Best practices for creating an inventory system
Godot 4.5.1
Hello everyone, I’m new to Godot. My team and I are making an overlay desktop idle game. (here’s sceenshot of our prototype below). We made minimal prototype, and now I want to improve the inventory system.
Inventory system
The inventory system is currently made with a GridContainer node. It has pretty uncomplicated script I made with a guide:
extends Panel
@onready var icon: TextureRect = $Icon
@export var item: ItemData
func _ready() -> void:
update_ui()
func update_ui() -> void:
if not item:
icon.texture = null
tooltip_text = ""
return
icon.texture = item.icon
tooltip_text = item.item_name
func _get_drag_data(_at_position: Vector2) -> Variant:
if not item:
return
var preview = duplicate()
var c = Control.new()
c.add_child(preview)
preview.position -= Vector2(25, 25)
preview.self_modulate = Color.TRANSPARENT
c.modulate = Color(c.modulate, 0.5)
set_drag_preview(c)
icon.hide()
return self
func _can_drop_data(_at_position: Vector2, _data: Variant) -> bool:
return true
func _drop_data(_at_position: Vector2, data: Variant) -> void:
var tmp = item
item = data.item
data.item = tmp
icon.show()
data.icon.show()
update_ui()
data.update_ui()
func _notification(what: int) -> void:
if what == NOTIFICATION_DRAG_END:
icon.show()
Placing script
I also made a script for placing items in the inventory, and copied it to all the placeable items:
extends Control
@onready var pod_sprites: AnimatedSprite2D = get_node_or_null("../PodSprites")
@onready var timer: Timer = $"../PodTimer/Timer"
@onready var label: Label = $"../PodTimer/Label"
@export var accepted_type: String
const INVENTORY_SLOTS_GROUP := "inventory_slots"
var _inventory_state: bool
func _process(_delta: float) -> void:
if not timer.is_stopped():
var progress := 1.0 - (timer.time_left / timer.wait_time)
if progress >= 0.66:
pod_sprites.play("grow_position_big")
elif progress >= 0.33:
pod_sprites.play("grow_position_medium")
else:
pod_sprites.play("grow_position_small")
func _can_drop_data(_at_position: Vector2, data: Variant) -> bool:
if not timer.is_stopped() or pod_sprites.animation != "grow_position_seed":
return false
else:
return data and data.item and data.item.item_type == accepted_type
func _drop_data(_at_position: Vector2, data: Variant) -> void:
data.item = null
data.update_ui()
label.show()
timer.start()
func _on_timer_timeout() -> void:
label.hide()
timer.stop()
_inventory_state = true
func _get_inventory_slots_root() -> Node:
var slots_root := get_tree().get_first_node_in_group(INVENTORY_SLOTS_GROUP)
if slots_root == null:
push_warning("Inventory slots root not found. Add GridContainer to group '%s'." % INVENTORY_SLOTS_GROUP)
return slots_root
func add_item_to_inventory(item: ItemData) -> bool:
var slots_root := _get_inventory_slots_root()
if slots_root == null:
return false
for slot in slots_root.get_children():
if slot.item == null:
slot.item = item
slot.update_ui()
return true
return false
func _on_gui_input(event: InputEvent) -> void:
if event is InputEventMouseButton and event.pressed and event.button_index == MOUSE_BUTTON_LEFT and _inventory_state == true:
add_item_to_inventory(preload("res://resources/plant.tres"))
pod_sprites.play("grow_position_seed")
_inventory_state = false
After all that, it looked like this. But as I understand, it’s a bad solution to store data in Godot UI nodes (if it’s possible at all). I really don’t know how to store data in Godot. I thought about using JSON or resources, but here’s the problem: I don’t know how to store data in Godot correctly.
As I understand, my code is not good right now, and I’m looking forward to making it better. So:
- What are the best practices in making inventory?
- How to make a good inventory management system? (If you have any cool articles, please share them with me)
- How do you make inventories in your games? What functions and classes do you use? How you make your code?
- Is it worth using Godot plugins for working with inventory?
