A February release was unsurprisingly optimistic. We're busy with worldbuilding and combat coding, so we can start playtesting the core gameplay in big infiltration & firefight scenarios.

Today we have a preview of our Inventory system. This unassuming layer of bureaucracy is one of the key elements that sets 'serious' RPGs apart from other game genres, and it's a Leviathan with tentacles extending throughout the game. It's important to nail it down in the design/prototype phase because later changes can have budget- and deadline-busting ripple effects. However there's no need to reinvent the wheel; the best inventory system is one that players don't even notice because it's not unique and special.

Ours is boring and functional:

Text labels are more informative than icon-grid inventory GUIs, and there's a strong precedent in roguelikes. On the development side, we don't have to create high-res icon art and agonize over the lack of resemblance to the 3D models. We have to shorten some item names though! Maybe "5.56 Clip (10)"?

The full-party inventory view and the equipment slot system was inspired by Voidspire Tactics. There's no scrolling; what you see here is all you get: 12 equipment slots per character (up to 8 characters) and 60 common slots in the Pack area. The lower-right Pickpocketing area is used for looting, containers, weapon accessories, and ammo. In combat each character can only access his/her own 12 slots. It's stingy, but there are no weight limits and not too many items worth hoarding. Furthermore it forces us not to add more gear slots and go crazy with 3D models.

Ammo has been on our wishlist forever, and for the current combat push we decided to bite the bullet. It adds some painful special cases to the already twisted Inventory GUI code, but it's worth it for the nuances it adds to an RPG where guns are the weapon of choice (until you get your hands on that sweet alien tech...)

For item details (mostly combat-related) we have the usual mouse-over info box. Ours pops up instantly so you don't have to wait. Could use an artist's touch though.

Here's the raw data in TSV text format (tab-separated CSV):

We chose this format because it's modder-friendly and easy to read/write in C++ without bloated 3rd-party code. We've been editing it in LibreOffice but we're experimenting with in-game editing to speed up NPC creation. We need to fix one thing: our save-game function outputs the "key=value" tag columns in random order. We need them lined up consistently for spreadsheet editing and version control.