There are two types of inventory in this game; one is a 'utility-belt' like inventory that remains at the side of the screen throughout the game and the other is a menu-like inventory that takes up the whole screen.
The 'utility belt' inventory can be manipulated by the player; they can move items around to suit them and combine certain weapons and tools to make something more powerful. It also allows the player to access weapons and useful items quickly by giving them four slots with shortcuts to access them (e.g. the lantern might be set to the B button so whenever B is pressed, Link pulls out the lantern). This means that gameplay isn't disrupted by a full-screen menu popping up which immerses the player in the game. After all, if you were really fighting a horde of Bulblins, you would not under any circumstances stop and pull out all of your items before picking one to fight with.
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| To the right, you can see the 'utility belt' inventory as it appears during the game. A limited number of items can be placed in the slots visible here and they can be accessed by various shortcuts. |
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| To the right, you can see the 'utility belt' inventory as it appears during the game. A limited number of items can be placed in the slots visible here and they can be accessed by various shortcuts. |
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| The 'utility belt' inventory when opened fully becomes a menu-like inventory. Not all of these items can be given a shortcut and so won't appear when the inventory is closed, but the player can choose which items to give a shortcut to. |
The utility belt inventory controls most things that the player can manipulate themself. For example: weapons, bottles (which can be filled with potions etc.), ammunition and other useful tools like iron boots for walking on river beds and Ooccoo who is used when the player wants to leave a cave and return to the same room later. It also includes an 'advice' bit represented by Midna's head (see the up arrow on the inventory of the first image). Midna is there to offer advice, give clues and generally insult you.
The utility belt inventory suits Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess mostly because its fast pace requires the player to pull out items or weapons quickly in order to kill enemies or collect Chu Jelly before another Chuchu attacks. This type of inventory keeps the player immersed in the game and makes it feel more realistic too (as mentioned above).
The menu-like inventory (below) takes up the entire screen, interrupting gameplay. However, since it only controls things that the player can't really manipulate (there are exceptions, like the Zora armour for example), this screen isn't accessed as often as the utility belt inventory meaning that whenever the player might use it, it would probably be when enemies aren't attacking.
| The menu-like inventory screen. |
This inventory controls items you've collected but can't really manipulate (like the Golden Bugs and Pieces of Heart). It also contains the maps, scents, armour, and main weapons (like the sword and shield). The maps and scents can't really be manipulated either, though the the player can look at the map of their surroundings in detail when in gameplay by looking to the left of the screen or by pressing the 1 or 2 buttons on the Wii remote.
In a way, the menu-like inventory does suit this game. It's dark colours mirror the more mature, brooding style used in Twilight Princess. The thumbnail images in the slots clearly show the items the player has too. However, if the utility belt inventory hadn't been used in conjunction with the menu-like inventory, I don't think it would be suitable for the game as it would be too much of a disruption and would make it harder to switch weapons or pull out items efficiently.
Both types of inventory can be accessed anytime in the game (except for cutscenes) with the press of a button.
I also think they serve their purposes well; the utility belt inventory is good for fast-paced action where you need to switch weapons quickly whilst the menu-like inventory is good for those times when you just want to check on what you've collected so far. It also doubles up as a save point which is handy since it means the player doesn't have to run around looking for one when they don't have the time to do that. As mentioned above though, if there was one inventory without the other, Twilight Princess wouldn't have worked as well as it did. Without the utility belt inventory you can't access items quickly, but without the menu inventory you can't view items you can't manipulate. And if the two had been combined, it wouldn't have been so neatly set out and it would have been especially fiddly when it came to grabbing a weapon quickly as you'd have to scroll/go through lots of other items like maps and scents.
Looking at these two inventories, I can see that they work well together. However, I don't think I'll need to create two separate inventories at the moment since they're more suited to large-scale games with lots of items of different kinds (like those that can be manipulated and those that can't).
However, I like the styles used; the menu inventory is neatly set out with spaces for items set to be collected throughout the game and the utility belt inventory's accessibility makes it good for taking out items quickly. This would be ideal if the items you needed to grab were necessary to defending against a predator. However, due to the lack of physical slots (there a just empty spaces), a utility belt inventory like the one in Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess could end up looking messy. But, there are other kinds of utility belt inventories that aren't laid out in a circular formation and if there were boxes/actual slots incorporated into it, the inventory wouldn't run the risk of looking a mess.
The moody colours used for the menu-like inventory are also something I would consider using as inspiration for my inventory as I'm leaning heavily towards World of Perpetual Darkness. Therefore, dark colours would suit the rest of the game (even though there isn't actually a 'rest of the the game').
Harvest Moon DS/DS Cute - Farming/Slice of Life Game.
Another game with multiple inventories. It operates solely on menu inventories, however these inventories can be accessed in different ways.
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| Harvest Moon DS Cute Inventory (Rucksack). |
The player's main inventory, which they start off with, is in the form of a rucksack. It controls lots of different things, not just items. First is the save/load screen which allows you to save a game and switch to your other save slot. Next is the 'actual' inventory, represented by a rucksack icon.
There are three 'pages' of slots, each with 18 spaces (giving you a total of 54 spaces) which limits the amount you can carry around with you, though 54 spaces is a lot (you do have to buy these extra 'pages' though as you only start off with 1). Along with the 54 slots, there a three more coloured spaces to the side:
The red slot holds farming equipment like the sickle and hammer.
The green slot holds ordinary items (like weeds, eggs, flowers, stone etc.).
The blue slot holds items that you wear on you person (like gloves and teleportation necklaces (hey, they save energy that would be wasted by walking everywhere!)).
Every slot except the red and blue ones can hold up to 99 items of the same kind (so one slot could hold 99 pieces of stone, or 99 eggs), but this isn't applicable to farming tools and items you wear on your person.
From the main inventory, you can also view the map of the valley, your farm assets (like how much money you have, how many animals and their names etc.), and finally you can also view the 'Harvest Sprite Stations'. This basically contains channels giving you farming advice, telling you the weather and also the news.
This inventory is always present on the bottom screen whilst gameplay remains on the top screen. The inventory with all the slots will carry anything you can pick up (except your animals. Do not put animals in your rucksack -_-) and all of these items can be manipulated and organised to suit the player.
Other inventories in the game include chests (each one will only take specific items, for example one will only take farming items and another will only take clothes), a cupboard which holds practically anything and a fridge, which only holds food.
All of these inventories have 9 'pages' of slots which technically limits the amount you can keep, but not by much.
All of the inventories suit this game; if a farmer were to carry their things with them, they'd use a rucksack before they'd use a suitcase. And since you have a house in the game, it stands to reason that you'd store things in you house (okay, you might use a wardrobe instead of a chest for your clothes, but the chest suits the rustic feel that the game uses). Since the DS has two screens, using the bottom for the inventory and the top for gameplay is actually very useful; you can use the stylus to move things around in your inventory and use the buttons to command your character which gives you crisper movements than the stylus might. Also, having your farm assets in the inventory is a nice touch since you can easily check your farm statistics (e.g. you know how much money you can spend on onion seeds before you end up broke).
I think that an ever-present menu inventory is good for a slow-paced game like this because it makes things easy to access and you can always see what you have with you. However, this only works with consoles with two screens, or if the screen was split in half to contain the inventory and the gameplay. A screen split in half would actually be very frustrating though, so if I were to use this kind of inventory, I would definitely consider the console it would be used on. The fact that you can organise it yourself is nice though; you can put like items close to each other so you can find them easily. However, the number of slots is a bit excessive for my needs so I'd bear in mind the number of slots necessary for my inventory.
Children of Mana - Fantasy Adventure Game.
The inventory in Children of Mana comes in the form of a 'main menu' that can be accessed at all times from the lower screen on the DS. It allows you to save your file, enter the multiplayer mode and view the world map (doing this is basically a way to travel; you choose a place on the map and go there).
| Main Menu in Children of Mana. |
Along with these functions, there are three other more in-depth categories:
| Status. |
Status: Tells you your current location, level, companion spirit, health points, magic points, attack and defence. It also reminds you of any quests you have taken on but not completed yet.
| Gems. |
Gems: This category also shows you your current level, attack and defence, but by choosing and highlighting different gems, you can see the effect some have on the amount of damage an attack will do or how well you can defend. For example, the Crystal of Defence increases your physical defence by 4.
| Items. |
Items: There are five subcategories in Items: weapons, armour, accessories, recovery items and key/special items. As with the Status and Gems, your current level, attack and defence is shown. Depending on the weapon, armour and accessories etc. chosen. attack and defence statistics will be altered. Recovery items can be used in battle to recover health or magic points.
These inventories seem to hold infinite amounts of items, and you don't really carry anything around like a bag or a chest to keep all of these items in.
The inventories, especially the Items inventory, suits the fantasy atmosphere that Children of Mana has because it shows you your attack and defence statistics and how they change when you equip different items. However, accessing the menu means that you can't move your character, therefore disrupting gameplay. Also, all of the categories take up both lower and upper screens on the DS, so you can't see the game anymore which doesn't suit the game very much since there is a lot of battling monsters; I don't think a menu-based inventory was the best way to go. However, the DS doesn't have a huge screen so a utility belt inventory may have been too small with too many pages of information, in which case a menu inventory is much better since it won't frustrate the player.
I think the inventory is a bit annoying though. Whilst I do like all the changing statistics when different items are equipped, if you enter the status inventory and then want to look at the items inventory, you're taken back to the normal screen and have to access the main menu all over again which becomes a bit of a pain. Also, it stops you from switching weapons and armour quickly and means that if you need to use a recovery item in a rush you can't. Getting your character ready for a quest becomes difficult too as you have to go all around the houses to set up gems, then weapons, but you might have forgotten to do something back in the gems inventory so you have to go back to that screen which means waiting for the main menu to load again… It ends up being very time consuming which is not what you generally want from an adventure game.
Bearing this in mind, I'm going to try to make my inventory simpler which shouldn't be too hard considering I won't have so many items etc. to find space for. if it's simpler, it won't be as fiddly or time consuming. Also, I think a menu inventory that dominates the entire screen like in Children of Mana stops the player from immersing themselves in the game somewhat which is something I'd like to avoid.
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