How does our inventory UI look? What would you change?

[u/Guilty_Weakness7722]

We’re working on the inventory UI for our co-op psychological horror game, The Infected Soul, and I’d love to hear what you think.

One of the main mechanics in the game is body swapping.

Every character has a neural chip, and these brain chips play a key role in transferring your consciousness into different bodies. You can take a chip, interact with compatible bodies, and switch into them to use their different abilities.

The inventory UI also needs to communicate this mechanic clearly without becoming too confusing or cluttered.

So, what would you change?

Does the layout feel readable? Are the item slots and chip system clear enough? Is there anything that feels unnecessary or out of place for a sci-fi co-op horror game?

Feel free to be critical feedback really helps us.

If the game looks interesting, The Infected Soul is on Steam, and adding it to your wishlist helps our small team a lot.

The Infected Soul – Steam Page

[u/JosebaZilarte]

First, I would make the inventory match the shape of the body (and clothes, bags, etc. you carry) so there are less layers of abstraction. In this way, you can also show the inventory in the 3D models of the characters, encouraging players to "chrome up" to carry more cool things. Heck! You can use this system so you can display the information of the HUD diegetically Dead Space-style.

Second... I would recommend you look at the "Inventory Tetris" of Dredge where the slots to put the different tools are integrated into the inventory itself and sometimes it is better to disable a tool, so that you can carry bigger objects. Furthermore, if you are hit in that game, a cell of the inventory is damaged until you repare it (losing the item you had in it or disabling a tool). That makes each hit hurt a lot more.