Hi there,

I am currently developing a 2D top-down sandbox game in my spare time. The game revolves around collecting resources (which are each standard sized tiles in the game) to build various machines and components. My question is, does anyone have any ideas of how these resources could be stored and used, in my opinion there are two current routes of managing this:

• The (in my opinion) unrealistic route of having containers which store these resources, such as in Minecraft where everything magically fits within a chest or container of some sort and there is the concept of an “item” or a compressed version of the actual resource.
• The most realistic way, in which everything in the game takes up a set amount of space and cannot be magically compressed, this way the player must find clever ways of organising their resources. However, I feel this may get too complicated and decrease the fun of the game.

I am struggling to think of any other options and I don't think either is a good fit for the game, any help in designing this aspect of the game would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

zipper9998 said:

Hi there,

I am currently developing a 2D top-down sandbox game in my spare time. The game revolves around collecting resources (which are each standard sized tiles in the game) to build various machines and components. My question is, does anyone have any ideas of how these resources could be stored and used, in my opinion there are two current routes of managing this:

• The (in my opinion) unrealistic route of having containers which store these resources, such as in Minecraft where everything magically fits within a chest or container of some sort and there is the concept of an “item” or a compressed version of the actual resource.
• The most realistic way, in which everything in the game takes up a set amount of space and cannot be magically compressed, this way the player must find clever ways of organising their resources. However, I feel this may get too complicated and decrease the fun of the game.

I am struggling to think of any other options and I don't think either is a good fit for the game, any help in designing this aspect of the game would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

In the realistic way: What if you include warehouses that the player will need to build to store things.

But i would say to stack things like Factorio does :D

@undefined Hi there, stacking is a great idea! perhaps nearby resources could congregate together and then a number above them could denote the amount, there could be a max stack size before another stack would have to be made and these stack would just float around (its a space game). The stacks could be dragged around and then stored in some warehouse way perhaps. I think this idea has a lot of potential. Ill look into factorion as well as factories, machines and automation will be a part of the game. Thanks a lot! I'm still open to other suggestions also if anyone has any.

LorenzoGatti said:

Realism doesn't mean lack of abstraction.

In a game about the coarse time and space scale of building large machines that occupy several map tiles with commensurately large resource units, boring details like workers, trucks, containers etc. can remain implicit to show only important things (like resources moving on the map to the tiles where the player sends them to be stockpiled or used).

I like this perspective, thanks!

Albedo said:

You could also do what the Factorio devs said about their insanely large amount of storage space per container: say it continues underground.

Yeah factorio seems like a great game for me to research, it’s very different to what I’m aiming for but I feel it has a lot of abstract similarities if that makes sense.

@zipper9998 You could always have some things be compressible like clothing, or bookshelves (urgh, ever put together a bookshelf or other piece of furniture.) And then some things not be compressible, like maybe tanks.

Another game to look into is “Empyrion - Galactic Survival”. At first, they had a Minecraft-like storage system. In one of the later updates, they added a weight/volume system for storage. In it, each item has a volume and weight, and so does each storage space, including the player inventory. So, for example, if a large oxygen tank has a volume of 100 units*, and your player can hold up to 1850 units, you can't carry more than 18 large oxygen tanks even though you have free inventory slots. On the other hand, if an iron plate has 1 unit of volume, you can fill your inventory with iron plates and still have free volume left.

*I'm not sure what units they are using, but it doesn't matter anyway ? Note that the player inventory has an unrealistically large storage limit, for gameplay reasons.

This seems like just another limitation on inventory space, but it has an interesting consequence. There are items in the game (large machines) that are larger than the player inventory. So you can't pick them up by yourself. For this reason, the game has a storage networking system, where you can access storage containers remotely without using your inventory. So you would have to use a networked storage container to pick up and store the large machine.

The important thing to note is that many players did not like this feature, even though it is more realistic. They found it too limited, especially after getting used to playing without it. At the moment, the feature is optional, so players can choose if they want to play with it or without it. It is turned off by default, but chances are that will change once it is balanced properly.

What you need to ask yourself when thinking about something like this is why you are doing it. “Because it's more realistic” is usually not the right answer, if that realism only makes things tedious and boring. The question is not “should I do realism or fun” but “can I do realism that is fun”. If a more realistic but limited system can make the player make interesting choices or makes for interesting gameplay, then go for it. If it makes the game "just as boring/tedious as the real world", then it's not a good feature.