Item Vault Lite vs the full edition: what the free version includes

Item Vault ships as two editions from one codebase. Lite is free. The full edition is paid. Both install to addons/item_vault/, use the same item model, and write the same JSON save format, so moving between them is an install over the top rather than a migration.

The split falls at the modules that need their own authoring surface. Lite stops at the inventory core: skills you can use from a scene and a resource file. Crafting recipes, price policies, 3D world objects, and spawner variants stay in the full edition.

What the free edition includes

• Item definitions, stacks, and the item database: one stable identity per item
• Containers with stacking, overflow, weight caps, and filters
• Currency wallet
• Atomic transactions that can roll back
• The backend command stack, including the optional Rust reference backend
• Drop tables
• The 2D pickup route: Pickup2D, PickupsCollector2D, and routing through ItemVaultRuntime
• JSON save and load with a versioned schema

That is a working inventory for a 2D game. It is not a demo of one: the same command stack, event bus, and save path that the full edition uses.

What the full edition adds

• 3D pickups
• Scene spawners: point, shape-edge, launch-force, and move-on-spawn
• Shop pricing with buyback and same-visit refunds
• Crafting: recipes, multi-stage crafting, and crafting save data
• The nine editable demo scenes and the written guides

The one seam worth knowing: drop tables without a spawner

Lite keeps drop tables but not the spawner implementations. RandomDrops takes any Node that exposes spawn(scene), so your own node satisfies it:

# Anything with spawn(scene) works; this is the whole contract.
func spawn(scene: PackedScene) -> Node:
	var node := scene.instantiate()
	add_child(node)
	return node

If you would rather author the level by hand, place a Pickup2D in the scene and give it a PickupContents resource. No spawner is involved in that path.

The full edition ships SceneSpawner2D and the variants, so drop tables and runtime spawning are one call. That is the difference between the editions in practice: not whether loot rolls, but whether the plugin also places the object.

When Lite is enough

Lite is enough when the game is 2D and items move between the world and the inventory through pickups and drops. A farming, crafting-lite, or survival prototype fits: define items, stack them, save them, and route pickups into a bag.

Lite is not enough when you need any of these:

• A 3D world. The 3D pickup route is full-edition only.
• Recipes. Crafting is a full-edition module, including its save data.
• Price rules. Shop pricing, buyback, and refunds are full-edition only.
• Runtime spawning. Drop tables work in Lite, but the spawners do not.

Upgrading from Lite to the full edition

Buy the full edition and install it over addons/item_vault/. The folder, the class_names, and the save schema are the same, so nothing in your project changes and existing saves load. Do not keep both installed at once: they are one plugin at two feature levels.

Where the free edition lives

Download Item Vault Lite 1.2.0 (102 KB, addons/item_vault/ only, Godot 4.5+): item_vault_lite-1.2.0.zip. The checksum is in SHA256SUMS.

The same package is submitted to the Godot Asset Store, which is free-only, so the paid edition stays on itch.io.

Licence

Both editions ship the same licence: use in commercial and non-commercial games, modify it for your project, and ship it inside an exported game. Redistributing the source as a standalone package is not permitted.