Inventory
| Inventory | |
|---|---|
| Type | Mechanic |
The Inventory is the farmer's backpack, and for the first few seasons it is the tightest constraint on the whole game. It starts as a single row of twelve slots, which is also the hotbar, and two paid upgrades at Pierre's General Store take it to three rows and thirty-six slots. Only the top row is reachable while walking around, so the lower rows are storage that travels rather than tools at hand. The same screen that shows the backpack also shows the farm's funds, the total ever earned, the equipment slots, a trash can and an auto-sort button, which is why it doubles as the game's main menu. Expanding it early is one of the best uses of the first two thousand gold a farm makes.
Overview
The hotbar is the row along the bottom of the screen during play. Items in it are chosen with the number keys or the scroll wheel, and those keys can be reassigned in the options if the default layout does not suit. Pressing the tab key rotates the other rows up into the hotbar position, which is the quickest way to reach a tool stored below without opening a menu at all.
The full backpack lives in the leftmost tab of the game menu, opened with the escape or inventory key. The hotbar appears as the top row there with any upgraded rows underneath. Inside the menu items can be dragged between slots, and stacks can be split or merged: the action button lifts a single item out of a stack and holding shift with it splits the stack in half. Holding shift and clicking an item in the lower rows throws it straight up into the hotbar, which is the fastest way to prepare for a trip. In a single-player save, opening this menu stops the clock, so sorting out a pack costs no time at all.
The two upgrades are on the shelf at Pierre's General Store from the very first day. The red Large Pack takes the backpack to twenty-four slots for two thousand gold, and the blue Deluxe Pack takes it to thirty-six for ten thousand. Once both are bought the sale sign on the shelf disappears. The extra rows do not add quick-access slots, only carrying capacity, so a full pack still has to be shuffled through the menu before a mining trip. Even so, the first upgrade changes the early game completely, since a twelve-slot pack is full after one morning of foraging and a few tools.
Some activities open the whole backpack rather than the hotbar. Standing at an open chest, talking to a shopkeeper, donating to the Museum or filling a Community Center bundle all give access to every slot at once. The controls shift in those screens, and anything that cannot be sold or donated greys out, which is a useful filter in itself. Shopkeepers also buy within their own trade only, so Pierre takes produce and Willy takes fish, and an item greyed out in one shop may sell perfectly well in another. The risk is that a click in a shop screen sells the item under the cursor, so rearranging a pack in front of a shopkeeper is a good way to lose something valuable.
The rest of the screen is the farmer's record. The portrait carries their name, and hovering over it shows the current level and the title that goes with it. Beside that sit the farm's name, the gold on hand and the total earned since the save began, which is the figure several achievements are measured against. The equipment slots for rings, boots and hat are on the same panel, so swapping boots before heading into the Volcano Dungeon happens here. A golden scroll appears once the Community Center is open and jumps straight to the bundle list.
Two buttons do the tidying. The auto-sort button arranges everything into the game's own item order while leaving tools where they are, which keeps a familiar hotbar intact. The trash can destroys whatever is dragged onto it, permanently, although most tools refuse to go in, which saves a great many accidental losses.
Notes
Items can also be dropped out of the world rather than binned. Dragging something out of the menu and releasing it over the ground leaves it lying there to be picked up again, but doing that near water can lose it for good, so the trash can is the safer option for genuine rubbish.
The same menu holds far more than the backpack. Its other tabs cover skills, friendship with the villagers and the animals, the map, the collections, the settings and the wallet of special items, which is where the Skull Key, the Club Card, the Rusty Key, the Dwarvish Translation Guide, the Magnifying Glass, the Dark Talisman, the Magic Ink, the Special Charm, the Key To The Town, Spring Onion Mastery and Bear's Knowledge are kept once earned.
All Mechanics
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
