Inventory System
Overview
Sister's Shadow's inventory system went through two major redesigns during development. The first iteration established the core approach using scriptable objects, while the second iteration fundamentally restructured it to separate persistent item data from runtime instance data. This evolution created a more flexible and scalable foundation for all inventory interactions in the game.
Contributed Breakdowns
Iteration 1
The initial version of the inventory system was based on scriptable objects, which managed item stats, quantities, icons, and more. While this allowed us to create various items using the flexible foundation it had one major issue. It had an inability to store changing or volatile data. This is because of how scriptable objects work. If we were to change the amount an item has then all items in the scene would match that amount. The concept was headed int the right direction, we just had to build off it.
Iteration 2
In this test attempt, we split items away from strictly scriptable objects. Instead, item settings would live inside scriptable object definitions. Next any temporary data, such as amount would utilize an Inventory Token. The tokens would hold pointers to their respective item definitions and hold their own volatile information. This method is cleaner, allows for multiple item instances in the scene, and is easy to expand for new item types. It still had some quirks we weren’t fond of but another good learning experience on what we were aiming for.