With a grunt the man pulls himself up over the ancient stone ledge. The passage is small and narrow; he proceeds on all fours, drawing centuries-old air in ragged breaths. Just as his exhaustion nears its peak he reaches the end of the tunnel and pulls himself upright into the secret chamber. The artifact is there, resting on a stone pedestal, glowing softly in the darkness. Waiting for him.
He reaches for it but hesitates. Its eyes are reflective, like the sheen of oil in water. It is grinning with teeth the length of his finger. It is horrible to look at, and for an instant he imagines himself leaving it there, resealing the passage cut directly into the limestone, carefully making his way back through the gauntlet of traps, returning the outer rock to its original position, and burning the notebook that contains all of his research.
But no, he’s come this far, there’s no way he’s turning back now. He reaches out and swipes it from its resting place in one smooth motion. He puts his knapsack on the ground, opens the flap, and jams the artifact into it, hopefully deep enough that he won’t have to look at it.
It doesn’t fit.
Two large rations occupy most of the space of the pack, and in the corners he has stuffed medical gauze, his house keys, and a wad of bills in the highly devalued local currency. In the side pockets he has his flashlight, a lighter, and his notebook. All things he’ll need to make it back home alive. He tries to wedge the artifact in again.
It doesn’t fit.
He sits down on the floor of the chamber and stares at the bag. It is jam-packed with stuff, overflowing. And yet, he can’t bring himself to get rid of anything. An ancient cursed statuette from a dead civilization won’t do him much good if he trips over a wire on the way back through the Hall of Trials and breaks his leg without his splint kit handy. What if his camel has deserted him and he must walk back to the village? He’ll never make it without extra food. Not to mention it being wasteful. It’s not like he can leave some stuff here and come back for it later.
In one hand, the artifact, looking straight through him with its mirror eyes. In the other, his knapsack, filled to the brim. He stares at them. What can he do?
You’re just going to leave us hanging?! MOAR!
Oh, that old chestnut of the balance between crazy unlimited inventory (making it annoying to find what you want and usually makes the game too easy) and horribly limited/debilitating inventory (making it way too hard). I think that RE4 has done the best job in that category so far. 🙂
Tie the idol to the bag with the gauze.
It suddenly dawns on him that the artifact, heavy as it is, could make a perfect melee weapon! When turned upside-down, it almost looks like a giant baseball bet! Monsters, beware!
And, since science has shown that in this [game] world of his there is no danger of the artifact ever becoming damaged in any way (being classified as an “indestructible”), there was no reason for him to be mindful of how he handled it.
It then becomes clear to him that the artifact, now re-purposed as both a weapon and a tool, was more useful than anything he had in his pack: he could use it to bash sculls, break through walls to open new paths, or destroy crates to reveal the hidden goodies inside. There were so many creative ways to use the thing. Who knew!
Encouraged with this new realization, he boldly, almost recklessly, runs straight into the danger, sending gibs and blood of his enemies flying, joy in his heart. Yes, joy – for in his heart, there was no more fear; this nightmare of his has become, almost sneakily and without warning, an adventure – an action adventure, he dares to think.
And then something happens that changes everything. He breaks a crate, and within he finds a mystical, glowing orb, that then, as if drawn by it, floats to the artifact and imbues it with an awesome power. He slowly raises the artifact above his head, pauses for a second, and then violently slams it into the ground, producing a powerful (and colorful) shockwave, knocking down every single monstrosity unfortunate enough to be nearby at that moment!
“Wow, what an upgrade!”, he thinks.
Felling ecstatic, he goes about, making shockwave after shockvawe, screaming horrible things at his unfortunate victims, things which are not to be repeated here.
In the midst of all this cacophony, a giant… word… appears on the sky. And even more inexplicably, time itself stops. The word spells: PAUSE. Then, in a blur, it changes to EXIT.
It starts burning, giving off a bluish glow, and a strange sound, but only for a moment.
And then – darkness.
Everything ceases to exist.
(Scary music here.)
Gaht dangit.
I swear this is my life. Not only in games but in real life whenever I travel.
as if by dramatic intent, a cowering figure appears from behind the cavern, “whatchya buyin!?”
House keys aren’t needed – he can call a locksmith when he gets home, and as we all know from playing survival horror games, all items no matter their size take up the same amount of space. Problem solved 😛
http://tap-repeatedly.com/Reviews/Disaster_Report/10.jpg
http://tap-repeatedly.com/Reviews/Disaster_Report/10.jpg
There’s a lot that bugs me about this problem. Mainly, how is this guy smart enough and well prepared enough to bring all these supplies and knows how to locate a secret chamber (even knowing that the path that leads to it is called The Hall of Trials) but didn’t think to bring extra storage for the statue he has come to collect (or knows how to securely tie down a camel for his exit).
Also, why can’t he go back and collect the stuff he left? The rations are the obvious choice for things to leave, as he only needs them if his camel ran away. And I can only assume these rations are standard MREs, which are only sized for one serving. So, how far is he away from civilization that two meals means the difference from life and death (and if he injures himself and the camel is missing he’s good and proper screwed with or without the rations)?
Why concern with being wasteful? What is his plans with the unholy statue, start a recycling program? His goal is the statue (isn’t it?), all things are expendable to achieve his goal. He needs to leave something or else there was no point in hunting for this artifact.
There’s a lot of real world ways to McGuyver his way out of this dilemma but it feels like there’s a lot of artificial rules to obey. It really pulls me out of all that mystery and atmosphere surrounding our unknown adventurer and his evil find. Hell, why doesn’t he take off the golden chain, tame the devil doll, and ride it all the way back to town!
Also, why can’t he go back and collect the stuff he left? The rations are the obvious choice for things to leave, as he only needs them if his camel ran away. And I can only assume these rations are standard MREs, which are only sized for one serving. So, how far is he away from civilization that two meals means the difference from life and death (and if he injures himself and the camel is missing he’s good and proper screwed with or without the rations)?
Why concern with being wasteful? What is his plans with the unholy statue, start a recycling program? His goal is the statue (isn’t it?), all things are expendable to achieve his goal. He needs to leave something or else there was no point in hunting for this artifact.
There’s a lot of real world ways to McGuyver his way out of this dilemma but it feels like there’s a lot of artificial rules to obey. It really pulls me out of all that mystery and atmosphere surrounding our unknown adventurer and his evil find. Hell, why doesn’t he take off the golden chain, tame the devil doll, and ride it all the way back to town!
I think you missed the entire point of this article. How many times have you played a game and realized that youran out of inventory space? You can’t really drop anything without the fear of possibly eeding it later. You took the entire story way too literally, and i’m sorry but in real life, if you were in this situation, why the hell would you be seatling a cursed statue to begin with? This set of “Artifical rules” you must obey are the game’s mechanics. You assume too much, and don’t quite grasp the situatio her was attempting to create. I’m sorry but in Resident Evil 2, 352 rounds of 9mm ammunition most definately does NOT take up the same amount of storage space as a key with a heart shape on it, or a keycard. Does it make sense? nope., does it bother everyone? most likely, but its a stupid fact you have to face while playing. So please, chill out and just enjoy the game?
What game mechanics? It’s a narrative that ends on a question. I’m sure Chris is trying to illustrate a problem with inventory management puzzles in video games. But he is presenting it entirely in a story. So I treat it like a story problem. Our adventurer needs all his items so the obvious answer is to repurpose some items to carry others. But when you ignore the lovely details and just examine it as a story problem you realize the elements are stilted and don’t quite fit with the reality of the narrative.
Thus if you extrapolate this narrative into a video game it would highlight that inventory management puzzles are detrimental to the story. Showing all the problems that Kvothe had brought up. But it’s not in a video game, so instead it highlights that “artificial rules” propping up the central conflict weakens the narrative overall.
Inventory management is a very interesting topic with several pros and cons. It allows players more control over their play style but the main problem of I.M. is potentially getting stuck in an unwinnable state. There are numerous ways of circumventing this, but they usually bring along their own sets of problems. It is an interesting mechanic, but imperfect.