History Main / InventoryManagementPuzzle

** The punchline to the whole mess is the fetch modus used by John's dad -- the Wallet Modus, which makes your entire inventory convenient and available at all times.

See also GridInventory and LimitedLoadout.

* The inventory in ''VideoGame/CabalOnline'' uses a GriInventory system and certain items take up more space than a potion. Melee weapons and armor takes up the largest space while the other armor parts take up at least 4 grid spaces, requiring some creativity on how to store the items in the inventory and warehouse alongside all the potions and other important items.

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' places a limit on the number of melee weapons and bows you can carry that can be increased by collecting hidden Korok Seeds from around the world and trading them in with Hestu. Like with ''Skyward Sword'', though, any armor and {{Plot Coupon}}s you come across are firmly exempt from this trope. ItemCrafting ingredients and food are also limited, but the cap on them is so large that it's rarely an issue.

** ''VideoGame/{{SaGa 2}}'' is a little better. Your common inventory has 16 slots, and you can prevent mutants from learning four skills to have room for more items. Mutants arguably fit this trope in and of themselves; how many slots do you allocate each towards skills, armor, weapons, and spellbooks?

** ''VideoGame/{{Makai Toshi SaGa}}'' has this in spades. Your characters have their own inventories of eight slots ('''including equipment'''), as well as a common party inventory of only eight slots. Only humans can use all eight slots of their inventory; mutants already have four reserved for innate abilities, leaving the other four for items. Monsters can't hold items at all.

* If you want to farm for items in ''VideoGame/MakaiKingdom'', be prepared to create a ton of level 1 generics to use as mules.

** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance'': Like ''Blazing Blade'', any excessive items will be dropped and vanished until you are given a base, which is only available until Chapter 8. And since this game uses the Mystery of the Emblem inventory (where each unit have 4 items for weapons and items), it is likely that one of those will get filled up. Its sequel is unlikely to face this problem due to unit having 8 items in their inventory.

* Annoyingly used in ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'', where each character can only carry 5 objects, and dropping 1 makes it vanish FOREVER!. However, you can leave items with merchants. The majority of the time items can be sent to the convoy on receiving them if the character doesn't have enough room to hold them, and items only get drop-lost when the character is manually directed to drop them... the uses for which are vanishingly small. ''Path of Radiance'' lets you have 4 items and 4 weapons, whereas ''Radiant Dawn'' has a full 7 slots that you can use stuff with. ''Genealogy of the Holy War'' and ''Thracia 776'' had the same system as ''Radiant Dawn'', whereas ''Mystery of the Emblem'' has the same system as ''Path of Radiance''.

* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'': While 4 armor slots, 27 storage slots, and 9 hotkey slots combined with stacking up to 64 items per slot sounds generous, the constant consumption of resources (limited item durability, a hunger bar, etc.) during play means that the player must manage their inventory carefully or risk being stranded far from their home base in the middle of a dark, mob-filled cave or pit without a pickaxe, torches, and/or food. Have fun trying to beat off a horde of creepers and zombies with your bare hands or a block of dirt.

* ''Videogame/DoomTheRoguelike'' leaves Doomguy with 21 slots, and only ammunition stacks (and even this has a cap per slot). Soon enough, Doomguy has to consider whether to bring along more spare ammunition, medpacks or whatever else, and items left on a level are lost upon leaving. Inventory management is outright critical in Angel of Light Travel challenge, which reduces inventory size to five slots, and taken UpToEleven in the Archangel of Light Travel with only ''two slots''.

* ''Videogame/MightAndMagic'' ''VI - VIII'' suffered from this to some degree. In each game each person has a separate GridInventory which gets filled quickly during dungeon raids, especially if enemies in question drops frequently armor, especially in ''VI'' had [[MarathonLevel bigger dungeons]]. It ''did'' have way to counteract it ... with an endgame spell which would turn item to gold with a permanent loss to value (and corresponding magic school had to be mastered, which was not an easy task). ''VIII'' had it worst though, since there are frequent quests requiring drops from enemies which would fill your inventory blindingly fast. Another matter were the quest items which you had to take, and one of them was a sarcophagus that took half of inventory of your party member, meaning you had to give all long weapons to someone else or ditch them.

** Disgaea also divides your loot into stuff in your "Item Warehouse", which is very big, and your "Item Bag", which is smaller. Your bag is what you take into battle, so you need to use that space for things you will actually require in battle, like power-ups. The warehouse if more for long term storage and inventory overflow.

Remember, TropesAreNotBad.

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[[caption-width-right:321:Frig. Maybe if I put the knives beneath the wand, and move that potion up...]]

* Many free-to-play {{MMORPG}}s contain some form of severe inventory space limiting that, due to mechanics that often encourage item hoarding (such as for crafting/quests), players will usually feel pretty harshly by end-game, but more often than not it's just another ploy to tempt players into buying extra inventory space with [[{{Microtransactions}} real-life money]].

* Used in ''VideoGame/{{Grandia}}'', each character has a specific, though generously sized inventory, and there's a large bag. And [[EverythingFades everything]] ''[[AvertedTrope doesn't]]'' [[EverythingFades fade]].

* This is used as a type of puzzle in the Superior Software puzzle game ''Ravenskull''. You can carry a maximum of three items, no matter what types: you can carry three scythes, but you can't carry four cupcakes. In general, you can retrieve dropped objects, but some areas require deciding what you need most and abandoning the rest for ever.

** ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', sharing the [=GameBryo=] engine with ''Morrowind'' and ''Fallout 3'', continues the trend and adds ItemCrafting, which uses borderline VendorTrash to create ammo and consumables ("How many duct tapes did I need to make the weapon repair kit?") The optional "Hardcore" mode adds, among other things, weight to your ammunition, with values from 0 ([=BBs=]) to 5 (mini nukes). Fortunately, you can still use your party members as pack mules.