Grid Inventory

An alternative to the Hyperspace Arsenal. Instead of having an infinite amount of generic space to store things, you have a grid to store them in. The size and shape of objects varies; a key may fit into a single grid section, while a box of ammunition takes up a larger square of sections, and a rifle needs a long rectangle. Usually an object must always take up at least one section, no matter how small the object, so one's inventory can quickly become filled up with small things like keys and scrolls.

Weight is generally ignored in these systems. A gold ingot and a sheet of paper will take the same percentage of carrying capacity, even though the ingot is thousands of times heavier.

Prepare to spend a lot of time playing Inventory Tetris to fit everything. A few games have a button that automatically tidies up the inventory, but that's far from universal.


 * System Shock 2, with the variation that the size of the grid varies with your character's strength.
 * The first Deus Ex game (although ammo was mysteriously stored elsewhere), the second switched to a list inventory. A bug in the first game allows one to exploit a glitch and stack inventory items on top of each other.
 * Deus Ex Human Revolution brings back the grid inventory, and even allows you to upgrade inventory space. The game will automatically reposition items for the best fit, though.
 * The Diablo series. The first also had the rather painful restriction that gold (in stacks of up to 5,000, though double this with the right and otherwise useless amulet in the unofficial expansion pack) took up precious inventory space. Few items were actually worth more than their gold worth, which made them that much more precious.
 * And its spiritual successors Mythos and Hellgate:London.
 * In Mabinogi, gold only stacks up to 1,000 per square. However, there are items called Gold Bags which occupy four squares each, and can hold up to 50,000 gold each. Also, your bank account can hold up to six million gold per character, and any of the characters can access it (useful for kitting out a new character with no money of their own).
 * Diablo II also had a plot-necessary item (the Horadric Cube) that contained several inventory slots. It was actually used for transmuting various items together, but doing that is rare enough that it usually got used just for extra inventory space.
 * The inventory in the Geneforge series has a set weight limit, dependent on the Strength stat, beyond which you become encumbered and start losing action points per turn. Earlier games in the series had backpack items count towards the limit too.
 * Resident Evil 4 included a version of this trope. Not only did it include it for just about every item you could acquire(including the special final-boss-ass-kicking-gun), but you were able to purchase new cases of increased size. Now, how a rocket launcher takes up as much space as a few handguns is a WHOLE other issue...
 * It at least granted the player the mercy of being able to rotate items. A 1x2 item could fit in a 2x1 slot with a single rotation, whereas other games (notoriously, Diablo and its successors, as mentioned above) provided no such option.
 * Another great thing about the Resident Evil 4 inventory grid is that while organizing one's inventory, a separate grid would appear to the side for you to temporarily store tiny items while you rearranged the more cumbersome ones, instead of forcing you to move everything around with what little free space was available.
 * By the end of the game, it was trivially easy to store a handgun, a shotgun, a rifle, a submachine gun, a rocket launcher, a mine thrower, and a revolver. It almost qualifies as Hammerspace. That's one hell of an attache case.
 * Resident Evil 5 has an irritating variation on this which was one of Yahtzee's complaints about the game. All items were shrunk to a single grid square (unrealistic, but good), but you only had 9 squares (unrealistic and BAD). Basically, it didn't matter what items you were carrying; you could only carry nine items...or types of items: some objects stack together into one inventory space while others don't, so in Resident Evil 5, 81 incendiary grenades take up as much room as 9 smallish herbs.
 * Worst of all? There are two vests that provide you with more health (melee and bulletproof), each of them taking up a space.
 * The Dungeon Siege series features this, but refreshingly includes a feature to sort it all into the most continuous space possible. Your mileage may vary. Fortunately, if you run out of inventory space, you can get a mule at almost every city to carry your stuff.
 * Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura does this with both weight and space, but you never really seem to run out - until you have to haul buttloads of treasure back. That's why God invented party members. Also, it features a defragment button which neatly tidies your inventory.
 * There's also something of a cheat: in order to assign an object to a hotkey, you need to place it in one of the ten slots at the bottom of the screen, thus removing it from the grid. These slots ignore the dimensions of the item, and you can assign any item to them, which means that you can save a lot of space by assigning armor and weapons to them.
 * The Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2 series have both a grid system and a weight system, although in NWN 2 you almost never run out of grid space. They don't have a size limit, though, so, as long as you can carry items to the weight of ten full-plate suits of armour, you can carry ten full-plate suits of armour, even though any one of these is almost as big as you. And NWN 2 does have a defragmenting button (?Arrange Inventory?). Ha!
 * The key difference between both games is that Neverwinter Nights takes different sizes into account: An armor set requires much more space then a potion although you are still given enough grid space to carry around several sets of full plate armor. In Neverwinter Nights 2, every single item takes up exactly on space on the grid and containers such as bags can hold an absurd amount of items, rendering the Grid Inventory fairly pointless.
 * The X-COM games made heavy use of this, even giving the characters separate grids for each body location (and separate Time Unit costs to move things from place to place).
 * Most slots were never used. A gun in hand, ammo and grenades on the belt, and maybe an additional gun and ammo in the backpack. That still left shoulder and leg spots available, but, considering the fact that there was nothing useful to put there, and the fact that the weight of equipment is an important factor in how far your soldiers can move, they were almost always left blank.
 * However, it's marginally faster to move grenades (and high explosive) to the hands from the shoulders, rather than the default belt slot.
 * Spiritual Successor series UFO does much the same thing. Starting with the second game Aftershock, certain units had larger or smaller inventory grids (humans had the largest, with cyborgs slightly smaller and psychics the smallest). In the third game, Afterlight, the type of environmental suit worn by the soldier determines the carrying capacity, with more protective armors resulting in smaller inventory grids (usually).
 * In the Gundam spinoff RPG MS Saga, each mobile suit has a Grid Inventory to determine how many weapons it can carry. Melee weapons are taller than longer, while the reverse is true for ranged weapons, and every MS has a unique grid in order to suit its specialization. That's right, they made the Inventory Management Puzzle an integral part of the game balance.
 * Might and Magic 6-8 (the original RPG, not the Turn-Based Strategy "Heroes Of") had a Grid Inventory for each character in the party.
 * The BattleTech boardgame (as well as its computer equivalent, Mechwarrior), did this for 'Mech construction and outfitting. Each part of your 'Mech's chassis had a finite number of slots that you could plug stuff into, each item taking up a varying number of slots. Being that this included weapons, armor, heatsinks (to keep the 'Mech running in battle), sensors, etc. this made fitting out a 'Mech almost a minigame in itself. Where you put things actually mattered in combat, as different areas have different armor, and all of it is tracked. If you put all your guns in your arms, and that arm gets blown off, no more guns.
 * Although the strategy game Mech Commander only had weight restrictions for adding weapons and components, the sequel played this completely straight- each 'Mech had a grid inventory the represented both size and weight of the weapons added, as well as extra armour and heatsinks (the other limit on components) This system was used somewhat creatively, however, since smaller 'Mechs could have a lot of space but the grid would be made tall and narrow, preventing the addition of heavy weapons.
 * Super Smash Bros Brawl uses a similar system for its sticker power-ups: you can only use as many oddly-shaped stickers as you can fit on the round base of a trophy.
 * Many games fail to account for different sized objects properly. In Diablo, six sheets of paper take up as much space as a breastplate. Baldur's Gate is even worse, since all items take up the same amount of space, a character with maximum strength could carry sixteen suits of full plate, but they still couldn't hold more than sixteen pearls (unless you get a jewel bag, good luck finding one.)
 * Most mods, particularly mods developed by one of the game designers fix this by allowing identical items to be stacked. Additional mods (of even the same ones) can allow items to be stacked infinitely, making the game much less annoying for inventory management.
 * The game Darkstone is annoying in this, as you have a comparatively small inventory grid and are required, among other things, to collect seven magical MacGuffins with which to defeat the Big Bad. It becomes forgivable, however, once you learn that you can place an object anywhere in the game and it will stay there until you come back for it; thus, all those conveniently abandoned houses back in the starting village become handy places to store the crystal shards, weapons you're not strong enough to use, books of spells you can't master yet, and other things you want to keep but don't want to be lugging around.
 * First-Person Shooter Chrome is not a Role-Playing Game combo, it's not a stealth game, it doesn't require particularly smart tactics. It's just a FPS. So it wouldn't make sense for it to have a Grid Inventory, right? Well, tell it to the game designers. It's even worse than usual, too, because the inventory is not one large rectangle - it's a medium rectangle, two small ones and a square (or thereabouts). This makes it virtually impossible to carry anything more than two weapons (and even that becomes a problem if you have to wield a rocket launcher) and some ammo.
 * The Dark Sun games had an inventory system similar to Baldur's Gate (which owes Dark Sun a lot in terms of UI), where each item took one slot and there was also a weight limit. However Dark Sun had a lot of chests and bags which you could use to multiply inventory size several times.
 * Basically every single game made by Level-5:
 * Dark Cloud: You have a finite amount of space on each of your inventory grids (items, weapons, weapon attachments, Georama parts, warehouse). The maximum amount of items you can carry can be increased with "Pocket" items obtained as rewards for completing Georama events; unfortunately, you STILL run out of room quite often because like items don't stack—if you have ten Premium Chickens, that's ten slots on your grid filled up.
 * Dark Cloud 2 was quite a bit more generous with grid space, as it's extremely difficult to completely max out your inventory grid. Helpfully, like items stack this time around. However, it only has ONE inventory grid, unlike the previous game, so everything you have—recovery items, key items, weapons, outfits, weapon upgrade items, robot parts, Georama elements, fishing stuff--all of it goes on one huge-ass grid.
 * Dragon Quest VIII was developed for Square Enix by Level-5, and also features a grid inventory.
 * Rogue Galaxy has a grid inventory which is divided into 7 pages, six of which hold 40 items each, the seventh of which is designed specifically to hold the game's rarest items. The warehouse is also gridded. Like items stack, like in DC2. It's still possible to cram most of your inventory panels completely full of the ridiculous amounts of crap you collect in this game.
 * The furniture in the Animal Crossing series turns into leaves for easy transportation when picked up, so every item from a tissue box to a UFO will fit equally in your inventory. Furniture can also fall out of shaken trees as leaves and fall down slowly just as a leaf would no matter what it is.
 * Possibly justified by the fact that the furniture is from a tanuki, a Japanese mythological creature that can create illusions with leaves and, in some variations, magically transform the leaves into real objects. In other words, a tanuki did it.
 * In Siege of Avalon, even treasure chests have grid inventory. To take this even further, the main reason for taking any two of your friends with you was for their inventory grid space.
 * Titan Quest also sport a grid inventory, plus extra grids in the form three magic bags. The expansion add a sort button and has a much smarter inventory auto-management.
 * Silent Storm has a grid inventory, but due to the shapes of some items it is very prone to Inventory Management Puzzle syndrome despite its auto-sort feature. And to survive properly you pretty much have to loot every battle map before leaving for home, making things even more difficult. And yeah, weight is meaningless.
 * The main gameplay mechanic in Kingdom Hearts 358 Days Over 2 everything, including weapons, spells, skills, items, accessories, backpacks (the amount of mission-found items you can carry) and even levels take the form of panels, which you need to place into an ever-expanding grid to make use of them. There's also multiplier panels that multiply the effect of all panels of given type by up to 4 and a lot of skills can be enhanced a variety of ways in the same manner. The varied shapes and sizes of panels creates a far more literal form of Inventory Management Puzzle than most games.
 * Fate, a Diablolike, featured this in all its irritating glory. There was nothing more fun than warping home with an inventory "full" of six double-bladed axes, and about 33% of your grid actually empty.
 * EVE Online has a grid system. A display option is for inventory items to show icons in a grid pattern of the same size. However, Each item has an m^3 associated with it. So your ship can only hold so much.
 * The Car Wars like boardgame Battlecars used this. Each car had several weapon bays, usually 2x4 squares. You could carry 8 volleys of machinegun ammo (1x1), four 1x2 artillery shells, or two 1x4 missiles, of increasing power, mixing and matching as you wish.
 * Minecraft has a grid system for your character's inventory. 40 slots, including 4 for crafting and 9 available for use/hotkeyed. One slot can hold up to 64, 16, or one of an item, depending on the type. You can also build chests, which have 27 slots or 54 for the big chests. While there are no objects larger than one slot, one often has to rearrange inventory just to put what you need in the use row, to be able to find things in it, or to combine multiple stacks into one 64-stack to free up slots.
 * Legend of Mana: The Logic Blocks that go up into making your Robot Buddy are arranged on a grid, with more powerful Blocks taking up more space. Where they are arranged also affects the behavior of said robot.
 * Dead Space and Dead Space 2 have a simple system of inventory with most things taking up on square but ammo and stasis refills stack. Weapons have their only separate section, as do plot items. Getting better suits increases you storage space.
 * Though in Dead Space 2 weapons go int the same inventory as the rest of the items, and only take up one space like everything else.
 * World of Warcraft. You start off with a 4x4 backpack. You also have 4 slots for bags, which each add anywhere from 4 to 22 additional inventory spaces. There are also specialized bags which can hold even more items (up to 32), but only of certain type. (These originally included quivers and soul shard pouches, at least before Blizzard phased out the systems of "Ranged Weapons Use Ammo" and "Soul Shards Take Up Inventory Space". Now the only specialized bags are for crafting supplies.) Items stack depending on type; some as few as 5, others over 200, and weapons and armor do not stack. There was also a separate inventory section for keys that grew as you found more of them, but this is also about to be phased out.
 * Solatorobo allows the Dahak to be upgraded with modules slotted into a grid, but the entire grid isn't available at first. Finding Power Crystals to unlock new slots is one of the main reasons to search areas thoroughly! The modules come in all shapes and sizes, including some of the classic Tetris blocks. Once you get the Mk 2, the total unlockable space increases as well, allowing for further enhancement.
 * Kid Icarus: Uprising uses this for equippable powers.
 * RuneScape has an inventory of 28 spaces, no more, no less. However, some small things like coins or feather stack (meaning you can have a large amount of them only taking up one inventory space), but other small things you think would stack (herbs and other items), don't.
 * Freedroid RPG has a grid, with the bottom row doubling as hotkey slots.
 * UFO Alien Invasion is one of the few that have grid inventory, but items can be turned (e.g. a typical magazine can be fit in 1x2 or 2x1 space) and not all are rectangular (while most weapons are 2 squares wide, bullpup rifles have 1 square wide muzzle side, laser rifle and plasma blaster have thick barrels, but 1 wide stock side, LMG and needlers have both).