Sample GDD - Inventory

FEATURE SUMMARY

Players can open their inventory quickly see everything they possess, both equipped and stored items. While the inventory is open, players retain partial screen visibility to remain aware of their surroundings. In the inventory screen, players can drop items to share them with teammates or request items in case their teammates are willing to share.

Additionally, when looting a dead player, their deathbox mirrors their own inventory to facilitate looting and can even attempt to loot as much as possible with one button.

CORE AESTHETICS

• Camaraderie: Players can easily share excess items and communicate their item needs.

• Thrill: Players can easily see the content of a dead player’s inventory and possibly loot as much as possible at the touch of a simple button.

FEATURE GOALS

• Adapt the inventory screen to the new player gear design.

• Streamline ammo management.

• Manage both equipped and stored items on the same screen.

• Reduce screen real estate taken by the inventory.

• Ease navigation by categorizing and sorting.

• Facilitate player looting and item recovery.

GLOSSARY

• Resources: non-ammo items required for crafting or executing other tasks. Ex: boat steel, fuel, ingredients, etc.

USER STORIES

• As a player, I want to be able to open my inventory while maintaining situational awareness in case something unexpected happens in my surroundings.

• As a player, I want to be able to open my inventory to quickly see all my possessions so that I can quickly evaluate with current situation.

• As a player, I want to be able to drop items so I can share them with my teammates or make room for other items.

• As a player, I want to be able to request items to my teammates, without using my microphone, to increase my chance of survival.

• As a player, I want to be able to equip items from my backpack to better address my current situation.

• As a player, I want to be able to quickly see the content of a killed player to quickly determine what’s valuable and I can actually take.

• As a player, I want to be able to quickly loot a killed player because I have very little time to do so or I don’t want to spend too much time in an inventory menu.

description

Overview

The inventory screen is where the player can manage all of its equipped items and stored items. It attempts to balance displaying key information while occluding as little space as possible so players can maintain situational awareness. From within, the player can perform several actions such as Drop items on the ground, Swapping equipped items with stored items, and performing special Pings to request items from their teammates.

To streamline item management, every slot is arranged in a grid-like fashion, ammo has its own dedicated section and doesn’t have to contend with other items, some items will be looted automatically when some conditions are met, the deathbox that appears when looting other players mirrors the player’s inventory, and players can attempt to loot other players rapidly using a special loot all function.

Input 🎮🖱️

To keep this document simpler, the all descriptions in this document assume the player is using a controller as it is our target. The inventory supports mouse & keyboard too.
For more information regarding inputs, the Action section has all the details regarding actions and their inputs.

Inventory

• The player’s inventory can be accessed by pressing the inventory input.

  • The inventory is togglable, meaning the input must be pressed again to close it.

  • The inventory has several restrictions:

• The inventory is divided into several sections:

  • Currency; where currency quantities are listed.

  • Backpack; where the current backpack and its content are listed.

  • Equipment; where every non-weapon/backpack gear the player is wearing is listed

  • Armament; where all weapons and ammo reserves are listed.

  • Description; where the description of the selected item is displayed.

  • Button Tray; where all contextual button prompts appear.

• The inventory UI is a mix of opaque and semi-transparent elements to aid with awareness.

  • Every slot and Item is opaque.

  • Every slot is surrounded by a semi-transparent background to help contrast the opaque elements.

Navigation

The inventory is organized in a grid-like manner to ease navigation on a controller.

• Pressing left or right selects the slot left or right.

  • The selection does not wrap around.

• Pressing up or down selects the slot above or below.

  • If the player is moving from a large slot to 2 normal slots, the right-most one is always selected.

  • If there is no slot directly above or below, it selects the left-most item from the next section in the corresponding image.

• Opening the inventory will select the item previously selected the last time the inventory was closed.

  • If this is the first time the player opens the inventory, the selection defaults to the most upper-right item.

    • It never defaults to an empty slot unless completely empty, in which case the most upper right empty slot is selected.

Camera 🎥

• When the inventory window opens, it is designed to only occlude the screen partially.

• When the inventory or other small additional windows are open, the camera remains unaffected.

  • The only current window small enough is the Evac Rocket window

• When an additional window needs to be opened, the camera will move to maintain a relatively identical framing.

  • Currently, the deathbox, merchant, and storage window will offset the camera.

  • When moving, the camera does not penetrate inside geometry, it will only move as much as it physically can.

Inventory screen layout

Backpack Section 🎒

The backpack section displays 2 elements:

• The backpack the player is wearing.

  • Changing the backpack item will change its item capacity.

    • If the player changes their backpack to a smaller one and the content exceeds the new capacity, the surplus item will automatically drop on the floor.

      • See dropping items for more details.

  • Click here for more details regarding backpack and their capacity.

• The content of the backpack.

  • As previously noted, the backpack contains generally slots that can accept any item that fits their size.

  • The backpack always displays the maximum size possible to obtain but places a lock indicator on unavailable slots.

    • Locked slots are not selectable.

• If the player has a Secure Backpack, a small indicator will appear on the protected items, indicating they cannot be looted by other players.

  • Additionally, the player’s deathbox will appear different from the perspective of the hostile player.

A secure backpack, note the shield icon that appears on protected items

Equipment Section ⚙️

The equipment section displays everything the player is currently wearing except for weapons+ammo and backpacks.

• Listed here are all Grenade, Gadget, Head, and Body gear.

Items Slots 📦

Size

Every item in [redacted] belongs in one of these items sizes:

• Normal: the default item size. It appears as a 1x1 square in the player’s inventory.

• Large: large items that require more space when stored. These appear as 2x1 squares in the inventory.

  • Currently, only Weapons and Backpacks are considered large.

  • Players cannot place 2 normal items within a large slot. Large slots only accept large items.

Categories

Additionally, the inventory consists of 2 categories of slots:

• Typed Slots; slots that can only accommodate a single type of item within them. Everything the player equips is a typed slot.

  • This means weapon slots can only accept weapon items, gadget slots gadget items, etc.

    • In the UI, these slots often appear empty with a faded icon the type of item they can accept.

• General Slots; slots that can accept any item within, if their size can accept the item. Every slot inside the backpack is a general slot.

  • This means backpack items, gadgets, head gear, body gear can be placed inside normal general slots while weapons and backpacks can be placed inside general large slots.

Typed Slots on the left, Slot sizes on the right

Currency Section 💵

The currency section list and display every currency the player currently possesses.

• All resources are numerical values that do not take inventory space.

  • All numerical values are formatted as such: “999,999,999”.

  • Currencies are integers, they do not have fractions.

• The currency section is not present in the player’s deathbox since hostile players cannot loot other players’ currencies.

Armament Section 🔫

The armament section displays everything related to weapons and ammo the player has currently equipped. Displayed here are:

• Weapons; weapons the player currently possesses are listed here.

  • The currently equipped weapon is denoted.

  • Each weapon’s current magazine status is color-coded:

• Ammo Reserves; all ammo categories are listed here.

  • Unlike all other items, ammo reserves for every ammo type are always displayed, even if the player possesses none of that ammo type.

  • Additionally, each ammo category displays how much ammo the player currently has and the player’s maximum capacity.

Both weapon's current ammo and ammo reserves are color-coded.

• Weapons are color-coded relative to their magazine capacity.

• Ammo reserves are color-coded relative to the maximum capacity for that category.

• The color code is as such:

  • [Red] for under [15%] max capacity.

  • [Black] when over [15%] max capacity but not full.

  • [Green] when at maximum capacity.

Auto-Stacking 📚

Any time the player opens the Inventory, it will attempt to automatically stack items together in order to clean it up.

• The process will attempt to place as many items in the smallest amount of stack possible.

  • Generally, the left-most items will be stacked into the right-most stacks.

• Auto-Stacking attempts to minimize item movement in order to allow players to maintain their spatial memories; meaning they know where their items are before they even open the inventory.

Description Section 🗒️

The description section displays written information relative to the selected item.

Displayed here are:

• Name; the name of the item.

• Description; a small written description of the currently selected item.

• Cooldown; the cooldown of the item.

  • Only appears for Gadgets.

• Error State; a contextual indicator that only appears when something would prevent the player from performing an action. Some examples include:

  • Cannot be looted: when selecting an item in a secure backpack.

  • Not enough [currency]: when selecting an item at a merchant and the player does not possess enough currency.

Command Tray 👾

The command tray displays every action currently possible depending on what state the inventory is in and what items are currently selected.

Actions 👟

Depending on the current state of the inventory and what items are highlighted, the player can perform these actions (actions that cannot be performed do not appear):

Default Actions (Outside Inventory)

The actions below can only be performed when the inventory is closed and the player is close enough to loot an item.

• Equip

  • Can only be performed on equipable items.

    • Weapons

      • Equips the currently selected weapon.

        • If the player has a free weapon slot, it is equipped in the free slot and the player immediately switches to it.

        • If the player has no free slot, the targeted weapon will swap the currently active weapon.

    • Other

      • Equips the currently selected items.

        • If the player has no free slot, the targeted item will swap the currently equipped item.

• Store or Store (Full)

• Store the targeted item in the backpack.

  • For Large Items, this action does not appear if the player’s backpack has no large slots.

  • This action does not appear if the player is targeting a weapon and has a free weapon slot.

  • If the backpack is full, the Store (Full) prompt will appear and if actioned upon, the Overflow prompt will occur.

A visual example of the default actions when picking up items.

Inventory Actions

The actions below can only be performed when selecting items or slots inside the player’s inventory.

• Close

  • Closes the Inventory menu.

  • Can almost always be performed, is replaced by Cancel during Swapping / Overflow.

• Drop

  • Drop the selected item.

    • When performed on a stackable item, 1 item of that stack is dropped.

    • When performed on an ammo reserve, [25%] of the maximum capacity is dropped.

      • If the ammo has less than 25% of its maximum capacity size, all remaining ammo is dropped.

  • Can only be performed on items or ammo reserves with over 0 ammo.

    • Cannot be performed on empty slots.

• Drop (100%)

  • Drop 100% of the whole item stack.

  • Can only be performed on items or ammo reserves with over 0 ammo.

    • Cannot be performed on empty slots.

• Request

  • Perform an Inventory Ping Request.

  • Can be performed on both Slots and Items except for empty backpack content slots.

• Swap / Store / Equip

  • Swap

    • Swap an item from inside the backpack with an equipped item.

    • Can only performed on items inside the backpack if only all equipped slots are filled.

    • See Swapping section for more details.

  • Equip

    • Equip an item from the backpack.

    • Can only be performed on backpack inside the backpack if one or more equipped slots are empty.

  • Store

    • Send an equipped item to the backpack.

    • Can only be performed on equipped items if the backpack has slots available.

Deathbox Actions

The following action can only be performed when selecting an item inside the deathbox window.

• Loot

  • Loot the selected item.

    • Looting will always attempt to place items in their corresponding equipable slots first then backpack space.

  • Can only be performed on an item, not an empty slot.

  • If the player has no space for the item, it enters the Overflow mode.

  ℹ️

  🎮 = [A]
  🖱️ = [LMB]

• Loot All

  • Attempts to loot as many item as possible all at once.

  • Can be performed any time the Deathbox window is open.

    • See Loot All on how the mechanic works.

Dropping Items 🗑️

Players are able to drop items on the ground, either to make space or to share items with others. See the Drop Action for more details.

• Any time the player drops items on the ground, they are tossed [1.5m] in front of the character to allow teammates to pick up the item without requiring the dropper to move.

  • Additionally, items are tossed randomly within [0.5m] of the distance listed above; this is to prevent multiple drops from stacking on top one of another.

• Both placement parameters respect the world’s collision; meaning players cannot throw items through walls.

swapping 🔄

Swapping allows the player to take an item stored inside the backpack and swap it with a corresponding equipped item.

• To perform a swap, the player simply need to select the item and press the associated swap input, afterwhich the items will swap places.

  • Swapping weapons always swap the inactive weapon.

  • Swapping Gadgets always triggers their cooldown.

Overflow ♻️

The overflow state appears when players attempt to loot/transfer an item and have no space available.

• The swapping mode is modal; it requires the player to address it by either finalizing a swap or canceling it outright.

• When the player enters the Swap / Overflow state, the following happens:

  • All non-eligible slots are darkened.

    • Eligibility is determined by the targeted item.

  • The chosen item is positioned over one eligible slot.

    • Equipped slots are always prioritized, if able.

  • If the player attempts to move the selection, it can only move to eligible slots.

    • the player cannot select a non-eligible slot when swapping.

• While in this state, the player can choose to Confirm or Cancel the swap.

  • Confirming will place the selected item in its new destination and place the replaced item in the original item location.

  • Canceling will leave everything as-is and leave the originally selected items where it was.

Looting 🪙

Single Item Loot

To loot items, the player must use the Interact input.

Depending on the conditions, the player may be offered to either Equip or Store items directly into their backpack.

• Not that stackable items are always placed inside partially filled stacks before creating a new stack.

Auto Loot 🧽

Some items, depending on specific conditions, can be looted automatically if the player gets very close to them.

If the player does not meet the required conditions, it is still able to loot these items manually.

• The following items along with their conditions can be auto-looted:

  • Head, Body, Gadget, and Grenade items.

    • Only if their corresponding equipable slots are empty.

      • These items only auto-loot in their corresponding equipable slots, they do not auto-loot into the backpack once the equipable slots are filled.

  • Stackable Items.

    • Only if the player has at least a partially filled stack.

    • If player has no stacks of items, it will not auto-loot

    • Once the stack is full, this item is no longer auto-looted.

      • Ex: The player has 3/5 Boat Steel in their backpack, the player will auto-loot Boat Steel until it reaches 5/5.

  • Ammo

    • Only if the player has a weapon equipped with the associated ammo item.

  • Currencies.

    • Only if the player is under their maximum currency limit, if any.

Loot All 🧹

The Loot All option only appears when looting a deathbox. It allows players to quickly as many valuable items as fast as possible. Unless the player has enough space to accommodate every item from the deathbox, it is expected that some items will be left behind which is normal.

The Loot All attempts to perform these operations in order:

1. Attempt to fill any empty equippable slots in the player’s inventory.

   1. Ex: If the player has an empty gadget slot, it is filled with a gadget (if present in the deathbox).

1. Attempt to fill backpack items stacks.

   1. Ex: If the player has a stack of 3 Boat Steel but they stack up to 5 max, 2 Boat Steel are looted (if present in the deathbox).

1. Attempt to place any equippable items inside the backpack in this order of priority:

   1. Large Slot

      1. Weapon

      1. Backpack

   1. Normal Slot

      1. Gadget

      1. Body

      1. Head

1. Attempt to loot any resources inside the backpack.

   1. Resources are looted in order of rarity then type.

   1. If multiple items share the same rarity and type, a priority value is used to keep the ordering consistent.

      1. Ex: if both Boat Steel (1) and Boost (2) are Rare, Boat Steel is always looted first because of its (priority).

Note that the Loot All option disregards items that are protected from looting using a Secure Backpack.

Deathbox Section 🪦

The deathbox is what players see when attempting to loot a hostile player. It contains every item the player carried when it died.

• When a player dies, a deathbox appear at their current location and contains all the content of that’s player’s inventory.

  • If the player is inside a station, the deathbox will appear in a pre-determined location

• The deathbox shares the same inventory format and organization as the player inventory to streamline the looting process.

  • It also navigates identically to the player’s inventory.

  • Players can navigate between the player’s inventory and the deathbox by pressing left or right on the corresponding section.

• When opening the deathbox, the selection will default to the most upper-right lootable item inside the deathbox.

  • This means if the deathbox owner has a secure backpack, the default selection will NOT highlight a secure item, it will default to an item much lower.

• While inside the deathbox, the players can perform the Loot and Loot All actions.

  • While inside the player inventory, the player can perform its normal inventory action.

• The owner of the deathbox has a secure backpack equipped, both backpack and its content will appear inaccessible.

  • The looting player cannot see, select nor loot these items.

• The deathbox does not display the owner’s Currencies.

• As noted above, the deathbox causes the camera to move further to the [right].

Deathbox, note the absence of the wallet and how it mirrors the player’s inventory.