Anyone ever write their own game?

[Roots]

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

************************************************** ********
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]

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

[zalas]

Originally Posted by Roots

(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

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]

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

[Roots]

Originally Posted by Iori Branford

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

[Babak]

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.

[ShadowX114]

Originally Posted by Weirdanzeige

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 ^^

[Roots]

*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. If anyone is interested in reading it you can find the HTML version here


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]

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).

[Roots]

Phew, I'm relieved to hear I'm not the only one that is impressed with it 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


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 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

[_Sin_]

Sounds good, Roots, go for it!

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

Edit: You might find these articles interesting.

[Roots]

Originally Posted by _Sin_

Sounds good, Roots, go for it!

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

Edit: You might find these articles 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 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

[Necropotence]

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?

[_Sin_]

Originally Posted by Roots

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

Originally Posted by Roots

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

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?

[Roots]

Originally Posted by _Sin_

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

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]

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

[_Sin_]

Originally Posted by Biohazard

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.

[Roots]

Originally Posted by _Sin_

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 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

[_Sin_]

Originally Posted by Roots

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.

Originally Posted by Roots

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]

Originally Posted by Roots

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?

Originally Posted by Roots

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)