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Miscellaneous
Miscellaneous
Alpha Version 0.07 Feedback
rabitZ
13 post(s) 
- 05/20/2012 05:21 AM
- 3503 views
Miscellaneous
On wide-open sandboxes (Also more rambling)
Alright, I've been working these last few weeks (working with what little time I had free from real life activities) on Team Gold's RMN Summer Games Contest Entry. (It's here btw, give it a try if you wish, it's really short).
As I prepare to resume working on Legacy, I realize I've been thinking a lot lately on why it's taking me so long to finish this game.
Perhaps the fault lies within that "* Emphasis on exploration and side-quests." line below features, on the game profile.
I suppose that sentence is not one to be taken lightly. I've always loved wide-open sandbox RPGs, like Daggerfall, Might & Magic, etc., where you had lots of choices to pursue and no one forcing you to go a particular path, so I wanted to implement a little of that in this game.
Of course, I also decided early on that since this was my first game, I should not get too crazy with the open-endedness. There will be a fairly strict main plot quest, and some side quests here and there for the player to complete if he wishes to. Thus, this is nowhere near a wide-open sandbox, but those sidequests do take a lot of time. Legacy of the Guilds is supposed to be short-game: 5 towns, approx 3 hours of gameplay and 10 levels of experience. But right now, with little more than half of the game completed, I already have 13 different sidequests.
Is this too much?
What are your feelings on an wide-open-sandbox/strictly-linear RPG hybrid?
After that pointless rant, I will discuss some new small features I've been thinking about:
* On searching for hidden items: Right now, the player can find several hidden items around towns and in caves, etc.
They're represented by small glowing spots, and searching those spots rewards you with a hidden item.
I've been thinking about adding a "Perception" passive skill that basically allows the player to find more and more rare hidden items.
It would work like this: at the beginning of the game, all hidden items are visible to the player, but in the later maps, hidden items will have a minimum "Perception" requirement to be visible. Each time a player loots a hidden item spot, his perception skill increases.
This way, players who actively pay attention to the early hidden items and loot them, will be able to find the more rare ones later in the game.
Players who don't care about them will eventually stop finding them, since they never looted the earlier ones anyway.
Of course, all hidden items found this way are not mandatory to winning the game and won't unbalance the game very much.
* On respawning alchemy reagents: It has come to my attention that harvestable reagents for alchemy recipes are too scarce once the player has gathered them from the wilderness the firs time. I have decided to make them respawn. My idea for this is as follows:
After being harvested, the ingredient node clears. Upon reentering the map, they will have a 5% chance of respawning. If they don't respawn after the first revisit, the chance goes up to 10% for future visits to the same map. What do you think about this method? I intend to do this because putting an individual timer on the thousand ingredient nodes would be unpractical at my current degree of knowledge.
I have to decided to implement multiple timers to give a fixed time to each ingredient node to respawn! thanks very much to yuhikari for providing a link.
Ok! That is it for this blog post. A screenshot of a window I'm working on right now:
As you can see, states are now shown as icons (a-la RMVX) and you have a new command that allows you to see your stats (handy to check how much that PDEF down spell hurt you).
I hope it was not too long to read, and I look forward to your experiences with wide-open sanbox RPGs and stuff. :)
As I prepare to resume working on Legacy, I realize I've been thinking a lot lately on why it's taking me so long to finish this game.
Perhaps the fault lies within that "* Emphasis on exploration and side-quests." line below features, on the game profile.
I suppose that sentence is not one to be taken lightly. I've always loved wide-open sandbox RPGs, like Daggerfall, Might & Magic, etc., where you had lots of choices to pursue and no one forcing you to go a particular path, so I wanted to implement a little of that in this game.
Of course, I also decided early on that since this was my first game, I should not get too crazy with the open-endedness. There will be a fairly strict main plot quest, and some side quests here and there for the player to complete if he wishes to. Thus, this is nowhere near a wide-open sandbox, but those sidequests do take a lot of time. Legacy of the Guilds is supposed to be short-game: 5 towns, approx 3 hours of gameplay and 10 levels of experience. But right now, with little more than half of the game completed, I already have 13 different sidequests.
Is this too much?
What are your feelings on an wide-open-sandbox/strictly-linear RPG hybrid?
After that pointless rant, I will discuss some new small features I've been thinking about:
* On searching for hidden items: Right now, the player can find several hidden items around towns and in caves, etc.
They're represented by small glowing spots, and searching those spots rewards you with a hidden item.
I've been thinking about adding a "Perception" passive skill that basically allows the player to find more and more rare hidden items.
It would work like this: at the beginning of the game, all hidden items are visible to the player, but in the later maps, hidden items will have a minimum "Perception" requirement to be visible. Each time a player loots a hidden item spot, his perception skill increases.
This way, players who actively pay attention to the early hidden items and loot them, will be able to find the more rare ones later in the game.
Players who don't care about them will eventually stop finding them, since they never looted the earlier ones anyway.
Of course, all hidden items found this way are not mandatory to winning the game and won't unbalance the game very much.
* On respawning alchemy reagents: It has come to my attention that harvestable reagents for alchemy recipes are too scarce once the player has gathered them from the wilderness the firs time. I have decided to make them respawn. My idea for this is as follows:
I have to decided to implement multiple timers to give a fixed time to each ingredient node to respawn! thanks very much to yuhikari for providing a link.
Ok! That is it for this blog post. A screenshot of a window I'm working on right now:
As you can see, states are now shown as icons (a-la RMVX) and you have a new command that allows you to see your stats (handy to check how much that PDEF down spell hurt you).
I hope it was not too long to read, and I look forward to your experiences with wide-open sanbox RPGs and stuff. :)
Miscellaneous
Looking for Testers / New Screenshots
Ok, not sure why my game turned up in the frontpage.
Sorry if I pushed somebody of the frontpage! I didn't know that testers only downloads showed up there.
I've submitted a new version (v0.05b) and the download has been just approved.
It is just for testers (currently janneke and everguard).
If anybody else is interested in playtesting this, I would be very grateful.
Just let me know and I'll add you to the testers group. :)
The current demo has approximately 2 hours of gameplay and includes 11 sidequests.
It is much changed from the old v0.03 demo which got around 405 downloads.
Thanks!
Good making gams everybody.
EDIT: I've also taken down the existing download, since it was much outdated.
EDIT2: Ok! As promised here are some screens that I have been working on recently.
The new Bestiary:
Suggestions/Opinions?
An enemy party:
And finally, the new Blacksmithing screen:
I have decided to rethink the blacksmithing system.
Now, intead of being used primarily for creating new weapons and armor, it will be used to strengthen your existing ones (i.e. turning a normal dagger into a dagger +1).
So, that's it for today!
Sorry if I pushed somebody of the frontpage! I didn't know that testers only downloads showed up there.
I've submitted a new version (v0.05b) and the download has been just approved.
It is just for testers (currently janneke and everguard).
If anybody else is interested in playtesting this, I would be very grateful.
Just let me know and I'll add you to the testers group. :)
The current demo has approximately 2 hours of gameplay and includes 11 sidequests.
It is much changed from the old v0.03 demo which got around 405 downloads.
Thanks!
Good making gams everybody.
EDIT: I've also taken down the existing download, since it was much outdated.
EDIT2: Ok! As promised here are some screens that I have been working on recently.
The new Bestiary:
Suggestions/Opinions?
An enemy party:
And finally, the new Blacksmithing screen:
I have decided to rethink the blacksmithing system.
Now, intead of being used primarily for creating new weapons and armor, it will be used to strengthen your existing ones (i.e. turning a normal dagger into a dagger +1).
So, that's it for today!
Miscellaneous
The art of Dungeon making?
Yes, I work on this too slowly haha. I am fully aware of that. :/
A new feature, map-exit indicator arrows! You can't get lost now! :)
Well, I have recently refound my motivation to resume full-time production on this, so I felt it was an appropriate time for a blog post.
I slowly feel more confident in scripting with RGSS (I'm starting to understand the default RMXP battle system and how it's implemented in the default scripts, for example), and this has allowed me to script one or two skills which I couldn't before (I finally have a fully funcional 'Taunt' skill!).
I realize that I overestimated my rate of progress, so I have finally given up on setting a deadline for this. It was foolish of me to mislead people like that, if I did so.
This is after all, a "first game".
The good news is, the version in production now is much more polished, and has roughly twice as much content as the old v0.03 demo available in the download.
If someone wants to play that (and help me playtest and find bugs *cough cough*) feel free to ask me for an updated version!
Anyways, I ramble.
One of the most difficult things for me is mapping dungeons, just the idea of a huge dungeon discorauges me, but I am fully aware that they are an integral part of any RPG.
Below is a sample of an in-progress dungeon: the Thieves Hideout.
What do you think? Is it too small?
What makes a good dungeon in your opinion, guys? What makes you hate it?
So, back to making gams! I look forward to more RPGs to play in this wonderful site!
PS: I really wanted to get back to makin this gam after watching HBO's "Game of Thrones"! Silly, huh?
A new feature, map-exit indicator arrows! You can't get lost now! :)
Well, I have recently refound my motivation to resume full-time production on this, so I felt it was an appropriate time for a blog post.
I slowly feel more confident in scripting with RGSS (I'm starting to understand the default RMXP battle system and how it's implemented in the default scripts, for example), and this has allowed me to script one or two skills which I couldn't before (I finally have a fully funcional 'Taunt' skill!).
I realize that I overestimated my rate of progress, so I have finally given up on setting a deadline for this. It was foolish of me to mislead people like that, if I did so.
This is after all, a "first game".
The good news is, the version in production now is much more polished, and has roughly twice as much content as the old v0.03 demo available in the download.
If someone wants to play that (and help me playtest and find bugs *cough cough*) feel free to ask me for an updated version!
Anyways, I ramble.
One of the most difficult things for me is mapping dungeons, just the idea of a huge dungeon discorauges me, but I am fully aware that they are an integral part of any RPG.
Below is a sample of an in-progress dungeon: the Thieves Hideout.
What do you think? Is it too small?
What makes a good dungeon in your opinion, guys? What makes you hate it?
So, back to making gams! I look forward to more RPGs to play in this wonderful site!
PS: I really wanted to get back to makin this gam after watching HBO's "Game of Thrones"! Silly, huh?
Miscellaneous
Legacy of the Guilds -- The Inspiration
While I'm working at this, trying to make the Valedictory Game Drive deadline, I keep thinking about the influences I had in making this game, and several ideas cross my head. This being a "first game", I mainly got the motivation for making from the desire to replicate all the good things of my favorite RPGs, while still having some tiny game that I could call 'my own'.
But the question is, how does one do that?
Do I rip off the graphics?
Do I implement mechanics that are exactly the same as in the original games?
Do I make a character that is inspired from one I liked?
Do I add subtle references?
I am really no expert in this matter, I guess it's all and none of the above at the same time.
After thinking long and hard, I just said screw it, I'll figure it as I go along.
Legacy of the Guilds ('legacy' or LotG, as I call it for short) was born as a standard medieval fantasy adventure, seeing as I never could get tired of that environment.
The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall, Betrayal at Krondor, Might and Magic II: Gates to Another World, Baldur's Gate II, amongs others, those were the games I had a lot of fun playing in my youth.
I put in LotG, small touches of these games that are probably meaningless and most certainly fail to fully translate the experience playing them back in the days represented.
The funny names of the taverns, and the description of the shops as you enter them in Daggerfall ('Rusty relics lie wherever they were last tossed').
The Grave Digging and style of writing of Betrayal at Krondor (everything except what the characters say is in the past tense, like a book).
The +1 +2 modifier in magic weapons and the Cure Light Wounds inspired healing from Baldur's Gate, stuff that gives me fond memories while I playtest my game over and over.
But, seeing as these are old games, another question arises: Is it still wise to include mechanics from them, seeing as sometimes they are obsolete and the new generation of RPGs differs so much from them?
For example, in Baldur's Gate, a level 1 healing spell restores 8 HP. 8 HP always, not a percentage of health or anything like that. So, by the time that your characters have 90 HP or more, 8 HP is pretty meagre. But I never had any issues with that, although by today standards I guess some people would mind.
Anyway, I'm rambling, and I have to get back to the game haha.
I guess game making IS fun afterall. Hopefully there will be ONE person whose's tastes are similar to mine.
~~~ Noish, Mansel, Alessia and Rostam ~~~
But the question is, how does one do that?
Do I rip off the graphics?
Do I implement mechanics that are exactly the same as in the original games?
Do I make a character that is inspired from one I liked?
Do I add subtle references?
I am really no expert in this matter, I guess it's all and none of the above at the same time.
After thinking long and hard, I just said screw it, I'll figure it as I go along.
Legacy of the Guilds ('legacy' or LotG, as I call it for short) was born as a standard medieval fantasy adventure, seeing as I never could get tired of that environment.
The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall, Betrayal at Krondor, Might and Magic II: Gates to Another World, Baldur's Gate II, amongs others, those were the games I had a lot of fun playing in my youth.
I put in LotG, small touches of these games that are probably meaningless and most certainly fail to fully translate the experience playing them back in the days represented.
The funny names of the taverns, and the description of the shops as you enter them in Daggerfall ('Rusty relics lie wherever they were last tossed').
The Grave Digging and style of writing of Betrayal at Krondor (everything except what the characters say is in the past tense, like a book).
The +1 +2 modifier in magic weapons and the Cure Light Wounds inspired healing from Baldur's Gate, stuff that gives me fond memories while I playtest my game over and over.
But, seeing as these are old games, another question arises: Is it still wise to include mechanics from them, seeing as sometimes they are obsolete and the new generation of RPGs differs so much from them?
For example, in Baldur's Gate, a level 1 healing spell restores 8 HP. 8 HP always, not a percentage of health or anything like that. So, by the time that your characters have 90 HP or more, 8 HP is pretty meagre. But I never had any issues with that, although by today standards I guess some people would mind.
Anyway, I'm rambling, and I have to get back to the game haha.
I guess game making IS fun afterall. Hopefully there will be ONE person whose's tastes are similar to mine.
~~~ Noish, Mansel, Alessia and Rostam ~~~
Miscellaneous
Miscellaneous
February update! o.0
Hello everyone! I realize I haven't been updating this very much.
So, I thought I show you some progress on one of the last skills I'll be implementing.
(Yes, I did a few maps and a couple of cutscenes, but most of my time at this point has been spent tweaking and creating skills for the characters, both in and out of battle).
Legacy of the Guilds will have the typical "Scan" skill. But not in the usual way of "waste a turn and see enemy info". What I wanted to do is have one character be the designated "scout" of the party. In this case, Noish has an "Identify Enemy" passive skill that works by allowing him (and only him) to see the current health of enemies at automatically during battle. So, all he has to do is target them and he'll see info about them "real-time". If someone else (like Mansel or Alexia) targets enemies, they won't see their current data.
I know this is not a big deal, but I wanted to see if I could tweak the default scripts in RMXP and do it this way, learning a bit, and at the same time getting rid of the annoyance of having to waste one turn to see enemy info, AND also having an extra incentive to keep the frail Noish alive.
Out of battle, accessing the "Identify Enemy" skill will lead to a menu like this:
Finally, a screen showing all of Mansel's skillls.
So, at this point, Noish, Mansel and Alexia ALL have their complete skillsets (all subject to more balancing, of course), leaving only Rostam to be done.
It's all still a WIP, of course. I'll also be adding a few screenshots of new dungeons and cutscenes, hopefully.
As always, feel free to comment anything at all!
So, I thought I show you some progress on one of the last skills I'll be implementing.
(Yes, I did a few maps and a couple of cutscenes, but most of my time at this point has been spent tweaking and creating skills for the characters, both in and out of battle).
Legacy of the Guilds will have the typical "Scan" skill. But not in the usual way of "waste a turn and see enemy info". What I wanted to do is have one character be the designated "scout" of the party. In this case, Noish has an "Identify Enemy" passive skill that works by allowing him (and only him) to see the current health of enemies at automatically during battle. So, all he has to do is target them and he'll see info about them "real-time". If someone else (like Mansel or Alexia) targets enemies, they won't see their current data.
I know this is not a big deal, but I wanted to see if I could tweak the default scripts in RMXP and do it this way, learning a bit, and at the same time getting rid of the annoyance of having to waste one turn to see enemy info, AND also having an extra incentive to keep the frail Noish alive.
Out of battle, accessing the "Identify Enemy" skill will lead to a menu like this:
Finally, a screen showing all of Mansel's skillls.
So, at this point, Noish, Mansel and Alexia ALL have their complete skillsets (all subject to more balancing, of course), leaving only Rostam to be done.
It's all still a WIP, of course. I'll also be adding a few screenshots of new dungeons and cutscenes, hopefully.
As always, feel free to comment anything at all!
Miscellaneous
First Monday of 2011 Gone :)
I haven't posted anything in a while, so I figured now would be a good time to do so.
I am happy to say, that after taking a time off from a lot of things during the holidays, I have now resumed working full time on this game.
I am still confident that this is set to be completed before May 2011 ends. I might request your help for a closed beta! I'll blog about it when the time comes.
A good thing (I suppose?) is that the idea I have in my head about this game has not radically changed. So there's no danger of abandoning it or re-starting from scratch.
Now... It's just a matter of forging these ideas and plot into an actual game (and we all know that's the hard part, eh?).
Second, I'm also thinking about implementing a "bestiary" of sorts combined with some kind of "scan" skill. The basic idea would be that as you kill more and more of each kind of foe, a "bestiary" screen would be updated with more info about those enemies: elemental weaknesses, known attacks, etc.
Any suggestions on that? Given that this game isn't HUGE in scope and there are not bound to be HUNDREDS of different kinds of enemies, is it even worth it? Anyway, I kinda like the idea and will investigate upon it.
Finally, a crappy screenshot of a map I just threw together in like 15 minutes (yes I stayed up all night just playing with RPG Maker):
The idea is that there will be a lot of these caves scattered about the land, with treasures and things inside of them randomized (some ocassional character might even be there asking for a micro-quest). The Knight Richard (A new minor character that joins your party!) wondering about the bonfire (do people still live in caves in Whitecroft?)
The green glow thingies are your Herbalism skill letting you know you can gather ingredients.
The blue glow thingies appear thanks to your Blacksmithing skill, which lets you mine nodes for different ores.
So, that's about it! A lot of work remains to be done for Legacy of the Guilds, but I'm learning a lot of things, even delving into the Script Editor and doing minor touches to stuff, and that makes me happy, since I started this as just as hobby.
So, have a nice week people :-P
EDIT: Damn, this blog got too long, haha...
I am happy to say, that after taking a time off from a lot of things during the holidays, I have now resumed working full time on this game.
I am still confident that this is set to be completed before May 2011 ends. I might request your help for a closed beta! I'll blog about it when the time comes.
A good thing (I suppose?) is that the idea I have in my head about this game has not radically changed. So there's no danger of abandoning it or re-starting from scratch.
Now... It's just a matter of forging these ideas and plot into an actual game (and we all know that's the hard part, eh?).
Second, I'm also thinking about implementing a "bestiary" of sorts combined with some kind of "scan" skill. The basic idea would be that as you kill more and more of each kind of foe, a "bestiary" screen would be updated with more info about those enemies: elemental weaknesses, known attacks, etc.
Any suggestions on that? Given that this game isn't HUGE in scope and there are not bound to be HUNDREDS of different kinds of enemies, is it even worth it? Anyway, I kinda like the idea and will investigate upon it.
Finally, a crappy screenshot of a map I just threw together in like 15 minutes (yes I stayed up all night just playing with RPG Maker):
The idea is that there will be a lot of these caves scattered about the land, with treasures and things inside of them randomized (some ocassional character might even be there asking for a micro-quest). The Knight Richard (A new minor character that joins your party!) wondering about the bonfire (do people still live in caves in Whitecroft?)
The green glow thingies are your Herbalism skill letting you know you can gather ingredients.
The blue glow thingies appear thanks to your Blacksmithing skill, which lets you mine nodes for different ores.
So, that's about it! A lot of work remains to be done for Legacy of the Guilds, but I'm learning a lot of things, even delving into the Script Editor and doing minor touches to stuff, and that makes me happy, since I started this as just as hobby.
So, have a nice week people :-P
EDIT: Damn, this blog got too long, haha...
