The Legend of Zelda: Forgotten Gates

I recently implemented an equipment deterioration system which relies on a subset of the inventory set aside to represent single pieces of equipment -- weapons, shields, armor, etc. -- each with their own amount of remaining durability. Just this month I tackled the problem of what to do when the player overflows this subset by acquiring too much equipment. It's not something I expect to happen often in regular gameplay, but it does have to be handled when it crops up. When the equipment is bought from a shop, the solution isn't terribly complicated: just inform the player by how much they went over the limit, refund all the equipment-type items they bought, and let them redo their purchase from there if they wish. It's a little inconvenient to be sure, but I think it's good enough for a fangame working within the limits of RM2K3.

It turns out there's another situation that's not quite as easy to deal with, though: when the player acquires too much equipment through a non-shop situation, such as an enemy dropping equipment as loot or finding it in a treasure chest. In a game like Breath of the Wild, the player would just leave the new stuff on the ground or in the chest, and if they wanted to they could drop other stuff from their inventory to make room. RM2K3, however, actually provides no mechanism in the menu system for disposing of unwanted inventory. I could rig a system for cycling through the equipment one item at a time and asking the player if they wanted to drop it, but it would be clunky and arduous for both me and the player.

Just when I was starting to write up a description of my problem to ask for brainstorming in the Game Design & Development forum, another solution occurred to me. The Open Shop command in RM2K3 provides a sell-only option, so I could use that as a way to let the player dump unwanted equipment. They'd also be able to dump other stuff, but that seemed like an acceptable downside -- it wouldn't kill the player's chances in most situations even if they did get rid of some potions and stuff, and I could show a message explaining to the player that the idea here is they need to get rid of some EQUIPMENT. Problem solved!

While writing up the text for explaining this unusual situation, I thought of a way to make it a bit more fun and narratively sensible. Instead of explaining the system to the player directly and having the disposed equipment just disappear into the aether, I brought in the self-proclaimed "Great Witch Maple" from the Oracle games! Thanks to Mister Mike for his sprite rips, which I doctored up to match the style of Forgotten Gates:



When the player gets too much equipment, Maple floats down from the north to tell the heroes in her typical sassy fashion that they've hoarded too much equipment and it's lucky for them she's here to take some off their hands. Originally I was going to have her reset the player's money after the transaction so that it's really like they're just dropping the excess equipment, but that led to a difficulty with treasure chests: wouldn't the player be able to just leave the equipment in the chest in such a case? I tried to implement it that way until I remembered that the contents of the chest are randomly decided the moment the player opens them. e.e; That means the item they get will probably be different when they come back later. I almost went the extra mile to change that and record what the contents of each chest are when generating the dungeon, but then I figured, why not just have Maple pay for the equipment like a regular shop? :P Then I don't have to explain why she's not paying even though it looks like she is in the shop menu, and the player won't mind too much having to sell something from their overflowing inventory with no choice to just leave the new item and come back for it later.