I'm thinking of an idea for a survival game, mostly because the last actual good TRUE survival game I played was Lost in Blue. I like the idea of being stranded on an island. There aren't many available that I can find, the popular games being Rust, DayZ, and The Forest. But these games aren't true survival "stranded" type games.

The way my game will differ is in the inventory system and that everything on the island can be used. You can take a handful of sand and put it in a jar if you wanted to. Trash that washes up on shore can be stored in a pile to attract insects, which in turn can be used for bait when you fish. Leaves, branches, bark, and even roots from trees will all be useful. If you built a pickaxe, you could mine rocks and then smash them up into pebbles to use as ammo for a slingshot.

Inventory will be based solely on the fact that when you are on an island, you can't carry 99 logs in your pocket. When you pick up a stick, you hold it in your hands. When you have 5 sticks, you carry them as a bundle. If you want a big log, you have to heave it on your shoulder and carry it to your destination. You'll be able to craft pouches, belts, and quivers to hold sticks or arrows. To carry more than one log, you can craft a sled type thing that you drag. This will dramatically increase the difficulty of the game and give you a sense of what being stranded would really be like.

As far as the story, I haven't thought of one yet. The only thing I've thought about is creating a magical/voodoo element further in the game. For example: when youre able to travel further into the island, you may come across a cave with glowing lights inside and writing scribbled on the walls. I want to incorporate something like that into the game, but I'm not sure how quite yet.

So my question for anyone reading is, what are your opinions on the inventory system? I know hauling items back and forth to your shelter would be repetitive, but thats what you have to do to survive. What could I do with the story? There could be alternate endings, not unlike Lost in Blue, where you escape the island, get killed, or choose to live there for the rest of your days.

If you are going to have that level of complex interactions for objects ... fabrication, secondary interactions (like the bugs attracted to garbage) then you also want to bolster your 'containering'/grouping of objects (a bundle is ties with something -- though as many as you can get a hand around is a temporary (while held) 'bundle'.)

Lots of crap to move (more than you can lift)?? -- you make a sledge with optional container on that sledge to drag stuff a distance

You lift objects into your treehouse using rope (more tieing) -- conveyance of the objects as a new complexity.

Multitudes of new 'actions' with objects - probably you want alot of generalization to apply to the many object types and thence attributes that those actions need defined (both for type of operations, but then also physical specifics)

example -- 'in a pinch' you could throw just about anything (preferebly dense but heavy enough to do damage) at an enemy (our early ancestors got very good at throwing rocks apparently...) You might even have the capability to have something fall over (or drop) on them....

Things come apart into component sub-parts and many fabrication operations are combining items together (and being formed)

You will probably want a recipe/formula mechanism for these breakdown/fabrication/transformation actions/processes (use as much generalization as you can, but still there can be too many different options that you will have to limit it somewhere).

You might be able to tell Ive though about this issue a bunch, as Ive been considering MMORPGs with more object detail -- which leads to magnitudes more game mechanic complexity (and player learning required - though having things react more as expected helps a little).

One aspect is if objects have this added detail complexity - wont your terrain/scenery have to be treated similarly (to some extent anyway)