SINGLE AREA RPG

yes

edit: make it

author=JosephSeraph
make it one tower
that's tall and has a lot of doors
and spans dimensions with each door leading to one which is a whole world in itself
uh

no but really i think craze's the perfect guy for that kinda thing. and yeah it can totes be done. Radical Dreamers, though not specifically an RPG, develops all inside the Viper Manor in an interesting way btw

Isn't that basically the whole of the Final Fantasy Legend series?

What if progressing makes the screen expand? Like you start in a 4x4 area and you exam-

brb makin gam

Dark Souls is an example of a game that has only four areas, and 80% of the game takes place in one of them. That area is quite large though, it's an entire undead city with a dozen distinct sub-zones, which have widely varying appearances.

To pull it off without relying on a lot of very different sub-zones that feel like distinct areas, you'd have to reuse the same places lots of times, having them change over and over. This would lend itself well to a very linear story-driven game, or a branching story-driven game where your choices have permanent consequences on the world around you. This would also play very well to one of the strengths of this approach - the setting would become very important, as important as any character, and the player would really feel it when things changed. It would not work so well with an open-ended game, since beyond the first part of the game there would be very little exploration. And many enemies would have to disappear forever, which would interfere with things like crafting systems and grinding for skill points, so you probably wouldn't want to have a focus on building up and customizing the powers and equipment of the player's character.



In Final Fantasy 6 you start out the game by invading Narshe's town area and mines in magitek armor. Then you escape through a second part of the mines. Then later you come back through the mines again backwards and they have different enemies. Then you have a big battle event at the north end of town. Then the town area becomes friendly and you can visit the shops. Then you come back later and do an event to rescue a moogle in the town. Then you come back again a fifth time near the end of the game and the town has been overrun, and you travel through it to find some magicite and your moogle friend again and also a sasquatch.

Now imagine if Narshe were maybe about two or three times as big, and you went through each of those sections two or three more times. Imagine that Kefka set up some Imperial tents at the edge of town, and was meeting King Edgar in Narshe instead of Figaro near the beginning of the game. When the meeting went wrong, the player had to run around Narshe helping to stop the Imperials who had set the town on fire. And then imagine that the Returners' Hideout were in a section of the mines. And upon emerging, Narshe, instead of South Figaro, had been taken over by the Empire, and Locke's stealth mission took place there, including the rescue of Celes and their subsequent escape through some caves (which Narshe has plenty of). And so forth. It's easy to imagine just expanding the player's escapades in that one town into an entire game.

Shrink High takes place in Yabaize High for about 95% of the gameplay. There's a few quests at the beginning and the end of the game where you have to go to Mt. Ura, but they tend to be short outside of the final dungeon. Given what happens around the 5-6 hour mark (hint: It's very, very obvious), it is quite understandable how it works out.

Remnants of Isolation is all in one (large) building, albeit with variations in area theme.

bahleted

I've thought about making a game only on one map. Many people here are aware of my affinity for large maps, so this should come at no surprise. I would have used a modified version of an RTP tileset, and I would have handled the interiors in this manner:



(Sorry for the poor map; I put it together in about two minutes just to demonstrate.)

All of the towns, dungeons, mountains etc would have been on one, gigantic open-world map which would feature both interiors and exteriors. Obviously I never really got anywhere with the idea, though, but it's definitely something that I think is worth pursuing.

Do you mean a whole game happening in one space, like

A room that constantly changes as the player progresses, adding stuff and taking away stuff to create more obstacles until the game is solved?

That's how it came across in my head ^^;

author=Ilan14
I would believe that with "Single Area", it would mean "Only One Map". Or am I misinterpreting things here?

This is what I'm thinking. Only one map and no other areas where you have to teleport to.
I think with a large area you obviously have more freedom, like I have a city map that is 174x68 but it also has many inner building maps so doesn't count as one single map, though if I limited myself to just the main city map I could still work with it.
It would be making a game in one single default sized map that would be difficult and interesting. Not something I would want to make or play personally, but I like exploration so

author=skeleshark
And I don't mean in one screen, I mean as in a single town, single forest, a house, etc.

If that's the case then all my games stay in one location which is the same city for two and my newest game is all in one city.