Bags Of Fun: Wasteland 2 Takes Inventory
As a man who has spent entire days asking myself if it's healthy to spend so much time staring at ASCII representations of dungeons and dwarves, it's something of a shock to find something in my inbox that makes me realise just how much of my personality was plucked from the containers marked 'nerd' and 'dweeb'. In this instance, it's a video for Wasteland 2 that provides the trigger, but it does at least prove that the developers and large parts of the fan community are at least as ridiculous as me. The footage lasts for two minutes and it's all about inventory management. Grids are discussed earnestly and I'm happy with what's shown. Happy. About arranging imaginary pants on a screen. Bloody hell.
Share your opinions about the compromises, convenience and comeliness of the system below, and join me in considering great inventories of the past. I'm a fan of party-based dungeon crawlers with individual grid-based baggage for each adventurer.
I actually used to play Dungeon Master and Eye of the Beholder with my sister, and we'd each 'control' two members of the party. Because they move as a block, all of their individual agency tended to be in inventory management - the first item found would go to character number one, the second to number two and so on. This meant that characters would occasionally end up with useless equipment - wizards with massive swords - and we would then barter rather than just handing the goods over. Madness. Nerdy, dweeby madness.
It was brilliant.