Zak LeRoi, PC RPG

i want to see blood.

haha eh...sorry. You'll have a sword, and you'll (of course) be able to kill enemies and whatnot, but we're fairly family-friendly, so don't expect anything that would make it really anything worse than a T rating.

On an unrelated note, we formed our new company, DD Gaming, and started a new blog:
http://play-dd-games.blogspot.com/
If this project interests any of you, follow the blog, which is where we'll be posting screenshots, plot summaries, and other little tidbits of awesome.

Currently I'm working on coding the inventory system - I made this mockup:



What do you think? I'm trying to make the inventory mouse-based. Do you prefer that to keyboard based control, with the arrow keys?

inventory system looks... okay. However, unless you are going to be having more types of items than weapons, armor and maybe a few usable items, you'll need more categories if you aren't planning to use the old Infinity Engine games route of only having a very small select number of inventory spots. Bioware, out of most other game developers, probably has some of the worst inventory management systems out of any major RPGs I've played to date. Most of their inventory systems are little more than a chore. So far, their best inventory system was DA2, which allowed fora good mechanic of storing all of your items into a junk category to sell or store en masse.

If you plan on allowing the character to carry more than a dozen items at any time, I would recommend having tabs that allow the player to sort through inventory at a higher level than just "weapons, armor and everything else." Additionally, a "sell" and "store" category that players could sort items into would not hurt either, depending on how high you want the inventory limit to be. Additionally, if its going to be a stat-driven RPG with a lot of loot, you're going to want a "Compare," function. This could work if your "equipped" box will change to the relevant item that the player is hovering over. I.e. the player hovers over a sword, and the equipped box shows the hammer he is wielding as well as the stats of both weapons so that the player can easily gauge whether he should keep the sword for later or sell it.

Good job with the note, it looks great!

What do you think? I'm trying to make the inventory mouse-based. Do you prefer that to keyboard based control, with the arrow keys?

Possible to do both? (I developed repetitive strain injury from too much mouse-based computer games and always welcome a keyboard alternative lol)

Might depend on which is the dominant controller for the game. If the game is played using the keyboard, might not be good to make players lift up their hands to use the mouse, and vice versa.

Good luck!

Thanks for your input, DadeLeviathan and Legendre. What would you think of a tabbed inventory system with seperate tabs for Armor, Weapons, and Items? Also, what other categories would you suggest, besides these three?

What would you think of a tabbed inventory system with seperate tabs for Armor, Weapons, and Items? Also, what other categories would you suggest, besides these three?

A tabbed inventory system could work. For categories, that entirely depends on the types of items you plan on having in your game. For any RPG, I would recommend having at least a Weapons, Apparel/Armor, Useables (i.e. scrolls, magical items), Consumables (potions, food, etc) and Miscellaneous (books, random items, etc) tab. I wouldn't go overboard, however. For example, unless you plan on letting players read them, I wouldn't include a 'books,' tabs. Likewise, I wouldn't include a tab just for non-armor apparel. Finally, I would recommend being able to have a 'Junk,' like tab if you will be allowing the player to hold a lot of items at any given time so that the player can sell unwanted items en masse, rather than clicking on each individual item. Further categories than that would entirely depend on the quantity of item types you will be including in your game and how they will be used.

For example, if you will have a lot of quest-heavy items, I would recommend having a Quest tab as well so that players will know which items they must keep. You, could, of course also go the route of simply not allowing them to get rid of quest-required items, but I would still recommend a quest tab in such a case, because then the player would know they wouldn't be able to get rid of them without hovering over them and attempting to get rid of them first.

Another idea you could go with, is allowing the player to create their own tabs, and simply allow the player to sell or store en masse all of their items in any given tab. This would allow a player to set up a tab called, say, "Weapons 2" which they reserved specifically for weapons that they would use later, or "Sell High" for items that they would only sell to stores that had some of the better sell payouts in the game.

Another idea you could go with, is allowing the player to create their own tabs, and simply allow the player to sell or store en masse all of their items in any given tab. This would allow a player to set up a tab called, say, "Weapons 2" which they reserved specifically for weapons that they would use later, or "Sell High" for items that they would only sell to stores that had some of the better sell payouts in the game.

Hm...that's a really good idea. I'll swing that by my partner and see what he thinks.

Now that we have come up with a name for this game, my partner made a new topic about it: http://www.gamedev.net/topic/623597-the-lost-keys-of-alraith/ The Lost Keys of Alraith - if our project interests you, swing on over to the other topic.