipping the sequence of "place in car/take from car", except for maybe the first time) would go a long way towards realism. It's kinda like that scene from Dott, where, the first time around, you flush an item down the toilet to get it to the other character, while in all subsequent cases, you can just drag and drop an item on the character's icon...

[Melanie68]

It's kinda like that scene from Dott, where, the first time around, you flush an item down the toilet to get it to the other character, while in all subsequent cases, you can just drag and drop an item on the character's icon...

Wh..WHAT!! Aw, damn. Here I kept walking to the damn toilet to flush. :( Oh well, I'm still playing the game (it's on hiatus right now) so I will make a note.


*jots down note in DOH! notebook*

[Jackal]

I hate to use the standard cop out, but I really think it comes down to your design. I think you'd have to build your game AROUND such a limitation, rather than merely throw it in as an obstacle. Backtracking is a perfect example here. Since ATTWN had Narracott hoofing all over the island, this would definitely have been a frustration. But if a game built in a zip-to map feature as was mentioned in the other thread, the frustration is negated (or at least minimized).

I honestly don't think there's a good or bad here, though. Just preference. In the best of both worlds, maybe having inventory limitation be optional is the sort of thing a difficulty setting could incorporate? If people want the added layer of strategy, it's there. If not, no worries. This may be more complex than it's worth, but ideas are free. :D

[MoriartyL]

If you are going for realism, you should never have the need for dozens of inventory objects. And yet I find that I enjoy having a large bag of items that I can root around in to see if there is anything that might apply to the puzzle I'm up against.
If you're going for realism, you should never have that type of puzzle, so where's the problem? While I'm at it, I should suggest that in a realistic game the player should not be expected to fiddle so much with the inventory, to deal with all the little doodads in the PC's pockets. Say the PC's coming home, and needs to unlock the door. He's done this a million times, no? So he should be able to take out the key and unlock the door without thinking about it by now. When the player tells him to open the door, he shouldn't say, "It's locked. Find the key so I can unlock it.". He should just take out the key for himself and unlock the door.

But we're not talking about realistic games- we're talking about classical adventures! :P So sure, let the PC carry 200 items, including only a few larger than baby elephants, and force the player to deal with it. Figuring out which of the 200 is good for when should be part of the puzzle!

...wait, let's back up a moment. An unlimited inventory doesn't necessarily mean agony for the player. I mean, why should all the inventory be accessible at all times? Out of those 200 items, the player will need maybe four or five maximum for whatever puzzle he's at. So why bother with the other 195? At each location, the viewable list should adjust so as to not waste the player's time and tolerance with anything irrelevant. All that's left is to throw in one or two red herrings, and the two last items the player picked up (so he doesn't forget what he's been doing after the save, and understands without being told how the inventory works), and I think that about covers it, no?

[Scott Nixon]

If you're going for realism, you should never have that type of puzzle, so where's the problem?

You could conceivably have 10 puzzles, each needing 2 objects, simultaneously accessible - this would necessitate 20 inventory objects. Still realistic. I'm assuming a game non-linear enough where you could have more than one obstacle to overcome at a time.

[AFGNCAAP]

As the main reason for introducing limitations is striving for realism, I'd be interested to see an adventure game having constraints based on either size or weight of objects (like most RPGs have), rather than totally arbitrary limit of six/ten/fifteen items, which seems even more artificial than infinite pockets.

Also, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (apart from having a "normal" limit often found in text games) had one scene where you are on the party, and, with all the crowd and chaos around you, your inventory limit is brought down to 2 items. It was actually a part of the puzzle to deal with snacks and glasses people keep giving you, and it was fun(ny).

So, my opinion about limited inventory is, make it an actual part of game design, and/or make it somewhat more sophisticated than "no more than n things". Otherwise I don't think it's worth the frustration it will cause.

[MoriartyL]

You could conceivably have 10 puzzles, each needing 2 objects, simultaneously accessible - this would necessitate 20 inventory objects. Still realistic.
No, no, I mean you should never have that type of puzzle. Give me an example from real life in which you have ten puzzles you must solve simultaneously. It's not realistic. Even in a fantasy world, it's not realistic. So let's not kid ourselves into thinking that by limiting the inventory, suddenly the game is "realistic". Of course there are different degrees of realism. But if you're not going all the way, why bother doing it lip service?

[Scott Nixon]

No, no, I mean you should never have that type of puzzle. Give me an example from real life in which you have ten puzzles you must solve simultaneously.

Didn't say must. I'm talking about the realism involved in giving the player a choice of what to solve and when. That's more realistic than forcing them to solve one puzzle at a time.

[MoriartyL]

As the main reason for introducing limitations is striving for realism, I'd be interested...
:confused:

Wait, maybe I read that wrong.

the main reason for introducing limitations is striving for realismNo, I guess I didn't. What an odd thing to say. I don't think that's the main reason at all. More important reasons to limit the inventory are to reduce clutter, to avoid the frustration that comes from trying too many items on everything the player encounters, and to shorten the time it takes to use the inventory, since that time is spent outside of the game proper. Realism is nice, but not as important as those.

[AFGNCAAP]

But if you're not going all the way, why bother doing it lip service?
I don't think it's fair. It's not an either-or choice. In certain areas lack of realism is caused by a conscious choice to play along the convention of the genre (eg. adventure game), or of the theme (eg. science fiction), but this shouldn't stop a designer from making up for it in other areas. By your logic, the Half-Life 2 makers should never have bothered with advanced physics engine, just because, scientifically speaking, a gravity gun is a completely idiotic idea, right?

[MoriartyL]

Didn't say must. I'm talking about the realism involved in giving the player a choice of what to solve and when. That's more realistic than forcing them to solve one puzzle at a time.
Oh, sorry for the mistake. Okay, give me an example of when you might be faced with ten optional puzzles each using two items in real life. :devil:

[Scott Nixon]

Oh, sorry for the mistake. Okay, give me an example of when you might be faced with ten optional puzzles each using two items in real life.

No!

:D

[MoriartyL]

I don't think it's fair. It's not an either-or choice. In certain areas lack of realism is caused by a conscious choice to play along the convention of the genre (eg. adventure game), or of the theme (eg. science fiction), but this shouldn't stop a designer from making up for it in other areas. By your logic, the Half-Life 2 makers should never have bothered with advanced physics engine, just because, scientifically speaking, a gravity gun is a completely idiotic idea, right?
No, the physics engine was implemented because it's fun to throw things around and see what happens. Sorry, I don't see your point.

[Ariel Type]

Every item should have a reason to appear in your inventory. Picking up everything that is not nailed down is a bad thing, even for cartoonish adventures. It shows how narrow-minded developers are.
In my opinion games like Gabriel Knight 1, Broken Sword 1, Police Quest 4 are close to ideal, as there is always a reason for picking up this or that object, taking in mind its size. From the other side there's that logic of Runaway, where certain items can't be taken until something happens.. Not fair, I said, and - again - narrow-minded..

[Boneho Chane]

Every item should have a reason to appear in your inventory. Picking up everything that is not nailed down is a bad thing, even for cartoonish adventures. It shows how narrow-minded developers are.
In my opinion games like Gabriel Knight 1, Broken Sword 1, Police Quest 4 are close to ideal, as there is always a reason for picking up this or that object, taking in mind its size. From the other side there's that logic of Runaway, where certain items can't be taken until something happens.. Not fair, I said, and - again - narrow-minded..

Yeah, Broken Sword was pretty realistic in fact that everything was pretty much everything he picked up was pocket size....except the t-shaped crowbar. I'm guessing he shoved it down the side of his pants or something. :shifty: In Monkey Island 4, numberous characters commented on the fact that Guybush shove things in his pants. Funny game. :D

[AFGNCAAP]

I don't think that's the main reason at all. More important reasons to limit the inventory are to reduce clutter, to avoid the frustration that comes from trying too many items on everything the player encounters, and to shorten the time it takes to use the inventory, since that time is spent outside of the game proper. Realism is nice, but not as important as those.
Well, maybe it being the "main" reason was a stretch, but reducing clutter and saving time is quite possible simply by better design of the inventory interface. Just look at Blade Runner: tons of stuff (granted, they functioned as clues rather than items, and as such weren't used for "classical" inventory puzzles, but it doesn't matter here), but all listed and categorized very nicely.

No, the physics engine was implemented because it's fun to throw things around and see what happens. Sorry, I don't see your point.
My point: why spending time and money making Half Life as close to real world as possible, if its main gadget defies anything we know about physics? But since advanced physics engine matters to you only as long as you get to throw things around :P, let me bring another example: in a turn-based strategy, the ability to take infinite amount of time to think about your next move is not "realistic". But that is how these games play. Does it mean the designers can make tanks fly, and a squadron of planes less powerful than a single soldier, because it would never get fully realistic anyway?

[MoriartyL]

Let me bring another example: in a turn-based strategy, the ability to take infinite amount of time to think about your next move is not "realistic". But that is how these games play. Does it mean the designers can make tanks fly, and a squadron of planes less powerful than a single soldier, because it would never get fully realistic anyway?
:D You only think you've gotten out of that one. The issue here is not fun, but it is not "realism-for-its-own-sake", either. No, the benefit is familiarity. Everyone expects that a tank won't be able to fly, so you don't have to waste your time explaining exactly what it is. That's not to say you can't have tanks that fly, if you think it'll be fun- I think the C&C games had such a tank, but I could be mistaken. Same thing with the strength. Everyone is going to immediately assume that planes are more powerful, so you've got yourself a free lesson there. You don't have to waste your time setting that up.

Realism for its own sake is not a good ideal unless you are willing to go the whole way. In all these cases, there is a much more important benefit than realism. If there were not, it should not have been done.


Edit: Oh, and by the way, the only reason a soldier shouldn't be strong enough to take on an army of planes is that there's no reason he should. If there were, then sure- why not.

[AFGNCAAP]

Realism for its own sake is not a good ideal unless you are willing to go the whole way.
I agree it's not necessarily good. But my, however imperfect, analogies tried to point out it has no reason to be bad. When faced with a design decision between two options, I think I'm allowed to deliberately choose the more realistic one, if I feel that all other advantages and disadavantages balance out. That's a purely theoretical situation, I know :), but that's also what Scott mentioned in the beginning : " I suppose, ideally, if you are going for realism, you should never have the need for dozens of inventory objects. " [bold emphasis mine].

So, um, yes, I am not really sure why are we hijacking this thread. :D

[MoriartyL]

I agree it's not necessarily good. But my, however imperfect, analogies tried to point out it has no reason to be bad.Very true. Let's celebrate our agreement by hijacking another thread! :devil: This is fun! :D




I don't see how an inventory system based on size could work. It seems like it would distract from the story and the puzzles, don't you think? Well, actually, I can see one way it could work- if it were just a tiny bit too complicated for ease of use, but simple enough that it doesn't become impossible to play the game. Much like LOOM's inventory system, the act of accessing the inventory would be a puzzle in itself. But in this case, it wouldn't make for a very entertaining puzzle. Moving stuff from pocket to pocket is just a chore, you know?

[fov]

In ATTWN we allowed the player to pick up whatever he or she wanted - the decision was made that backtracking to get an object would be frustrating, and yet people ridiculed the notion.

The only (and I mean ONLY) time it seemed off to me in ATTWN was with the ladder. While I agree that in general forcing the player to backtrack is not a good idea, I don't think it would have been unreasonable to force the player to backtrack for that one item.

I sort of see the ladder thing as being similar to the puzzle with the goat and the water trough.

I picked up the bucket early in the game, but didn't realize I was able to fill it up. It wasn't until I was trying to figure out what to do with that goat, and saw the trough there, and looked in my inventory at the bucket, and thought about it a minute, that I had the "a-ha!" realization that if I had some water in my bucket, I could probably get the goat out of the way because he'd go over to drink. So, yeah, I had to backtrack to where the spigot was so I could fill the bucket. It didn't bother me, because it hadn't occurred to me until that moment that I needed water. It just seemed like another piece of the puzzle. I suppose, in that case, if I had realized earlier that the hotspot was usable and tried to fill my bucket and was told no, I couldn't do that yet, I might have been frustrated when later I had to backtrack. But I'm just trying to express that in this situation, the fact that I figured it out on my own and had to backtrack actually contributed to the pleasure of solving the puzzle.

Now, with that in mind, I think if I had tried to take the ladder and was told "That's kind of heavy to lug around. If it turns out I need it, I'll come back for it," I don't think I would have minded. It's not like the ladder needed to be used 20 times and I had to go back for it each and every time. Really, going back to get the ladder isn't any more tedious than walking around the island looking for people to talk to... and in a way it's less tedious because I would have known exactly what I needed to (especially if Patrick said

"I can't reach those apples - better go get the ladder.")

For small things, though, I really don't care if my character carries around a few dozen items. It's really just when you're trying to figure out how he stuck a ladder down his pants that you start to wonder. :D In general, I am a lot more willing to backtrack if I know exactly what I need and exactly where to find it. What I don't like is traversing over several scenes because I think I need something there, only to have it turn out to be not the thing I need. Or, worse, wandering around because I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing, period.

btw, I don't think I'd like a situation where there's a finite number of inventory slots and you have to leave items behind when you fill them up. I'd worry too much about putting down the wrong thing. :frown:

[Maquisard]

I'm too lazy to do my research. If someone could tell me what ATTWN stands for?

[RLacey]

I'm too lazy to do my research. If someone could tell me what ATTWN stands for?

And Then There Were None. You know, that game Mr Nixon worked on ;).

[Maquisard]

I'm not familiar with his work. :P

[MoriartyL]

*My last post wasn't very clear. What I was talking about was the idea previously put forward of making an adventure with an inventory system like Diablo.


fov, you've got me thinking. What if every object you encountered which could be picked up became accessible even if you don't have room for it?

I'll clarify. (Like you could stop me!) Say you're only allowed to carry very small things in your pockets- a pencil, a business card, a herring. With anything bigger, it doesn't actually enter your inventory, but it does enter a separate list of all the things you've come across before. (Alternatively, if we're using my unorthodox approach to inventories, it would pop up next to the inventory items only when needed.) This list would incorporate every portable object you've passed by, or at least everything you've look at. When you reach a puzzle which needs it, you pick it from the list. Then there's a five-second cutscene showing the PC back at wherever it was, picking it up, and then back to where you were playing, where the PC walks in dragging it.

What do you think?

[Scott Nixon]

The only (and I mean ONLY) time it seemed off to me in ATTWN was with the ladder. While I agree that in general forcing the player to backtrack is not a good idea, I don't think it would have been unreasonable to force the player to backtrack for that one item.

Yeah, I remember we had discussions about this. At one point we were going to have certain items that needed 'two hands', so to speak. You would only be able to carry one of these items at any given time. You could still have 30 'one-handed' items in your inventory, but for larger ones you would have to swap. This caused all sorts of problems, the biggest of which was being able to drop any item (if you could drop two-handed items, it would be inconsistent to forbid dropping one-handed items) anywhere you wanted - a logistical nightmare. The alternative was only being able to drop items where you picked them up, which seemed silly.

So your approach was also considered, and the problem with that was figuring where the line should be drawn. You say the only time it seemed odd was with the ladder, but for consistency's sake I think we would have had to include the raft, the oars, the shovel, the cheesewheel, the smoker, the basket of apples, the tripod, the parachute - even things like the bucket and fishing nets could be considered too big to carry without sufficient reason. In the end, we went with what we felt was most consistent. It has only one problem - namely that it's silly to suppose you can carry so much stuff at once - but it avoids lots of other problems, so went with what we thought was the lesser of two evils.

All these comments have been very helpful though, I'll be sure to steal some of them... :devil:

"Mr. Nixon"? Crikey. Shades of Watergate.

[RLacey]

"Mr. Nixon"? Crikey. Shades of Watergate.

Time to impeach you, buddy!

[Ninth]

Wh..WHAT!! Aw, damn. Here I kept walking to the damn toilet to flush. :( Oh well, I'm still playing the game (it's on hiatus right now) so I will make a note.
:D

On topic: No limitations. It has no point, and is annoying.