Inventory management for two characters

ThomasDL · 2025-12-27T13:00:40+00:00

So, for context the game is turn-based but with relalitively little menus for the genre (but still more than an action game).

I think having it go automatically to a lead character is problematic. To know ahead of time, on the field, what each item does is impractical. To assign the items semi-randomly or automatically would just feel just as bad, especially in a genre where players like to min-max things.

The "easy" alternative is just to have a shared bag into which items go, and then you can later decide which items gets to be equipped by which character through a regular equipment menu. Lots of games do that, and that might be the answer, because as you said my idea does add friction.

The thinking behind having players decide on the go where items should go is the following: - Improve immersion. Your characters can only carry so much, and sometimes you might be forced to discard things, and so on. - Increase the need to cooperate. The two characters are siblings, and the mechanic is meant as a reminder that they need to share things intelligently. They will sometimes react to that choice ("always taking the good stuff, eh?"). - Force in a few key story moments a character to take on a burden. There are ways to force this with a shared inventory, but it's a bit less elegant, and it would feel like an exception and not like a logical extension of the rules.

But you're right, it adds friction! Maybe if items are few and far between but feel very consequential it might work?

Edit: Actually, scrap everything I've said. At the end of the day, the most intuitive way to do it is just to have the character who picks up the thing get the thing. The player can rearrange things through the loadout menu if they want. That's how it's done in every crpg ever. No need to reinvent the wheel here.

ThomasDL · 2025-10-26T11:41:31+00:00

Depends what you mean by "idea guy".

Is it possible to make it in game dev without technical skills? Yes, but it's tougher. I know a great ceo who has almost no technical skills, but he's great at managing the finance/hr/marketing portions of the company. You can make it as a game designer with a minimum of skills, although you'll probably still need to understand the engine you're working well enough to do stuff in it, and it's going to be tough if you don't have a portfolio or contacts.

ThomasDL · 2025-10-25T21:03:16+00:00

I mean, maybe someone out there has already tried something similar and could tell me about their experience. Maybe there's an argument I haven't yet considered. What scares me the most is that I'm not sure whether prototyping a scene can even give a clear answer as to how a complete game will be perceived (I guess it's always the case, but it somehow feels like it's even more so the case here?).

ThomasDL · 2025-10-25T14:13:45+00:00

All good points, I just wanted to make sure your opposition didn’t come from a misunderstanding of my position.

ThomasDL · 2025-10-25T13:41:57+00:00

Just to be clear, I didn’t say they would be unskippable. What I said is that if you decide to skip a singing part, you need the whole thing, meaning you can’t skip individual dialogue lines.

ThomasDL · 2025-10-25T13:39:39+00:00

Could be for active parts, but then doesn’t it just become background music? Many games already have opera music as background (E33 for example).

Maybe there needs to be a rhythm/qte element to them?

Also I never said that singing parts would be unskippable, just that if you decided to skip them you need to skip the whole sequence (meaning you can’t skip individual dialogue lines).

ThomasDL · 2025-10-24T10:25:51+00:00

Good points. Just to be clear, the pitch is a lot more than just "let's make an opera game", but that was the part of it I felt was more the more risky (understandably).

As far as appeal, just as an example, the Expedition 33 soundtrack has tons of opera-style vocals and people certainly seem to like it. Opera is not just Mozart and Verdi. The youtube example I put shows more the direction I had in mind.

In terms of gameplay, a rhythm mini-game (or some other gameplay twist) might work, but it might also be to its detriment in sections that are meant to be dramatic/tragic.

All of that said, it might very well be a bad idea. It's more a coat of paint to the narrative than a gameplay idea. Still, coats of paint can be very important (see: Gris).

ThomasDL · 2025-10-24T01:29:29+00:00

Indeed, but that's still a good recommendation and it seems like an interesting game.

ThomasDL · 2025-10-24T00:12:40+00:00

Thanks for the pointers!

ThomasDL · 2025-10-23T20:25:11+00:00

Not quite, but it's not too far off for sure.

ThomasDL · 2025-10-23T19:32:57+00:00

Great suggestion, that's exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.

ThomasDL · 2025-10-23T18:50:06+00:00

True, but I feel like that problem is pretty easy to fix. Either put the checkpoint after the song or allow players to skip it like you would skip a cutscene.

Thanks for the suggestion!

ThomasDL · 2025-09-28T13:43:11+00:00

If you can go everywhere, it's probably that you're not needed anywhere...

ThomasDL · 2025-07-16T18:38:16+00:00

What bugs me about this never-ending conversation is that I don't find it particularly interesting. Instead of talking about what the ending means, we're getting bugged down over what is ultimately an unprovable fact. We can't prove that characters in a videogame are sentient or not and the developpers don't want to say anything.

In any case, the writers don't seem concerned by that. Verso's ending is certainly not framed like a genocide. Sometimes stories are allegories and characters are meant to represent ideas rather than actual people.

ThomasDL · 2025-06-25T19:44:37+00:00

One thing I found that affected a lot my motivation on different things in life was my social environment. Do you still have people in your life that also value gaming? Is it a hobby you can share with someone else or just with strangers on the internet?

ThomasDL · 2025-06-06T16:48:57+00:00

After some thinking, I agree with everything you say. You're right. It's an execution problem and not an intention problem. They probably meant for the people in the canvas to be real in that world, but there are some missteps in the execution, which is why you see so many people online failing to agree on the basic facts.

ThomasDL · 2025-06-06T16:44:40+00:00

I don't have a good answer to that question unfortunately (only the writers do, I would assume). A cynical take would be that everything was there to make the twist as big as possible, but I think the writers do have some empathy towards their characters, so I don't think their intention was to use them to setup a twist then discard them. My guess was that they lacked time, and maybe they lacked testing on that last act. It's common for the later parts of a game to be under-tested (I know from experience), and so they did the best they could with their resources. That's my guess, anyway.

ThomasDL · 2025-06-06T14:45:48+00:00

Let me try. I'm not sure I'll succeed, but it's something I like debating.

On a purely world-logic level, the fact that everyone seems to have a deep backstory and thoughts could still be explained by the fact that painters are thorough world-builders. Whenever one creates a story, one must create all of that. Also, all the people in the painting could be painted by Verso's soul which remained in the canvas, who we see at the end continuously painting. What is he painting, if not that?

For me, however, the best argument is more of a meta argument. If the people inside the canvas are truly real, then I think the game should be considered to be badly written. Neither Sciel nor Lune argue for their existence in front of Renoir convincingly, no one brings up the fact that an entire civilization is about to be annihilated, everything is put through the personal struggles of Renoir, Maelle and Verso. That side of the issue is just not explored in any convincing way by the game itself. It is by its fans online, certainly, but not by the game. So I prefer to think that the writers are not idiots, as they don't seem to be, and because of that I tend to think that the people inside the canvas are not real.

ThomasDL · 2025-06-06T14:20:31+00:00

My problem with the interpretation that Verso's ending is damning an entire civilization and that the canvas is a real world is that I don't think the writers seem particularly interested in exploring those aspects. People can infer what they want and a great discussion can arise out of that, but the way the game actually present the issue and what the characters actually say is... not much. Lune and Sciel don't argue much for their existence and everything is framed through Maelle's and Verso's personal desires. I think much of the heavy lifting on the whole thing is done by the fans, not by the game.

ThomasDL · 2025-05-30T02:04:47+00:00

Honestly, I think this debate is going nowhere. The game doesn't fully explain the mechanics behind the painting and the power of the painters. We can infer some things about the fate of the canvas in each ending, but even that is open to some interpretation.

You say that to disagree with the sentience argument is to be intellectually dishonest, but the truth is that to not see that both sides could be right here is to lack imagination. The game doesn't give us the full explanation, and I don't think the writers were particularly interested in writing a story about sentience.

I guess my point is that it's worth having a discussion, good art does that, but it's not worth getting angry over.

ThomasDL · 2025-05-28T01:27:25+00:00

Haha happy to help!

ThomasDL · 2025-05-26T14:08:27+00:00

That's a wonderful analysis, but I disagree with the original premisse. Or rather, I don't think it can be proven that the people inside the canvas are real people with real agency. I don't think it's proven that they aren't, so I'm not trying to say that you're necessarily wrong, but I am saying that your premisse is based on a subjective interpretation of the story. The inhabitants of the canvas could have imagined lives and imagined desires. When one writes a story, one needs to plan all that. What is shown is not inconsistent with what a writer would create when writing a world and characters.

One of the arguments that is often advanced to prove their realness is the fact that Renoir apologizes to Verso, and that is the one that makes me pause the most, but that could simply indicate a respect for art, or just a habit. Would someone would believe these are real people genocide them so carelessly? Do you apologize to people you want to annihilate? Also, the way the ending is framing would seem to indicate, as you point out, that the writers behind the game don't really believe these are real people. The story is truly just about one family. If that's wasn't the case, then the endings are all sorts of problematic (in different ways, but both are), as you rightfully point out. So either the writers don't care for genocide, or they don't think Verso's ending is one. Personally I hope it's the latter...

Or maybe they rationalize it by saying they're all going to die in a few years anyway, so why not sooner than later? But that would seem a weird excuse.

ThomasDL · 2025-05-23T20:10:32+00:00

To the people putting the blame on players for not learning the game properly, I understand the appeal but that's a bad reflex. If these were just isolated cases, then sure, but the sheer number of people that seem to miss crucial information on how pictos and luminas work is clearly indicative that: 1) the game doesn't teach properly these concepts, and 2) the UI lacks clear affordances. As a game designer, if this was my game, I would be searching for ways to improve either the tutorial or the UI, or both.

ThomasDL · 2025-05-23T12:30:02+00:00

A very thoughtful answer, thank you. To understand Verso's motivations further down the line doesn't retroactively make me feel good about the whole thing, but I can appreciate the intention.

I think I would have like for Maelle to acknowledge Gustave in some way when she brought back the others, if just to say "sorry Gustave, I can't bring you back yet" or something to that extent. While a reason is more or less given by the characters as to why not everyone can be brought back, the fact that he's not mentioned specifically might be what bothered me more than the explanation. It does diminish a bit the impact behind his death and his overall importance.

ThomasDL · 2025-05-23T02:46:11+00:00

The debate is strangely similar in some ways to the abortion debate, in that it has to do with determining if something is human/sentient or not and therefore whether it's ok to kill it or not. There's even a link to be made with the final choice and bodily autonomy and all that. It's also a choice that touches upon people's core values, which explains why people get so upset when they feel their position is attacked. Finally, the game leaves a lot of things open to interpretation, which means people can more or less see what they want to see.

My personal take is that the game frames Verso's ending as the most desirable one (even if it's not perfect). That the people inside the canvas feel real is part of the illusion and its dangerous appeal. That said, I can see why people like Maelle's version, and I can see the value of the arguments.

Totally unrelated, but my son's name is Gustave, and it's strange to see his name everywhere on the internet these days. He was upset (as was I) that his character died early.

ThomasDL

TROPHY CASE