Inventory and item systems are essential for:

• RPGs
• Action RPGs
• Survival games
• Roguelikes
• Adventure/Metroidvania
• Open-world games
• SLG/Strategy games
• Loot-based games

Lua is perfect for building these systems:

• Data-driven items (Lua tables)
• Hot-reloadable item definitions
• Easy extensions (rarities, tags, effects)
• Modular inventory logic
• Crafting formulas as tables
• Shops using item IDs
• Persistent save/load

This chapter builds a complete, modern item ecosystem.

1. Item Definitions (Data-Driven)

All items are defined as Lua tables.
This is how most professional games implement content pipelines.