ADDING TO MANY COOL SCRIPTS TO YOU XP / VX / ACE GAME

Get rid of all those gimmicks. You don't really need them.

Your friend doesn't seem capable of making a game, then. Gimmicks are fun, but too many of them aren't going to help the game. The story could get a pass if it's average and the gameplay is good enough to make up. But if he is just checking a list of things without caring if they make the game fun or not, then it's pointless. :|

I've found it's generally a good idea to pick one "gimmick" and work the rest of your scripts and game around that. The little things are fine - A minimap here, a caterpillar script there - but when you start adding too many fancy scripts, it gets needlessly complex. Pick one "big" script (like, for example, a skill combining script) and run with that. Make thousands of unique combinations if you want. Refine that single script and make it a primary feature in your game and you won't need tons of other scripts to make the game good.

This is exactly why I keep shifting back and forth between Rm2k3 and VXAce.

bahleted

author=LockeZ
Putting a system in your game because it exists is possibly the dumbest design paradigm I've ever heard in my life? That's like putting every single thing in your refrigerator on your lunch, because it's all there and it's so easy. The ketchup and mustard and relish, the salad dressing, the butter, the eggs, the bacon, the maple syrup, the diet pepsi, the steak sauce, both brands of barbeque sauce, the fresh mushrooms, the spinach salad, the leftover mashed potatoes and gravy, the bottled water, the balsamic vinegar, EVERYTHING GOES ON!

someone on the radio here actually did this. He put everything in a blender and whizzed it up. Meat pie, chips, tomato sauce, yoghurt, ice cream, relish, etc, etc.

He nearly threw up the moment he tried it.

And yes, it's a good metaphor for RM. Is it adding anything? In reality, you should be writing a basic outline for your game before beginning development and then tailoring/tweaking it to conform to what is actually possible, provided you don't have a scriptor of your own. Just dumping things into a project isn't going to work. Really, it never does, and it makes it feel clunky and uncomfortable.

For all the stuff you can do in Disgaea it's also very limited. There's zero exploration and it's completely linear. Every skill is learned the same way, and equipment only ever affects your stats and nothing else. It doesn't have CGI cut scenes or even basic 3D graphics.

All the stuff it does have works together to create a coherent experience. Its goal is to create a tactical RPG, where the combat is built around positioning to a greater degree than most tactical RPGs, and where the planning portion of the game is built around giving you freedom to make your own team and unlock types of team members as the game goes on. To do the second part it needs to have a lot of creative methods of grinding up those new team members - this is where a lot of the weird systems come into play. They picked very carefully what they needed to add to the game to make their basic plan work, what systems would fill certain gaps that the game would have without it, and they didn't really add anything else besides that.

For example, the ability to pick up and throw your characters adds an extra dimension to combat. The colored tiles and gems that that grant effects also add an extra dimension to combat. And the wild target zones of your attacks, which might hit the outline of a heart-shaped area in front of you or a 3x3 cross that's exactly six tiles away from you, also add another dimension to combat. But these three dimensions play off each-other. Either one by itself would feel flat, but they work together to make very movement-oriented battles. The character-tossing fills a hole in the design of the colortile system, letting you affect enemies as well as yourself, and also letting you use positioning to use characters as pseudo-tanks and glass cannons while still making use of the colortiles. Etc.

I didn't understand the throw mechanic and when it came to doing that level where you have to enter the starship I ended up finding a safe spot and spamming the lvl100 turrets with my Star Mage. I used up every single MP regenerative item in my inventory to do it. He leveled up like 30 levels.

Turns out you are just supposed to stack throw your way to the exit :x

It took FOREVER

There is a difference between not be able to adapt the scripts to your game and bugged scripts because the man I debugged a LOT of scripts and adapt some. So no, that's not entirely your friend's fault. I can assure you that. He just needs to concentrate on what is important in his game and most importantly HOW PLAYER IS GOING TO USE THESE SYSTEM.

I am saying this because a lot of mmropgs and aka the famous Skyrim have a lot of systems that ain't that needed (really) in their game. None told them to throw these away.