LogFAQs > #979849361

Game #39 Complete! Inventory Hero

Throw This Quote On The Back Of The Box: "The most compelling inventory management simulator on the Playdate!"

Final Thoughts: Inventory Hero is a great example of an interesting idea I just have no interest in playing. At first I was like "wait I'm just throwing away garbage in my inventory?" and I was ready to call things right away. Then I played it for a little while and I was like "oh this is actually kind of interesting." Then I played it a bit longer and decided I never need to play it again. It is one of those things that is more interesting than good. I kind of like how they hyper focused the gameplay on this one relatively minor aspect of most RPGs, but I don't kind of like playing it, which is a problem.

Inventory management is usually the kind of thing I do to get to the fun stuff in RPGs. Just a task that is sort of in my way of what I want to do, so I do it. Here it is the whole thing, which is at least an idea. Some of the games I've played on the Playdate only have one idea and that's "make a game that is functional, maybe." This has a core concept and unique hook, which I appreciate. It is just not really a fun concept. So while I appreciate the thought that went into this...no. No. Take it back. I don't want it.

There's a lot of weird things here with the design that just don't quite work. I can see why the developers here thought they would, but almost all of them make things worse. Like, the RNG. Ok, you need RNG in a game like this. The game is so dreadfully repetitive to begin with and you literally are just watching two characters bump up against each other for half an hour and sometimes the sprites change. That RNG of giving you new items or garbage is sort of the "hook" of the entire game. The limited inventory is the "hook". Hey you don't know what you're getting and you don't have a lot of space to work with - work with what you got and see what you can do. That's the game, essentially, and it works sort of in short doses.

But then you get to the end game. Then you get to the part where the game actually wants to challenge you, and the RNG can just walk up to you, hit the "your game is over" button, and then your game is over. Weapons degrade so fast and whenever you get to a certain point, you just cannot make contact with the enemies any more. So your weapons get weak, and then you cannot even hit the enemies to get new ones. This isn't even about keeping enough extra weapons on hand at the end, because degradation can occur so fast (and not really even explain how or why), that you're just out of luck. You just can''t win. You get to watch your character miss for like two minutes as your health is whittled down and you waste your healing items in futility. Games just tend to be less fun when the RNG can make it impossible to proceed. RNG is there to add variety to the gameplay. It shouldn't be there to loudly announce its bored and shoo you out the door because it has a hot date.

And with that RNG...honestly, what is the point in even playing again? There are no global leaderboards (a huge oversight from a game Panic themselves made - how do you omit a leaderboard when the whole conceit is getting to the highest level possible?) so why bother trying again? The early game is utterly brainless because enemies are relatively easy and your weapons aren't crumbling to dust every time a character looks at them. I got to the end game repeating level my first try, and then never once played through a game without getting back to it. The first 20 minutes are utterly brainless, and then after that you get to the stuff that matters and sometimes things are fine and then other times the game just loudly yells "LEAVE ME ALONE" and your run is over. That combination of slow, boring, repetitive gameplay at first and the "fuck you leave me alone" RNG at the end make it so hard to keep doing runs. Once I realized what was happening, the last couple of runs I did felt like an absolute chore.

I'm also more annoyed than I have any right to be that the game is endless and I was not told. I complained about Recommendation Dog!! but your first time through that game there is an ending. You reach an end and then the game is like "ok now just keep going". How hard would it have been to put that in? I am tired of going to the Discord to find out something about a game because the developers didn't one to put a one sentence blurb somewhere. I played for a handful of runs and wasn't sure if I was trying to get to some point or if I was in just an endless loop game and didn't know.

I just did not have a good time with this. Any time I'm about to start a game up and it feels like a chore, something when wrong somewhere.

Should You Play It? It is free. It isn't fun, but it's free. Make of that what you will.

Final Score: 3. Bad. Bad bad bad bad bad. So bad.

Games Completed: 39/151

Game Rankings:
39) PLAYTIME Weird Alarm Clocks
38) HANA Spacetime Fantasy
37) Boogie Loops
36) Hidey Spot
35) Bub-O Collect
34) The Lushes Land
33) Nightingale
32) A Joke That's Worth 0.99 Cents
31) Recommendation Dog!!
30) Trickle Greenweed, Mermaid At Law
29) Whitewater Wipeout
28) The Botanist
27) Snak
26) DYG
25) Inventory Hero
24) Lost Your Marbles
23) Grand Tour Legends
22) Life's Too Short
21) Life's 2 Short: Unhooked
20) Demon Quest '85
19) The Fall of Elena Temple
18) Flipper Lifter
17) Questy Chess
16) Slitherlink PD
15) The Keyper
14) SKEW
13) Star Sled
12) Echoic Memory
11) Executive Golf DX
10) Omaze
9) Sasquatchers
8) Word Trip
7) Hyper Meteor
6) Castle Tintagel
5) Casual Birder
4) Zipper
3) Pick Pack Pup
2) Crankin's Time Travel Adventure
1) Saturday Edition