View Full Version : Anyone ever write their own game?
Lately I've been entertaining myself with the notion of writing my own game (for Linux/open source community, and for fun). I have a good knowledge and experience programming in C, C++ & Qt, Java & AWT/Swing, Python & Tinker, etc so I think I have a good base to start myself off with. The game I have in mind is a classic 2D RPG, SNES style. I think it is pretty simple in terms of graphics, and is a good starting point for someone like me. I was hoping that I could get some tips (I know there are better places to ask this question, but I'm too lazy to sign up to other forums).
So to start off with some general questions:
- Has anyone here ever programmed their own game, and if so what was it?
- Did you write it solo or work with others?
- What language(s) and GUI(s) did you use?
(Most importantly)
- What tips can you give to someone writing their first game? What problems did you face when you first started writing your game?
Thanks for any input :D
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EDIT: June 14th. My project is finally getting off the ground now and I thought it would be useful to include a feature list.
Game Features
The main features of the game below help us meet the following goals: removing all the tedious or useless aspects of everyday RPGs, increasing the amount of strategy and activeness a player takes in battles, and enhancing the storyline.
Removing Tedious and Useless Aspects of RPGs
- Discovering hidden items: No more walking around towns or dungeons pounding buttons. Hidden items periodically glimmer and if a player stands next to a hidden item, a '?' will pop above his or her character's head, indicating something special is nearby.
- New Dialogue Indicator: Tired of constantly querying NPCs to see if they have new information? So are we. Whenever a character has new information to share, a '!' pops up above their head.
Increasing Battle Strategy and Activeness
- Multiple Attack Point System (MAPS): An innovative new battle system that allows both allies and enemies to choose several different positions on their foe to attack. Each attack point has different weaknesses and resistances to different types of attacks.
- Battle wear: attacking specific weaknesses in the enemy's or hero's defenses could temporarily reduce a stastic. For example, using a melee attack on a foe's legs could reduce its speed, increasing its time between successive attacks and lowering its evasion rate.
- Standard ATB with a twist: More powerful attacks require more recharge time before the character is ready to act again. During spell casting, characters become more vulnerable to enemy attacks.
- Worthy foes still appear at higher experience levels: As the party gains more experience, the probability of stronger enemies of all types increases respectively. When you leave one dungeon and return 20 levels later, don't expect it to be a walk in the park.
- Character swapping: During battle, characters may be actively swapped out, adding an important strategy element to each battle. Be cautious though, characters with less than a quarter of their HP remaining don't have the stength to leave the battle field.
Enhancing the Storyline
- Character Emotiocons: Suppose a character just discovered his long-missing loved one is alive and healthy. Instead of having the sprite remain standing there emotionless, a little icon of the characters face pops up showing an appropriate facial expression to the player.
- High-quality graphical inserts: 2D sprites, yeah we know its nothing fancy to look at. But for those who love eye-candy (and who doesn't), full-screen images are inserted into the game at important places or events, which greatly help describe the scene and atmosphere to the player.
- Narrative dialogue: Narrative text is sparingly used to help provide detailed information so that the player can understand how their characters are feeling, what sights they are beholding, and so the player may feel more deeply involved with the story.
Other features
- Modular development: Taking on a project of this magnitude is no simple matter and it will take years before the game is finished. However, we don't plan on keeping our potential gamers waiting that long. Modules of the game are continuously developed and released to our players, who can then attach it to their game and continue further into the game.
Weirdanzeige
2004-03-15, 03:24
I heard M.U.G.E.N is a really good program, but I heard the linux version is more superior. What is M.U.G.E.N? Well..its more like...a more modern day fighter maker, a lot better too
(Most importantly)
- What tips can you give to someone writing their first game? What problems did you face when you first started writing your game?
Thanks for any input :D
I'd suggest that you plan out most of the stuff in advance instead of trying to write code out at the very start. It will save a lot of headaches later when you realize you had just written useless code. A good idea would be to look into what platform you'd be writing on top of. I would suggest something like SDL if you want to make 2D RPG games. Sort of plan out how your engine would work. Would it be event based? Don't worry about the snazzy details and try to get a basic engine working. You can always add frills later.
Iori Branford
2004-03-15, 06:28
Though I have been playing with SDL quite a lot (www.libsdl.org), all I have to my name at the moment is two versions of Tic Tac Toe, one in C++ and one in HC11 ASM. However, project ideas of mine include:
Full Metal Panic action game -- a clone of Crusader: No Remorse, but with the controls simplified to something resembling Crimsonland or Abuse
Scrapped Princess RPG -- set a few years after the TV series, with new characters (including a new protagonist) and old, on an updated Betrayal at Krondor engine
Azumanga Daioh beat-em-up -- 1-6 player fighting adventure, like the Dungeons and Dragons arcade game, with support for internet and LAN play
Love Hina beat-em-up -- like Azumanga, but with the Streets of Rage 2 engine and soundtrack
Though I have been playing with SDL quite a lot (www.libsdl.org), all I have to my name at the moment is two versions of Tic Tac Toe, one in C++ and one in HC11 ASM. However, project ideas of mine include:
Full Metal Panic action game -- a clone of Crusader: No Remorse, but with the controls simplified to something resembling Crimsonland or Abuse
Scrapped Princess RPG -- set a few years after the TV series, with new characters (including a new protagonist) and old, on an updated Betrayal at Krondor engine
Azumanga Daioh beat-em-up -- 1-6 player fighting adventure, like the Dungeons and Dragons arcade game, with support for internet and LAN play
Love Hina beat-em-up -- like Azumanga, but with the Streets of Rage 2 engine and soundtrack
Wow I like the FMP game idea. I loved Crusader :) But are you allowed to make games using characters from anime? I would imagine that if you were to release it to the public domain you'd get a lawsuit thrown in your face :uhoh:
Me, and my team are working on our first game called A Game About Death.
It's not done yet, but it will be in a few weeks.
Can't say much about the game, that'd spoil the fun. But all I say is that it'll rock. :D
ShadowX114
2004-03-15, 23:48
I heard M.U.G.E.N is a really good program, but I heard the linux version is more superior. What is M.U.G.E.N? Well..its more like...a more modern day fighter maker, a lot better too
Yes MUGEN is way too nice. I have it but I still didn't complete my game because I downloaded a Character Select screen where you can put more than 100 fighters. But its a really nice game cuz you can do: Capcom Vs SNK vs. Mortal Kombat Vs. Ninja Turtles Vs Dragon Ball Vs....
Babak after the game is done, post a thread about it so we can play it ^^
*casts Life 2 on thread*
Alright. Well its summer now and I actually have time to work on this idea of mine. I just finished writing a literary prologue to the game (~12 pages double spaced), incase you haven't read my thread in general chat (http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?t=15370). If anyone is interested in reading it you can find the HTML version here (http://expert.ics.purdue.edu/~olsent/prologue.htm)
But what I really wanted to do was get some feedback from you guys on some features I've thought of. I want my game to address all the annoying aspects that are in popular RPGs, like useless spells/abilities, tedious activities like searching for hidden items, etc. I'll list out some of my current ideas and if you guys could give me some feedback I'd appreciate it :) (reminder: this is going to be a 2D RPG similar to FFVI's style)
1) Multiple Attack Points
This is a somewhat new approach I want to take with my battle system. I came up with this idea to address the lack of common battle strategy in RPGs (ie, select attack command, enter. select attack command, enter. select attack command, enter). Basically, every enemy has multiple points which the player can select to attack (probably between 3-6 attack points on average). Each point has its own weakness and resistance to different types of attack. Additionally depending on where the foe is attacked, the attributes (strength, speed, etc) of that enemy are reduced temporarily. For example, if a foe has a physical attack weakness in its legs, a successful attack will cause a higher loss of HP and reduce the monster's speed (which in turn would reduce its attack evasion, charge time, and hit percentage accordingly). The heros in the party would likewise could be attacked in multiple places, which could be protected accordingly by their armor pieces (chest plate, helmet, guantlets, etc.) Personally I think this is a really good idea if it could be pulled off successfully.
2) Battle wear
I actually thought of this idea as I started to write this post. As I said above, both enemies and allies could have their status attributes reduced temporarily by being attacked in specific places. After the battle is over, they may still be weakened from the battle and it would take time walking in the field for them to recover. This way the effects of battle are still seen even after it is won, which is more realistic and makes the game more challeging/interesting don't you think?
3) Standard ATB with a twist
The attacks would be carried out by a standard ATB, a la FFIVI/VII. The differences/improvements would lay in the following:
- Selecting more powerful attacks causes the recharge time to be longer.
- Spell casting requires time for the caster to concentrate for a short time after the command has been inputed by the player. During this time, casters have no evasion rate and take heavier (double?) damage from enemy attacks.
- No 'wait' mode for selecting spells/items. I mean come on, the enemy isn't just going to sit around and wait for you to pick a spell or item from your purse. I want the battles in my game to not be taken lightly, and this helps achieve it.
4) Leveling up and stength of enemies.
One thing I never liked is that if you go back to the beginning area of a game, the monsters there are so weak they are like annoying bugs. As the characters level up and grow stronger, I think the probability of stronger enemies should increase. (actually, the probablity of encounters with weaker enemies should decrease because they are at least somewhat intelligent enough to know they would get their asses wooped). No single foe (except maybe bosses) have a set level of their attributes. If a character is walking through a field at level 5, the probablilty that he will meet a level 5 monster is the greatest. The chances he could meet a 100 level monster are small, but still there. (Thinking of using a standard Gaussian distribution curve for the level encounters).
This methology also makes one command pratical: the 'Flee' command. I mean honestly, I hardly ever use that command in RPGs. But if you are at level 20 and a level 60 monster appears (you'll know after he attacks and halves someone's HP), running away seems like a very good option. But defeating higher level monsters rewards with more XP and such, so the player is left at an important decision :)
Some of you may know that FFVIII introduced a similar idea, but the difference was that you *always* met monsters that matched your stength, which made it pretty insignificant when you gained experience levels. I hope my system will address that flaw.
5) Finding hidden items
Its so annoying walking around through a house and repeatedly pressing a button to search for things. I want to 'borrow' the system from FFIX in my game :) To those who aren't familiar with it, when you walk around and you are next to an item, a little "?" pops up above the character's head indicating to you that there is an item nearby.
Well that's all I have for now I think. Let me know what you guys think. Thank you!
(EDIT: Additions)
6) New Dialogue Indicators
How could I forget this one! It always annoyed me when after talking to an NPC, you didn't know if they had anything else to say or not so you talk to them again. Diablo 2 is the only game I know that addresses this by popping up a little exclamation mark above the heads of characters with important new information. I'd like to do the same thing with my NPCs. It would make the game less frustrating I believe :)
Sanjuronord
2004-06-13, 11:20
Wow, sounds good so far. Curious about how some of those aspects will work out but sounds refreshing at least. If you want to make searching for items even easier can do something like resident evil and just have objects sparkle or something if they can be interacted with. Your battle system and the multi-attack point system sounds particularly interesting.
Alas, not much experience programming games myself. Programmed a windows version of the board game "Clue" for a class project a few years back in C++. Didn't finish programming the computer opponents or the networking parts and it's just been sitting around unfinished for a long while. If you're planning on doing this game in C++ i'd recommend going w/ .Net over the old MFC stuff if you're planning on making a windows game out of this(it will save you loads of time and frustration).
Phew, I'm relieved to hear I'm not the only one that is impressed with it :D I like the item glimmer suggestion you gave Sanjuronord. I'll strongly consider putting it into the game :)
As for your suggestions on .Net and MFC, I'm making this game for Linux and last time I checked, Microsoft wasn't suppoting it ;) A windows version is always a possibility, but right now I have no plans for it. I figure if I make the game is good enough and becomes relatively popular, someone will come along willing to do the work to put together a windows version.
I'm planning to use the SDL libraries that were suggested to me earlier. In fact, I bought a book yesterday to help me get started on this project ("Programming Linux Games", which explains the basics of game programming along with a thorough explanation on SDL). Pretty sure I'll program in C++. Images will all be in PNG format and music will be encoded in OGG format (yay for open source). I'll probably use GIMP for image creation/editing and I found a program called FMOD for music that I"m still researching. You can tell I'm not going into this half ass :) I've been thinking of how the software will interact via UML diagrams, and things are a lot more complicated than they seemed at first :uhoh:
Oh, I also remembered another idea I've been saving this morning.
7) Character emotion icons
If you've ever played Survival Project International (its free), you'll know what I'm talking about. Because of the limitations of this game being 2D, it is really hard to convey character emotions to the player. Storyline, plot, and character development to me are all really important, because when I play an RPG I want to be told a tale, not just play a game. The basic idea is to have animated icons of the character's faces pop up where appropriate. I'd like to have these icons be anime-style because I think its an effective and interesting way to convey emotions (but the game itself isn't anime-style). So I'd have the sweatdrop for the "WTF?" moments, little anger veins pop out of the forehead when the character gets mad, etc.
EDIT: Jeez I can't believe I forgot about this feature!
8) Modular game development
Yeah, so since I'm doing this in my spare time and obviously the game won't be completed for at least 3 years or so, it'd be kinda disheartening to not release it till its done. What I plan to do is to release the game in modules at a time, so as sections of the game get completed they are released. For example, the first module I'll put out will encompass everything included in the prologue (http://expert.ics.purdue.edu/~olsent/prologue.htm) that I have already written. Then somewhat equally-sized modules will be built on to that, one after the other. As modules are released, a user can download it, extract it, and it will put the new pieces of the game (as well as patches for existing parts) into place and the user can continue. It will be fun leaving players at a cliffhanger and anxious for the next release :heh:
Sounds good, Roots, go for it! :D
Some opinions on 3):
What about giving melee fighters the opinion to guard for the mages who are about to cast a spell? And which attribute(s) will decide much times the spell cast consumes? What about adding something like a bond to a spell/spell class so that the time you need to cast decreases in proportion on how much times you've used it? (Like the summoning system in FFVIII)
Oh, and it's too bad that the game will be for Linux only :sad:
Edit: You might find these articles (http://diabloii.net/columnists/author-dimono.shtml) interesting.
Sounds good, Roots, go for it! :D
Some opinions on 3):
What about giving melee fighters the opinion to guard for the mages who are about to cast a spell? And which attribute(s) will decide much times the spell cast consumes? What about adding something like a bond to a spell/spell class so that the time you need to cast decreases in proportion on how much times you've used it? (Like the summoning system in FFVIII)
Oh, and it's too bad that the game will be for Linux only :sad:
Edit: You might find these articles (http://diabloii.net/columnists/author-dimono.shtml) interesting.
Wow, I like that idea a lot! To make sure that it is used though, I'll need to make sure the recharge time for guarding an ally is short. Excellent idea!
I also like your idea about casting time for frequently charged spells decreasing. I was going to have initial spell-casting time be composed of two factors: the wisdom/intelligence attribute of the character and the stength/power of the spell.
Linux will be my main development platform, but I'm sure I could find a spare windows programmer who is bored and willing to work for free :D Thanks for that link, it looks like a worth-while read. It really caught my eye when the guy mentioned he was working on a fantasy novel and started making games.
There's another idea about my game that I want to mention, although it's not really a 'feature'. To make the battle situations more unpredictable, I think I'd like to provide range attributes. For example, lets say a character has a strength of 42 and his weapon has an attack power of 20. If he always faces foes with a defense rating of 30, hitting the opponent for 32 damage everytime gets boring right? So I would like to use a range of values for stenght. Say, +/- 20% , so his stength range would be (42 + 30) + { -(42 * .2), (42 * .2) } or {54 , 70}. And then what if the enemy AI takes advantage of the character's weakness in his arm guards, attacks it, and reduces his strength stat temporarily to 36? The {54, 70} range won't change, but the probabilites of attack will. Instead of a guassian attack curve with mean 62, we now have a mean of 56 (62 - 6). This means the probability for a more powerful attack is reduced significantly.
Well I'm sure that all RPGs implement some kind of system like this to keep things interesting, but this is the initial algorithm I have in my mind. Just thought I'd share :) Tell me if you find any major or minor flaws within it
EDIT: More features!
9) Hand-drawn color graphic inserts
To compensate for the lack of modern graphics in the game, I thought of the following idea: recruit talented artists to transform my own concept art into professional-looking, full screen color graphics that will be inserted in appropriate places during the game. This gives the players some eye-candy without requiring an enormous amount of time consumed by rendering 3D graphics and such.
I figure not many people (especially those darn youngin's!) will be impressed after taking a look at something that resembles an FFVI clone with sprite images. I hope the graphical inserts will give them something to enjoy visually :D
Necropotence
2004-06-13, 16:25
Sounds like fun. I happen to be in a mod team for HL2 probably. Our leader is an idiot though, he can't make up his mind, and wants to do a modern combat mod. There's so many modern combat mods there isn't a point, so I thought we could do a magic war mod or something more original. (my other friend thought of a drug smuggling mod). Anyway, maybe I can help you this summer eh?
There's another idea about my game that I want to mention, although it's not really a 'feature'. To make the battle situations more unpredictable, I think I'd like to provide range attributes. For example, lets say a character has a strength of 42 and his weapon has an attack power of 20. If he always faces foes with a defense rating of 30, hitting the opponent for 32 damage everytime gets boring right? So I would like to use a range of values for stenght. Say, +/- 20% , so his stength range would be (42 + 30) + { -(42 * .2), (42 * .2) } or {54 , 70}. And then what if the enemy AI takes advantage of the character's weakness in his arm guards, attacks it, and reduces his strength stat temporarily to 36? The {54, 70} range won't change, but the probabilites of attack will. Instead of a guassian attack curve with mean 62, we now have a mean of 56 (62 - 6). This means the probability for a more powerful attack is reduced significantly.
Well since you seem serious and I can't help you except with some ideas:
Ever thought of letting the Str be and put the "range mod" on the items? That would bring more options because the player might consider prefering a 3-7 Axe over a 1-8 because of the min dmg. Also, you could let the weapon lose durability during battle (especially against monsters with a hard skin/shell) which decreases the damage even more?
Another interesting idea would be a day/night system which influences the effectivity of certain spells/skills or triggers special events.
Let the player decide where to distribute his stat points after a lvl up.
These are just some random ideas I could come up with and I don't even know if you can implement them at all :D
9) Hand-drawn color graphic inserts
To compensate for the lack of modern graphics in the game, I thought of the following idea: recruit talented artists to transform my own concept art into professional-looking, full screen color graphics that will be inserted in appropriate places during the game. This gives the players some eye-candy without requiring an enormous amount of time consumed by rendering 3D graphics and such.
I figure not many people (especially those darn youngin's!) will be impressed after taking a look at something that resembles an FFVI clone with sprite images. I hope the graphical inserts will give them something to enjoy visually :D
Nah, the visuals aren't that important anyway since it's the game play that makes the game fun and not only the visual. Would I be playing Diablo II if it wasn't the case? :)
Necropotence, you still play MTG? Do you know if the online version is any good?
Well since you seem serious and I can't help you except with some ideas:
Ever thought of letting the Str be and put the "range mod" on the items? That would bring more options because the player might consider prefering a 3-7 Axe over a 1-8 because of the min dmg. Also, you could let the weapon lose durability during battle (especially against monsters with a hard skin/shell) which decreases the damage even more?
Another interesting idea would be a day/night system which influences the effectivity of certain spells/skills or triggers special events.
Let the player decide where to distribute his stat points after a lvl up.
These are just some random ideas I could come up with and I don't even know if you can implement them at all :D
The range mod on the items is also a fair idea. I dunno though, personally I never really liked that in Diablo games and the like. If I do make them ranged, I would rather have it be implied and have the attack power of the weapon represent the mean. I don't like having too many numbers and having to think too hard when buying weapons/armor :)
Weapon durabilty isn't a bad idea, but I want weapons to be easily repaired and to not fall below a minimum attack power or breaking and being rendered useless. That's just a pain in the ass when that happens :)
Day/night system is another good idea that I like, but a little hard to implement. Have you ever played Dragon Warrior 3 for the NES? That implemented it REALLY well in my opinion. Its something I'll have to give more thought about before I can decide, because it definitely adds a fair share of work to do.
Personally, I hate being able to decide where stat points go after a level up. I don't like being able to turn a weak magic caster into an uber axe thrower after giving him/her 50 consecutive strength levels. That's just dumb. If anything, I'd let them choose a stat to add a couple bonus points to every so often. I don't want players to have too much control over how characters grow. (on a side note, I was going to also have level-ups be non-static and introduce a range of possible increases in specfic attributes).
Thanks for your ideas though! I appreciate it.
Biohazard
2004-06-14, 09:08
I think its important to decide what stat to up on level up... really. Why? Because i hate it if every character of every player has the same stats on one level .. i think thats sort of boring..and it is one thing i dislike in FFXI ..
How about to counter that with classes?
For example, a mage will always be the Class "Mage" , and the class "Mage" will get penality on close combat... so if players want they could pump strenght into him, but it would be quite stupid because he will always deal less damage than a close combatant....
Then i would like the idea of having different mages .. like in final fantasy.
So no healer mage that can do loads of damage too, rather Light Mage, Elemental Mage, Enhanching Mage, Darkness Mage and stuff like that... if you get what i mean :)
I think its important to decide what stat to up on level up... really. Why? Because i hate it if every character of every player has the same stats on one level .. i think thats sort of boring..and it is one thing i dislike in FFXI ..
How about to counter that with classes?
For example, a mage will always be the Class "Mage" , and the class "Mage" will get penality on close combat... so if players want they could pump strenght into him, but it would be quite stupid because he will always deal less damage than a close combatant....
Then i would like the idea of having different mages .. like in final fantasy.
So no healer mage that can do loads of damage too, rather Light Mage, Elemental Mage, Enhanching Mage, Darkness Mage and stuff like that... if you get what i mean :)
You could also make it that way the stat points have different effects on different classes. Example (from D2)
1 point in Vit=4 Life for the Barbarian (Melee), 2 Life for Sorceress/other spellcasters
1 point in Energy=1 Mana for the Barbarian, 2 Mana for Sorceress etc.
I think it is important to make the characters as unique as you can. One way would be to implement restrictions for the weapon a mage can use. Weapon needs 30 Str and Mage even got 50? Still he can't use it because he is not proficient with that weapon at all (let's say Axe) whereas a melee fighter should be allowed to use that weapon (even weapon masteries which raise dmg and attack rating can be considered). In return, the melee fighter is not allowed to wear staves which grant spells to the user etc. It is possible to do so - if you want, that is.
You could also make it that way the stat points have different effects on different classes. Example (from D2)
1 point in Vit=4 Life for the Barbarian (Melee), 2 Life for Sorceress/other spellcasters
1 point in Energy=1 Mana for the Barbarian, 2 Mana for Sorceress etc.
I think it is important to make the characters as unique as you can. One way would be to implement restrictions for the weapon a mage can use. Weapon needs 30 Str and Mage even got 50? Still he can't use it because he is not proficient with that weapon at all (let's say Axe) whereas a melee fighter should be allowed to use that weapon (even weapon masteries which raise dmg and attack rating can be considered). In return, the melee fighter is not allowed to wear staves which grant spells to the user etc. It is possible to do so - if you want, that is.
The D2 style could work well I think. I still don't like the idea of letting the player assign all the stat points him/herself though.
I have always had the intention for the characters to be unique, both in character and in battle. I was going to have characters be restricted in the weapon classes they are proficient in. A staff-wielding mage can't just pick up a heavy axe and start hacking things up. It takes months or years of practice to be able to use any weapon well, so I don't find it very realistic. In fact, I did a character design last night that I really like. She has a pretty unique weapon that only she can use, and I know I'm going to love her personality. :)
While I'm at it I'll post another feature idea that I've thought about, but I'm still a little iffy on this one. Feedback on this idea would be greatly appreciated.
10) Character swapping and XP sharing
Basically, I'm thinking of using a system similar to FFX where you can change characters in the midst of battle. I'm thinking of having a max of 4 characters available during the fight. Obviously, each character has their own weaknesses and stengths, and with the multiple attack point system you may find that you don't have the right character in your party to exploit a particular foe's weakness. Hence the swapping ability. I'm also thinking of not allowing characters that have dropped below..oh I don't know, 3/4s of their max HP being able to swap out, because then battles become way too easy since you can just swap out injured characters in a flash. (Also, their ATB gauge needs to be full before they can swap out,).
I think the system is a pretty good idea and it could work well with the other features in my game. I'm still pondering the XP split up though. One thing I didn't like about FFX is that characters only got XP if they actually did something in the battle. So a lot of times, you'd swap a character in, attack once, then swap them back out with a new character so that everyone in your party could get the XP. Another tedious point I'd like to irradicate in this RPG. I honestly don't have any solid ideas about the split up yet, but I do know in older games I was frequently annoyed/irritated when my characters were at a wide range of levels (my best guys around level 40 and my worst around level 25).
I just thought of one thing that could maybe be a starting point. If XP was divided evenly for the party (even those who didn't actively participate in battle), but specific skills could only be increased in battle (ie, sword skill, fire magic skill), that might work. What do you guys think?
EDIT: (Jeez, this is getting to be a pretty long list)
11) Narrative dialogue
After getting some feedback about the prologue (http://expert.ics.purdue.edu/~olsent/prologue.htm) I wrote, I discovered I'm not that bad of a writer :) Narrative dialogue will be sparingly used to help provide helpful information so that the player can understand how characters are feeling, what sights they are seeing, and feel more deeply involved with the story. Here's a sample excerpt that may be put in the introductory scene to the game to describe the scene better (sprites can only do so much):
"One particular young soldier covered the rear of the caravan. His breath was heavy and could be seen as he exhaled into the cool evening air. The cold touch of the heavy armor on his skin chilled to the bone. However, he barely noticed it for he, like the rest of his troop, was using all of his concentration just to keep himself upright walking through the sand."
Here's another example used to describe both a past history and character relations:
"The couple had a sweet daughter named Laiya, who was 9 months younger than Claudius. She was a very personable girl and always had a cheerful optimistic attitude that easily rubbed off on those around her. She had always had perfectly straight long brown hair that stretched down her back. Claudius had always gotten along with her well as a child and the two frequently spent their days playing together, going on imaginary adventures around the world (the world, of course, being the castle town of Harrvah).
What do you guys think of this one? Pretty different, I know. But I think it would be really helpful in conveying information that might sound weird if I forced a dialogue out of a character. Ex) "Hey XXX, have you ever seen your parents brutally murder each other?", "Why yes I have YYY, but right now we are trying to enjoy ourselves at this festival". Ok, so maybe that was the greatest example, but do you see what I mean? Storytelling! It's a very important part of the game to me :D
10) Character swapping and XP sharing
Basically, I'm thinking of using a system similar to FFX where you can change characters in the midst of battle. I'm thinking of having a max of 4 characters available during the fight. Obviously, each character has their own weaknesses and stengths, and with the multiple attack point system you may find that you don't have the right character in your party to exploit a particular foe's weakness. Hence the swapping ability. I'm also thinking of not allowing characters that have dropped below..oh I don't know, 3/4s of their max HP being able to swap out, because then battles become way too easy since you can just swap out injured characters in a flash. (Also, their ATB gauge needs to be full before they can swap out,).
I don't like the idea of swapping that much because it makes fights too easy; if I pick my party I'll have to live with the weaknesses they come with and I'll try my best to compensate that. Swapping parties would nullify that, i.e. having four powerful mages start casting their spells then swap them all for melee fighters who tank the damage the enemies are inflicting in the meanwhile.
I think the system is a pretty good idea and it could work well with the other features in my game. I'm still pondering the XP split up though. One thing I didn't like about FFX is that characters only got XP if they actually did something in the battle. So a lot of times, you'd swap a character in, attack once, then swap them back out with a new character so that everyone in your party could get the XP. Another tedious point I'd like to irradicate in this RPG. I honestly don't have any solid ideas about the split up yet, but I do know in older games I was frequently annoyed/irritated when my characters were at a wide range of levels (my best guys around level 40 and my worst around level 25).
I just thought of one thing that could maybe be a starting point. If XP was divided evenly for the party (even those who didn't actively participate in battle), but specific skills could only be increased in battle (ie, sword skill, fire magic skill), that might work. What do you guys think?
Divide the XP evenly for the party regardless if they did something because it would be too annoying to have a fast character (his ATB fills up more quickly than the other char's ATBs) get the one hit kill and consequently get even faster because he lvls up before the others.
Also, give the rest of the chars which didn't participate in the fight about 1/4 of the XP so that there is not that much of a gap between your favourite chars and chars you don't play that often but are necessary for importan quests.
Sanjuronord
2004-06-14, 12:54
In fact, I did a character design last night that I really like. She has a pretty unique weapon that only she can use, and I know I'm going to love her personality. :)
Can we see? :heh:
I think the system is a pretty good idea and it could work well with the other features in my game. I'm still pondering the XP split up though. One thing I didn't like about FFX is that characters only got XP if they actually did something in the battle. So a lot of times, you'd swap a character in, attack once, then swap them back out with a new character so that everyone in your party could get the XP. Another tedious point I'd like to irradicate in this RPG. I honestly don't have any solid ideas about the split up yet, but I do know in older games I was frequently annoyed/irritated when my characters were at a wide range of levels (my best guys around level 40 and my worst around level 25).
I just thought of one thing that could maybe be a starting point. If XP was divided evenly for the party (even those who didn't actively participate in battle), but specific skills could only be increased in battle (ie, sword skill, fire magic skill), that might work. What do you guys think?
If the game features a "main" character or maybe just an initial character(that you start as/with) you could have experience set up in such a way that everyone's experience is set in relation to that character. Say the main character's name is John and you store his experience in a variable:JohnExp. Than other characters experience could just be set up as say TerraExp:JonhExp-1500. So when you add experience from battles you would just need to add it to JohnExp(regardless of his role in the battle) and the others would keep themselves in a level relative to John. Kingdom Hearts used a setup like that where goofy was always 1 level ahead of Sora no matter if you used him or not.
Definetly like the idea of skills getting better with use as it does add a way for players to customize their character by focusing on the skills they like without all the nasty math that comes from playing with attributes at level up. Playing w/ the attribute scores usually was very broken in many games like diablo 2. There were so many players out there that analyzed how to optimally place points that a "misspent" point would make your character to look broken. (I had a friend in college that would restart characters if he misspent any points)
If the game features a "main" character or maybe just an initial character(that you start as/with) you could have experience set up in such a way that everyone's experience is set in relation to that character. Say the main character's name is John and you store his experience in a variable:JohnExp. Than other characters experience could just be set up as say TerraExp:JonhExp-1500. So when you add experience from battles you would just need to add it to JohnExp(regardless of his role in the battle) and the others would keep themselves in a level relative to John. Kingdom Hearts used a setup like that where goofy was always 1 level ahead of Sora no matter if you used him or not.
Please, if you use a main character don't make him/her annoying like Zidane from IX (stupid name anyway)
Playing w/ the attribute scores usually was very broken in many games like diablo 2. There were so many players out there that analyzed how to optimally place points that a "misspent" point would make your character to look broken. (I had a friend in college that would restart characters if he misspent any points)
You can circumvent broken characters by designing the game in the way that an uber-leet character is not needed to beat it. Just as easy at that.
And btw, you could beat D2 with lots of misspent points prior to 1.10, so what your friend did was trying to make an uber-char (most likely for dueling but not for the main game itself)
EDIT: Is it possible to implement various story lines which revolve on how your party placed it's decision? Like not helping the people or killing them instead opens the path for the Evil ending (not necessarily the bad ending)
I don't like the idea of swapping that much because it makes fights too easy; if I pick my party I'll have to live with the weaknesses they come with and I'll try my best to compensate that. Swapping parties would nullify that, i.e. having four powerful mages start casting their spells then swap them all for melee fighters who tank the damage the enemies are inflicting in the meanwhile.
I don't like the easy/cheapness of the swap system either, that's why I'm trying to change it so that doesn't happen. Not letting a character with low HP swap out is one approach, but I don't think it would be sufficient enough. I think the best thing would be to say, allow 1 swap at the beginning of each battle, then after a period of time (say 5 minutes?) Let another swap be allowed, up to a maximum of 4 swaps (which would take 15 minutes to accumulate). How does that idea sound to you?
Divide the XP evenly for the party regardless if they did something because it would be too annoying to have a fast character (his ATB fills up more quickly than the other char's ATBs) get the one hit kill and consequently get even faster because he lvls up before the others.
Also, give the rest of the chars which didn't participate in the fight about 1/4 of the XP so that there is not that much of a gap between your favourite chars and chars you don't play that often but are necessary for importan quests.
I'm not planning to have the character who gets the killing blow obtain more XP (like in FFVIII). Everyone will gain XP, unless they are passed out. 1/4 of the XP for characters who didn't fight in my opinion is too little. I think 3/4s is much better for stopping the wide range of XP levels in the party (I can just claim they get the 3/4s for observing the battle and learning :))
Can we see? :heh:
I haven't drawn any concept art for her yet, but I have a clear vision of her face and body in my head. I could give you a written description...but I don't want to spoil the game for you guys! I might work on getting a quick sketch of her today, but beware its been a long time since I've drawn :uhoh:
If the game features a "main" character or maybe just an initial character(that you start as/with) you could have experience set up in such a way that everyone's experience is set in relation to that character. Say the main character's name is John and you store his experience in a variable:JohnExp. Than other characters experience could just be set up as say TerraExp:JonhExp-1500. So when you add experience from battles you would just need to add it to JohnExp(regardless of his role in the battle) and the others would keep themselves in a level relative to John. Kingdom Hearts used a setup like that where goofy was always 1 level ahead of Sora no matter if you used him or not.
A reasonable idea, but I don't know. It just seems kind of....cheap to me. So if I have a passed out character that I never bother to revive, they'd still get XP and gain levels as long as the main character was still kicking? Seems too artificial to me. And I don't like the idea that char A will ALWAYS be 1,500 XP below char B, and char C will ALWAYS be 3,200 XP above char A. Thanks for the idea, it's definitely not a bad one, but personally I don't like it.
Thanks for your opinions you guys. You are really helping me feel comfortable about these ideas taking shapoe. :D
EDIT: (Woohoo we're on the 2nd page now! :heh: )
Please, if you use a main character don't make him/her annoying like Zidane from IX (stupid name anyway)
The main character is Claudius, as written in my prologue (http://expert.ics.purdue.edu/~olsent/prologue.htm). He acts really serious there because of the situations he's been thrown in, but I promise he will become more interesting as the story goes on. I will do my best not to make him annoying :)
Funny fact: When I first saw the FFIX trailer and read the names I thought Zidane was the name of Garnet, and I was like WOH she's so cute. Zidane is such a cool and lovely name for her too! When I found out 2 or 3 months later her name was Garnet I was like GARNET? Ewww, that sounds so...macho. Gross. :heh:
EDIT: Is it possible to implement various story lines which revolve on how your party placed it's decision? Like not helping the people or killing them instead opens the path for the Evil ending (not necessarily the bad ending)
I don't plan to have the storyline be completely linear, but it should would be a hell of a lot easier if I did :) I will definitely branch out, I'm just not sure how yet. But I do know that the beginning portion of the game (3-5 times longer than the length of the prologue) will definitely be linear.
I'll throw in a bunch of fun side quests though! Who can pass up an XP-gaining oppurtunity?
(Sorry for the double post)
The main character is Claudius, as written in my prologue (http://expert.ics.purdue.edu/~olsent/prologue.htm). He acts really serious there because of the situations he's been thrown in, but I promise he will become more interesting as the story goes on. I will do my best not to make him annoying :)
Good to hear that :D
Funny fact: When I first saw the FFIX trailer and read the names I thought Zidane was the name of Garnet, and I was like WOH she's so cute. Zidane is such a cool and lovely name for her too! When I found out 2 or 3 months later her name was Garnet I was like GARNET? Ewww, that sounds so...macho. Gross. :heh:
Well, Garnet is better than Dagger I guess. Also, I had to rename Zidane because the name always reminded me of the French soccer player which is annoying for a fantasy RPG
Even taking into account that I might be ridiculed for my ignorance regarding programming but is it possible to use the FF VI graphic engine for your game? :D That would save you time which you could in turn invest on designing the game play AND we could play it with an emulator, so porting the game is no problem. (I know, I know, I don't know anything about programming... :sad: )
Even taking into account that I might be ridiculed for my ignorance regarding programming but is it possible to use the FF VI graphic engine for your game? :D That would save you time which you could in turn invest on designing the game play AND we could play it with an emulator, so porting the game is no problem. (I know, I know, I don't know anything about programming... :sad: )
Haha, I was actually curious as to whether there existed tools out there to make your own SNES rom. I myself am not sure if such a thing is possible (and even if it was, I'd probably be violating several infringement policies). Even if it was, we'd then have to design the game with the limits of the SNES, which as well all know, is quite outdated. What if I ran out of virtual cartridge space but I was only half way done with the game? I'd be f*%$ed :heh:
I am using the....base (? hell, I don't know what to call it) of the FFVI system. That is, maps/dungeons are composed of several small square images and the characters are two squares wide and one square high. Programming this thing is going to be a bitch I think. I mean, there's no really difficult task that I've thought of yet, but there are so many little things that we'll have to get to work together. I'm definitely taking the earlier suggestion of planning everything out so I (hopefully) save myself some time and frustration. Well, if it wasn't a challenge then it wouldn't be much fun I guess :)
EDIT:
I forgot to mention something. Last night I went to another forum I'm a member of, which has an RPG Creators forum (but almost everyone there uses RPG Maker 2000 or whatever). I saw a post from a music composer that was looking for a job and after listening to this sample (http://www.robotattack.net/mdexter/wandering.mp3) he put together, I was impressed enough to tell me about my project. (BTW: That sample is not yet complete, but its still very well done, check it out). I just got a message back from him and he said after reading my prologue he's really (yes, he used italics) interested in contributing. Woot Woot! :D :D :D
EDIT2:
Ok. Today I'm trying to get a name for the game set because I want to go buy a domain name and get a little website setup. So I'm turning to you guys for advice. Ok, well the main theme of the game is Finding this legendary hero that will save the world. So I thought the following names sounded good and appropriate:
{Hero / Knight / Savior / Defender / Guardian / Preserver / Protector} of {Allacross}
Where Allacross is the name of the world (which I'm not set on yet. Does that sound like a good name for a world?) Obviously you know what type of word I'm looking for in the first { }, and the second { } is going to be the world name. I don't know, what do you guys think?
EDIT3:
Just went to my best thinking place (the crapper) and I came up with another title. What about "Hero of Ages"? Sound good?
Sanjuronord
2004-06-15, 08:15
And btw, you could beat D2 with lots of misspent points prior to 1.10, so what your friend did was trying to make an uber-char (most likely for dueling but not for the main game itself)
Oh he was, I beat d2 a couple times and put it on a shelf where it's sat to this day. He was only interested in making an uber character (dunno if he dueled or not). I just didn't like the idea that seemed to form around the game of the "one right way" to level a character.
Well, Garnet is better than Dagger I guess.
Lol, I don't think I've met anybody yet that let her rename herself to Dagger when they played that game. How lazy can you get to just look around and name yourself after a random object....
RPG maker tends to lead to a swarm of clone games where it's hard to distinguish yourself from the pack. Designing your own engine/game will definetly be harder but probably worth it in the long run.
Music sample sounds really nice and seems very reminiscient of FFVI which is always good. :)
Hero of Ages sounds pretty good (or if you want to go all out uber-cliche Hero of Legend ) :heh: Only criticism about the title I could think of is that anybody who just sees the title, and never bothers to read up on the game, is going to think single character because of the use of the singular hero and probably mistake the game for a hack and slash.
The game I was talking about earlier (A Game About Death) is finished.
But we decided to stop working on it after the beta and start working on a new re-make of it instead.
Here's the site (www.igd.dongrif.com), download the beta (well, it isn't really a beta, but it still is. Bah, lets just call it a test-version.) if you want to and if you feel like it, comment it and say what _you_ would want to see in the remake, A Game About Death - Redux.
The game I was talking about earlier (A Game About Death) is finished.
But we decided to stop working on it after the beta and start working on a new re-make of it instead.
Here's the site (www.igd.dongrif.com), download the beta (well, it isn't really a beta, but it still is. Bah, lets just call it a test-version.) if you want to and if you feel like it, comment it and say what _you_ would want to see in the remake, A Game About Death - Redux.
I downloaded it and I'm pretty impressed. The atmosphere (especially the music!) is done very well. I only played it through the beginning (because I kept dying :heh: ), but are there more enemies than just the zombies that keep coming? I really like the dash ability though, I think that's a cool idea. I watched your trailer too, which was also well done. Keep it up!
Thanks for the comments.
There are 2 stages (and a short, 3rd one), and only one type of enemy which is the zombies. Well, if you don't count with A***in the 3rd stage that is.
Thanks for the comments.
There are 2 stages (and a short, 3rd one), and only one type of enemy which is the zombies. Well, if you don't count with A***in the 3rd stage that is.
You're welcome :) In your future game I recommend you have at least more than one type of enemy. AGAD is a lot of fun at first, but I can imagine how quickly people will tire of it. Good luck on your new project!
*Bump*
Any news Roots?
Glad to see you're that interested! :D Yes there's a lot of things to share. I've spent almost my entire time in the last week on this project and I'm getting more and more excited about it. As you can see in my sig, the game now has a name and a website: Hero of Allacrost Website (http://www.allacrost.org). Biohazard designed the site, so if you like it props go out to him :)
We've also been discussing several new features for the game in our own forums (http://www.allacrost.org/forum). I won't post everything that's been said here, but here is a link to the thread (http://www.allacrost.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16) where we are currently debating what should go in the game and what shouldn't. To summarize a few of those features:
- CAL System: Concurrent Attack Limitations. Prevents players from using powerful attacks over and over.
- Mages only cast magic, they do not have melee attacks.
- Mage 'weapons' only amplify magical ability: They are not used to physically attack.
- Skill System: 3 types of melee skills: attack, defense, and support. Skills require time to charge before they can be used. This is in contrast to just having a plain 'attack' command.
-' Concentrate' or 'Meditate' ability: recharges magic power faster but leaves character more vulnerable to attack
If you want to sign up to our forums and discuss the features in this thread or list some of your own, I'd be very happy to hear your opionions. I'm trying to gather as many people's opinions as I can so I can generally feel comfortable that our players will like the feature. If you don't want to sign up for whatever reason, I'll understand :sad: but I will still read your opinions posted here in this thread on AnimeSuki if you choose not to register.
Thanks for all your support you guys. You've been my main source of information for this project :D
(PS: If anyone is interested in contributing to the game, check out the jobs page :))
Sanjuronord
2004-06-19, 05:06
Sorry, too late and probably too lazy to sign up now to post on your forums but had a few comments/ideas about the stuff I read on there.
No save points in dungeons and experience/gold loss: My initial thought is that it won't work. No one will suffer the experience loss if they can simply restart from their last save and recover their exp/gold. An alternative to making death more impacting would be something like ditching the phoenix down type items for recovering lost allies and making players go back to town to revive them (old school Nintendo fun!) until maybe player mages have gotten strong enough to cast Life. (or make it more expensive: Phoenix down was always to cheap in rpg's: a miracle potion that can bring you to life and it's cheaper than a rusty dagger...)
Health/Magic going into battle: I'd caution about the resting/going into battle full health/magic thing that I read on there is a little troubling because it might make a dungeon feel like a bunch of repetitive battles than being seen as a whole experience. Basically if you can beat the toughest fight in the dungeon, you just have to do it so many times to beat the dungeon(if you can easily get full health/magic b4 battle) versus surving the dungeon as a whole (hope that makes sense).
The combo/skill system: I could see the combo system working in a few ways such as a attack/defense skill being counterattack and defense/support being protect (an ally) and maybe a combination of the two for an attack/defense/support skill that both protects and counterattacks. I think there might be a limit to how many combo skills could be come up w/ though.
Having specific levels for the skills: May be better to go with a mix like in Disgaea. Weapon specific skill levels were determined by how often you used a weapon and proficient you became in that weapon. However, major characters each had unique skills available only to them that they would gain at specific character levels or story points. Even if you just make all skills available at certain levels a player could still customize which skills their character is better at if they can strengthen skills by using them. Actually though, for now might just want to concentrate on making a simple attack system (or focusing on the basics) since I think issues like this would require a lot of playtesting and balancing(making sure some paths aren't too overpowered or others too weak).
The whole attack + defense skill lvls < 10 : Seems like this would be easier accomplished by choosing appropriate equipment and maybe the kind of back row/front row setup seen in some rpgs where the front row had higher attack and lower defense and the back row had lower attack and higher defense. Would definetly be annoying to work yourself into a corner where your character was having trouble getting past a point because his defense was too weak, or his attack wasn't strong enough, or his support wasn't enough to keep his allies alive.
Might be simpler to have multiple battle stances available for a character in battle and just let players switch those on the fly ( maybe one high in attack low in everything else(berzerk/blitzkrieg),a better defense/support one(sentry), another more balanced, and so on and so on, could even have these stances require players to search out teachers/instructors to teach em these new stance/fighting styles [though to be honest I don't know how excited players would be to just change numbers that they may or may not see a direct result of unless some skills(or maybe just a combination of skills) were unique to certain stances]) yeesh sorry run on sentence there....
Learning magic and skills: I kinda like the idea of people having to learn magic and maybe even skills from others/books/manuscripts(like in shenmeu, he'd learn new moves by finding ancient martial arts scrolls) rather than just "magically"/"intuitively" learning spells on the fly..."wow after that last battle I feel stronger somehow, I think I now understand the intricasies of tossing fireballs at my oppenents" [mage gains a level. mage learns Fireball 1.] :heh:
Concurrent Attack Limitations (CAL): I think a more realistic (but probably harder to program) limitation would be to have enemies respong to repeated techniques. Basically the more often you do a technique on the same enemy the less effective/unlikely it is to hit (probably based on the enemy and his abilities--a skilled swordsman will eventually learn to avoid/block/counter a strong technique the more often he sees it (kenshin vs saitoh[anime tie-in! yay!]) where a blob may never realize where that fireball that keeps hitting him is coming from)
yeesh think my post is getting too long so gonna cut it short here and get some rest :heh:
Wow, thanks for the uber-long post Sanjuronord. Here are my comments to your comments :)
1) At about 2:30AM last night I realized the flaw about having no save points, and that was that there were no save points :heh:. It would be annoying if you were deep in a dungeon and had to return to town just to save your game. So I changed my policy on that (see my latest post in the thread), and that we'll probably have a save point at the beginning and in the middle of the dungeon on average.
2) Umm no one said anything about full health at the start of every battle (but full magic was mentioned). I agree with you though, that will make the game WAY too easy. And it also contradicts the battle wear idea (the impact of previous battles should affect the next). I strongly support no health recovery and only a gradual magic level recover.
3) Yes, the combo skill system has its limits. I'm still a little indifferent on the idea. It worked well in games like Chrono Trigger, but I think it's a little extraneous to add to the game when it already has so much else going for it (MAPS, etc).
4) I agree with your opinion about the weapon skill/customization. It doesn't particularly sound like a bad idea, but it will be difficult for us to balance, especially when the game is being released one module at a time.
5) I agree. I don't like the attack + defense skill levels < 10 equation at all.
6) Interesting idea about allowing multiple battle stances. I like it, but as you said I'm not sure if players would be too excited unless they could clearly see the results of changing stances. I'm going to bring this idea up to the group, I think it has great potential. Thanks! :D
7) I am also supporting the magic/skill book learning method :) Only instead of just finding/buying a book and automatically saying "Wow, after reading that page I now know how to perfectly execute a triple slash attack with a thunderstrike finishing blow!", they learn skills as XP levels increase as long as the book remains in their inventory. We are still debating whether to make this system relative or absolute leveling. In relative (which I like better), if you buy the book at level 5 lets say you learn the first skill after raising two XP levels (and if you bought the book at level 7 then you'd learn the first skill at level 9). In absolute, you'd always learn the first skill at level 7 (and if you bought the book at level 9, you'd automatically learn the new skill). What do you think is better?
8) I like your proposal of character's attacks being less effective the more they are used. I don't really want them to change their defenses (because that's unrealistic, how can you suddenly get more resistance against an attack?), but I'd like to see them have a better chance of evading the attack. Another excellent idea :)
Thanks for your time Sanjuronord, you're really helping us out :D
Sanjuronord
2004-06-20, 07:11
Hehe, that'll teach me to write long winded posts (comp screwed up and having to restart this post durn azureus...)
1) Doubt many will be able to resist the temptation of the restart button :heh: Could still "get them" if you were to charge gold to use save points but some might get annoyed at that.
2) Yes I misread that part about magic and then somebody mentioned NeverWinter Night's setup about resting between battles where you'd recover health and mana for free (the game would say that 6 hours had passes or something in game time but time seemed meaningless anyways so it was completely free and basically broke the game).
3) I was talking about skills that required you to have certain levels in multiple areas (attack, defense, support) but I think the combo (multiple characters) attacks would be hard to flesh out and balance (loved chrono trigger but the big combo skills were usually weaker than just using seperate attacks)
5) I could see such a system working but it would need a higher number than 10 like a 100 (w/ 10 it'd be easy to go a bad direction, w/ more points you'd have more time to balance it out) but this would just be more micro-management
7) Only problem I would see with a relative system would be that a lvl 45 mage should learn a spell faster than a lvl 5 mage learning the same spell. (Not to mention in most rpg's the time spent going from lvl 5 to lvl 10 is nothing compared to the time spent going from lvl 45 to lvl 50) Might be a bit more realistic (and complicated! joy!) to assign difficulties to a spell based on how powerful it is and have relative times for a spell based on a mage's level. For example:
Fireball 1
Lvl 1-10 Five levels
Lvl 20-30 Four levels
Lvl 30-35 Three Levles
Lvl 40-45 Two Levels
Lvl 46-49 One Level
Lvl 50 Immediately and just pretends he already knew the spell and just never saw fit to use it before. :heh:
For a higher level spell like Ultima or Ragnarok or what have you...you might want to set absolute limits on what level you can begin learning a spell to prevent lower level mages from learning them early on.
8) My idea was mostly for boss fights (I think you've got ample restrictions on magic recovery to prevent overabuse of any "uber" skills in random battles since they'll want to be as close to full health/magic as possible b4 the boss fight). The reaction I was refering to was something like that episode of Kenshin I mentioned, Saitoh has his uber sword thrust technique that he's wailing on Kenshin with but after 2-3 consecutive uses Kenshin has seen the attack enough that he's developed counters/evades to use against the technique. Basically, if a character keeps doing the same attack over and over again, the boss character would eventually have to expect it and would try to prepare himself for it (via dodging or preparing a counter attack). For added flare, could include some good villain banter(nothing like a good smack talk in the middle of a battle!) in there once the've gotten accustomed to an attack too if players keep trying to use their uber skill. :heh: "Fool! Your skills are too weak..."
This whole idea would require scripting each boss fight individually I suppose, since you wouldn't want each boss to respond the same either or it'll feel artificial (want the fight to feel like you're fighting against the boss's skills and not fighting within the rules of a game).
Wow dude, you rock! I was just thinking last night about the disadvantages of absolute and relative skill/magic learning and thinking that there must be a middle ground that eliminates both of those weaknesses. You my friend, have found it :cool:
I like the idea of bosses that are intelligent enough to defend against attacks after they've seen them enough (ala Kenshin). It might be hell for our AI programmer, but that shouldn't matter :heh: I quoted you on both 7) and 8) in your reply in our feature thread (http://www.allacrost.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16) at the Allacrost forums. I hope that we can finalize our list of features by the end of this week so we can finish the overview of the game and get to programming :D
Again thanks a lot for your valueable input!
Sanjuronord
2004-06-20, 16:05
I hope that we can finalize our list of features by the end of this week so we can finish the overview of the game and get to programming :D
:heh: Yes you guys are gonna make all kinds of hell for yourselves if you don't draw a line soon and just start programming what you have.
:heh: Yes you guys are gonna make all kinds of hell for yourselves if you don't draw a line soon and just start programming what you have.
I agree. I thought the original 11 features we had were enough, but more great ideas just kept coming and coming. :heh: Well actually a lot of the 'new' stuff we've been discussing are not really new/innovative features to the game, but rather how the battle systems are going to work out, and just the inner workings of the game really. Seriously though, we might have to list you as a contributor for this game :)
Roots, i am very proud of you. I have already made 22 games using the RPG maker programs, and i am happy that you are actually making your game. Unlike ChibiDusk who just says he will make a game..idiot....
I hope your game will be fun and original. if you can, it will be great if you post it for download. Unless you plan to sell it...
I just need to know, I forgot how to make a linear storyline. can you help me out please??
Roots, you may one day become a true gammeker.
Dreams are like hot air ballons. If you dont actually remove the sand bags, the ballon will never fly. Your ballon is about to reach space
~Remian~
Thanks, my parents weren't exactly proud of me but its nice to know someone is. :heh:
Fun and originality are two things I'm definetly trying to achieve with this game. I think the MAPS system is going to be the most original feature in the game (and hurrah because it was my original idea!). The game will be for free and will not be sold. I want this game to be my gift back to the open source community, which I firmly believe in. Since the game is going to be released one piece at a time, it will get kind of redundant and annoying to post in this thread every single time we release a new module, and plus it would kinda be self-advertisement/spam. But all the latest news and releases will be made available on the game website at http://www.allacrost.org. Also I'm going to activate an announcement mailing list in the next few days so you can subscribe to that if you want to receive news about the project in your mailbox.
As for how to wirte linear storyline, my best advice is to write out the foundations for the story before you even think about the game. When you try to make the storyline and the game together at the same time, I think it's harder to pull off. Instead, write your story as if you were writing a fiction novel, and erase from your mind the fact that it will be a game. I can't give you much advice because I mean hey, this is my first shot at it. :) You must use your imagination and stretch it to its limits to write a good story I believe.
As for becomming a true game maker, heh, that was something that I thought I wanted to be when I was 17 or 18, but now its just what I want to be as my hobby. My real dream (I think) is to design advanced computer hardware/software that helps make the world a better place. :heh:
Good Job Roots. It seems you are actually getting somewhere unlike most.
Eventually as you get older, if you want to make that software that helps the world(how noble)you will need to learn coding. Grab Dark Basic from the local computer hardware store and take it for a spin some time. using RPG maker is alot more fun than coding, coding takes....knowledge......
anyway, I hope your game will be fun. And dont make it boring PLEEASE!!!!
and what RPG maker are you using?
Make it one of those innovating RPGs with one of those complex stories which makes the player play it at least 7 times to actually understand the complexity....
Yah i am crazy.....
in making games, the only making i have had expierience with is, RPG Maker 2002, 2003 and the XP Trial.
Oops, (also) discovered this thread a bit late.
I've written a few games in the past, but they were all REALLY simple:
- My first game was a space invaders style Star Trek themed game (Enterprise VS Klingons)
which was build in QBasic (for DOS) and used ASCII graphics.
- I can remember creating a Tic-Tac-Toe game. Planning out the rules of the AI for that was
quite fun -- although my AI wasn't that great because with the right strategy you could win
each time. This was written in Pascal but still used ASCII graphics (not a big deal for this type
of game though).
- I can remember writing a succesor to my first game (inspiration wise). It played the same,
that is space invader style (shooting down enemies that fall from the top of the screen) but
was much more "evolved": -- full (but crappy) graphics, double buffering (flicker-free screen),
collision detection etc. Also written in Pascal.
- I've also tried to create a few clones of VGA Planets (a email-based turn based game) in the
past, which never got completed, although I can remember getting pretty far at one time.
(getting the full circle of host program -- unpacker -- client program -- command compiler done)
Anyway, if you are trying to create a game, I would recommend to start small if you've never
done created (or finished) anything before. It's hard to create say, FFX from scratch, but easy
to start with a "FFI" type game and then improve on it, if you get what I mean...
Ok, after reading through most of the thread (didn't bother reading it all before..):
I have to say that I'm really impressed with your ideas and such, this far.
I am definately going to check it out when it's done.
:)
I worked on translated remakes of Nei's Adventure (http://aaryn.lunarpages.com/~iridium2/ego/NeiAdventure.html) and Amia's Adventure (http://aaryn.lunarpages.com/~iridium2/ego/Amia's_Adventure.html), as well as a a nowhere near usable yet rpg engine called Iridium (http://iridiumrpg.sourceforge.net/).
The two Adventure games were written in a little language called Euphoria, with DirectX bindings. Iridium in python with wxwidget bindings(the editor) and C with SDL (the engine). The Adventure games I did in windows with a text editor, and iridium in linux with Boa Constructor as the IDE for the editor, and the kate text editor for the engine along with gcc as the compiler.
My personal advice is to go with SDL and C. It's nicly portable, and a nice benifit is that using this method getting it working on the dreamcast is pretty simple. There's just something kind of neat in seeing ones work running on an actual console, even if its a little old.
But most of all, my biggest bit of advice is something you're already doing - staying with open standards. Almost every problem I had with the Adventure games stemmed from it using multiple closed libraries. I kept on finding problem areas, but couldn't do a thing about them because the library was both closed and no longer being activly worked on. Worse, porting to another api/language is pretty much a matter of having to write everything from scratch, something I'm still not finished with - a couple years after switching to Linux.
Good luck - it sounds like you've got some pretty cool ideas, and I'm a huge fan of snes style rpgs!
Eventually as you get older, if you want to make that software that helps the world(how noble)you will need to learn coding. Grab Dark Basic from the local computer hardware store and take it for a spin some time. using RPG maker is alot more fun than coding, coding takes....knowledge......
:heh: Umm I already have my bachelor's in Computer Engineering and I'll be 22 in a few days. I'm quite familiar with how to write code, and I've written a multitude of programs in MIPS Assembly (designed a microprocessor based on MIPS archtecture too BTW), C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, and several others.
anyway, I hope your game will be fun. And dont make it boring PLEEASE!!!!
I will try my best not to make it boring. If you liked the prologue story and the general idea of the MAPS/battle system then I think you will enjoy it. I have a great imagination and its about damn time I started making good use of it :)
and what RPG maker are you using?
I'm not using RPG maker. The game is being written from scratch using C++ and the SDL libraries, which should make it relatively easy to port to other systems and gives me the freedom to put anything in the game that I want. I'm not a big fan of the whole 'rpg maker' concept, though I've never tried it myself.
Ok, after reading through most of the thread (didn't bother reading it all before..):
I have to say that I'm really impressed with your ideas and such, this far.
I am definately going to check it out when it's done.
Thanks :D The biggest challenge for this project for me personally is going to be time-management, since I start my grad school career at UT Austin in August.
Sanjuronord
2004-07-12, 05:54
- I can remember creating a Tic-Tac-Toe game. Planning out the rules of the AI for that was
quite fun -- although my AI wasn't that great because with the right strategy you could win
each time. This was written in Pascal but still used ASCII graphics (not a big deal for this type
of game though).
Lol, yes i wrote one of those two way back in my freshman year using ada95(which I'm glad to finally be rid of, was annoyed to have to start in that for two semesters instead of c++), my computer was impossible to beat, you had to hope for a tie. :naughty:
mikey_68
2004-07-12, 16:38
I actually completed my first game not too long ago. The second will be out shortly. Although this has become more of an RPG thread, maybe you'd like to give it a try. http://www.manga.sk/atp/bpencil/bpencil.htm It's the bishoujo ren'ai style.
I agree with Roots, that time management is everything. There is no worse thing than getting out of a creative flow. Sometimes that happens in bigger projects, you do nothing for 2 months and then it's hard to ger back - "now why is THIS line of code here..." ^_^ you know...
I actually completed my first game not too long ago. The second will be out shortly. Although this has become more of an RPG thread, maybe you'd like to give it a try. http://www.manga.sk/atp/bpencil/bpencil.htm It's the bishoujo ren'ai style.
Hey that looks pretty cool! Wow, you did that in just 2/3 months? Well I suppose that dating sim games aren't too complicated to program, but still that's a really fast turn around time. The art looks pretty good too! You should hire a coloring artist to enhance the game, althought the pencil look is kinda cool. It gives it a 'manga' feeling I guess :heh:. Well I would download it and play it, but you only made a Windows version! :frustrated: Why don't you see if you can port a Linux or MacOS version out of it? Unless you used directX libraries (weren't on your system requirements..), I don't think it would be too hard.
I agree with Roots, that time management is everything. There is no worse thing than getting out of a creative flow. Sometimes that happens in bigger projects, you do nothing for 2 months and then it's hard to ger back - "now why is THIS line of code here..." ^_^ you know...
Yeah I'm commenting my code religously. :) There is another game that is similar to mine (because it uses the same libraries, etc.) called Battle for Wesnoth (http://www.wesnoth.org). Its an RTS and its actually really good, but I took a look at the source code and I was like :twitch:. The guy hardly commented ANYTHING so it makes trying to figure out what anything does nearly impossible (the code is spread out over some 60 header and source files).
I actually completed my first game not too long ago. The second will be out shortly. Although this has become more of an RPG thread, maybe you'd like to give it a try. http://www.manga.sk/atp/bpencil/bpencil.htm It's the bishoujo ren'ai style.
Woah, I was just about to ask about making bishoujo games. Did you make it from scratch or is there game builder software out there? I want to play around with making one and I don't want to have to reinvent the wheel if I don't have to.
mikey_68
2004-07-13, 03:14
Roots >> Yeah, about 2 months, I mean I am still really amazed... The second game is in development since Feb, so it will be a healthy half a year... It's all because baka me always has to put new storylines into it... (and let's not forget the others, who were behind schedule... :) )
Black Pencil uses a very windows-based cd menu program with scripting capabilities, and I am not convinced our programmer can do this, so multiplatform is a no can do at this stage :( (***enviously looks at Battle for Wesnoth***)
TronDD >> There are some, for instance http://www.geocities.com/greaterghoul987/ or RenPy http://renpy.onegeek.org/. RenPy should be fairly uncomplicated, good for experimenting around.
Forget time-management, motivation becomes a problem when working on a project and not seeing enough reward (eg. monetary) , especially for ambitious RPG projects.
I've worked on enough hobby projects to know I have a limit - about 2.5 months of working and thinking about it every day before burn out sets in. I don't learn though, always setting my goals high regardless, rarely meeting them. Part of me wishes I did some scrappy pixel-shaded DirectX9 overhead shooter - something *very* small ( < 2 months) and COMPLETE that shows I can finish a game project and work with bleeding edge tech, to the end of securing a position in the game industry. But another larger part of me dreams of completing a game that can compete with commerical products, and launch me into a career with my own studio.
Anyway, ideas, as you know, are cheaper than a dime a dozen. I'll save my praise until I see them implemented. Keep at it.
Forget time-management, motivation becomes a problem when working on a project and not seeing enough reward (eg. monetary) , especially for ambitious RPG projects.
I've worked on enough hobby projects to know I have a limit - about 2.5 months of working and thinking about it every day before burn out sets in. I don't learn though, always setting my goals high regardless, rarely meeting them. Part of me wishes I did some scrappy pixel-shaded DirectX9 overhead shooter - something *very* small ( < 2 months) and COMPLETE that shows I can finish a game project and work with bleeding edge tech, to the end of securing a position in the game industry. But another larger part of me dreams of completing a game that can compete with commerical products, and launch me into a career with my own studio.
Anyway, ideas, as you know, are cheaper than a dime a dozen. I'll save my praise until I see them implemented. Keep at it.
Ahh, so its lack of progress/success that kills you eh? I certainly know about burn-out, though in a different sense (try taking 6 EE classes and Japanese in one semester and you will be burnt to a crisp). But you see the great thing about this game is that we don't work on it for 2-3 years before we release it. The modular development of the game allows us to crank out results within a matter of weeks/months, not years. That's the ingenious behind it all! :thinker: I know for a fact that if I was working on this same project and I planned to release it only when the entire game was complete, I'd never even get close to getting it done.
By releasing new additions to the game every so often you:
1) Have a fan-base pushing you for more (assuming that people like your game :heh: )
2) Can set modest goals and milestones to complete that won't take you the rest of your natural life to meet.
Anyways I'm done with my 5:50AM rambling. Time to go start my day. :)
> The modular development of the game allows us to crank out results within a matter of weeks/months
Thats the beauty of MMORPGs (in my case), the nature of the game allows you to release them in bits and pieces (ie. ragnarok online alpha). However, getting to the initial release is still very difficult. Things always look simpler looking from the outside in - you know you can do it technically, but the details end up taking too much time.
I see you're using SDL and 2D, that's cool, but what about an engine? A lot of ground has been covered with 2D SDL, rather than reinventing the wheel you should take a look at what's out there (GUI widget library, map editors, particle systems).
However, getting to the initial release is still very difficult. Things always look simpler looking from the outside in - you know you can do it technically, but the details end up taking too much time.
I see you're using SDL and 2D, that's cool, but what about an engine? A lot of ground has been covered with 2D SDL, rather than reinventing the wheel you should take a look at what's out there (GUI widget library, map editors, particle systems).
I definitely understand the first 2-3 modules we release are going to be the hardest to develop. Over the last 2 weeks or so I've definitely found game programming to be more difficult than the 'regular' programming I do (small applications, GUI, etc).
As for our engine, so far I've just been building it from the ground up. I already have all the audio code finished and working perfectly and the core of the video is nearly finished and working as well. I'd rather put the engine together myself so I can have greater control over it and design it for my own needs. I have been looking at other work that has been done, though I haven't found anything yet that really caught my eye.
Thanks for your advice, I value it. :D
mikey_68
2004-07-13, 13:01
By releasing new additions to the game every so often you:
1) Have a fan-base pushing you for more (assuming that people like your game :heh: )
2) Can set modest goals and milestones to complete that won't take you the rest of your natural life to meet.
You just have to make sure you DO more than you TALK, don't want your project to become a forum-game... :nono:
I just finished a game called:
Nightmare Hunter
Ok the name is pretty dumb, but it adds myster to the game.
You take control of a Nightmare Hunter(people who have access to the Nightmare Realms) named Sho, who just happens to the be the Legendary Nightmare Hunter. From there, a vast world is given to you and you can do whatever you please. Its not really GTA style, what I mean is that you can accept missions and Bounties for certain Nightmares. You can also search the Earth for other Nightmare Hunters, and Dream Hunters (to fight). You can also gain access to the Drea Realm, and get more missions and Bounties, but you encoiunter Dream Hunters there.
I made this game 1 year ago with RPG maker, and then I remade it using coding. I wanted to post it for download here, but when I attempted to get it to work, My comp crashed. sorry all.
Roots, i hope you make that world changing program today.
spedz_fx
2004-08-01, 15:48
errr so let me guess non of u guys use flash .......bugger ¬¬ i did (and still miight) have flash and swift 3d some where as they are pretty good to use for espically if u r gonna make rpgs!! u could use sprites to give it that rustic ff/ps (phantasy star) feeling (btw i'm trying to make a suggestion coz i'm quite good at it if i HAD the motivation. ) :thinker: :hmm:
spedz_fx
2004-08-01, 15:52
SO no 1 uses flash/ swift 3d .........bugger :uhoh: coz if u guys did i would hellp (once i found my back-up cd :heh: ) coz i know how to make some RPG scripting :hmm:
Its been a while, so just wanted to let you guys know that my game is progressing slowly but surely. Its a heck of a lot more work than I thought it would be! But I have almost a full staff now, I just need some game/sprite artists and an OpenGL programmer and I think we'll be set for the time being. :) After talking with some SDL users, they recommended that I use OpenGL (even though my game isn't 3D) because it will help a lot with adding visual effects and making the game faster.
By the way, a lot of you are talking about games you made but not posting any links. I'm too lazy to google :rolleyes: so post links!!! I'll leave you guys with the boot screen for the game, which one of my fine artists created from scratch. :D
http://expert.ics.purdue.edu/~olsent/images/bootscreen_01.jpg
lavarock
2004-08-26, 01:28
The only game I made that is semi-complete is the final project in my Java class, in which we have to make a simple 2D game. I made a snake game, the very simple one in which you have to avoid to collide with the wall and onto yourself, etc. The game have complete levels, has score features, etc. However, it's still premitive.
However, I know some friend in the CS master program is doing a lot of graphic designing, game developing, etc. Some are learning Direct3D and OpenGL in their own. This kind of things are always interesting but extremly time consuming.
The only game I made that is semi-complete is the final project in my Java class, in which we have to make a simple 2D game. I made a snake game, the very simple one in which you have to avoid to collide with the wall and onto yourself, etc. The game have complete levels, has score features, etc. However, it's still premitive.
However, I know some friend in the CS master program is doing a lot of graphic designing, game developing, etc. Some are learning Direct3D and OpenGL in their own. This kind of things are always interesting but extremly time consuming.
Ahh, that reminds me I made a simple java applet game last semester (took me about 4 hours :D). Its like duck hunt, kind of. My game (http://expert.ics.purdue.edu/~olsent/Animator.html)
You can click the "New Bird" icon and a bird will appear in a random location, or you can double click in the open space of the window and the bird will appear where you clicked. The birds fly around the screen in a (somewhat) random pattern. If you click a bird, it will be shot (disappears). Each bird runs in its own thread, and I've put like 60-70 birds once and really slowed down my PC. :heh: This was a homework assignment in my ECE495K class. Its simple and could easily be expanded upon, but it was fun to program. :)
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