YOUR FIRST GAME

I still can't believe I remember this, but I actually did make game when I was like 5 or 6.

It didn't really have a name. It was made on RPG Maker 2000 on my grandpa's computer. It was the next candidate to be called the worst game ever. It was very short, had no monsters, no story, no anything but just a guy you play as to walk around some useless maps that were crappy. Then again, what would you expect out of a 5-year-old?

Thankfully, the game is gone forever since the computer it was on is gone. So now I'm just in a creative block with RPG Maker. :(

My first game was a remake of Lunar Silver Star Story Complete for RPG Maker 95. It used all the default graphics and used the most bare-bone interpretation of the plotline possible. It was terrible. And I wish I still had it.

My first game was Mario on flash. I was around 10 then. It was ye olde platformer, but with a sick twist: wall jumping.

But I didn't finish it so yeah...

Oh man... my first game was a tabletop thing, called Future Fantasy, and it was-- well okay it was admittedly simple enough to be good and easy to get into since you could pretty quickly make your own campaigns without having to do roleplay shit.

Basically I provided laminated grids and whiteboard markers, and you drew maps according to the thing, then you'd put 1, 2 3 etc for events, and the GM looked at the sheet when the players hit that square and wrote off what would happen.

It was a simplified easy to learn D&D, basically.

But since I want to shit all over a bad game I made lemme show you a remnant of the gagging abortion that is my first RPG maker game.

Still probably plays better than FF13 though.

I consider this game like Terra, a failure.

My first game was called Legend of Mango. Being my biggest dream to make a game, I thought the game was awesome.


It had horrible grammar and raining INSIDE buildings! xD I miss that game though, since it had some really memorable characters. It actually got deleted from a failed USB transfer close to its completion. Man, was I devastated after that :3

I'm not going to count that game I tried to make when I was 12 while over at a friend's house. It was awful, involving a king sitting on a stool in a courtyard, dropping the hero into a whirlpool for no explained reason to walk on minecart tracks and fight an orc who was really just 3 slimes, before shooting you out of a well... x_x Oh, and the plot was literally "me and my best friends team up to beat up 8 kings who rule a bunch of islands and end up ruling the world, mwahaha".

...Cut me some slack, I was 12! XD

My first serious attempt at a game was "The Last Mystic", in RMXP. Essentially, it was about a kid in a small hidden forest village, who is about to undergo the ceremony that will give him magic. Surprise surprise, he's the last of the kids to be gifted the magic when the Evil Empire (TM) comes in, stuns every magic user in the village, steals the magic stone that gives them their magic, nearly kills the hero (who is saved from death by "angels"), and he wakes up to see his village on fire.

Cue adventure to find out why the Mystic stone was stolen, and get revenge on the mother!@#$er who led the attack. Teammates included a totally-the-canon-love-interest-despite-me-giving-you-options-redhead-dual-wielding-thief-girl who was forced into stealing (whom you save from execution in the FIRST TOWN under convoluted circumstances, and is actually the last of the ninja bloodlines), a super grumpy and cynical 25 year old world weary soldier who USED to work for the guy who did the raid on your village, but quit and then found himself fleeing from an politically-convenient arranged marriage to a downright psychopath princess (who would be revealed to be a snake monster as you save him from the arranged marriage when she threatens to kill his family if he doesn't comply), a definitely tsundere elf because fantasy worlds need elves (or so my 19 year old self decided), and a rebel outlaw mass-killer guy with guns, when guns were declared to be impossible for the setting because reasons, making him super dangerous. Oh, and the whole reason the stone was stolen was because the various countries are always being restless under the empire, so the emperor wanted to unseal the underworld to control demons and thus control the world with an iron fist (because he was afraid that without the empire directly controlling the various countries, they would IMMEDIATELY go back to fighting wars with one another, which to be fair, was a very likely possibility), and the stone was one of three "keys" needed.

If it sounds overcomplicated and cliche and like I buried some good ideas under overcomplicated cliches, that's because it is. And delivered just about as badly as the above paragraph. And this is AFTER I had gone back and revised it for the 6th time. Oh, and the balance was HORRIBLE. Just...HORRIBLE. I had to "upgrade" the "useless" skill the hero starts with through a cutscene to something else (because lowering the enemy accuracy by 30% on command for almost free was WAY too good, despite the negligable damage), because I was too newb to re-adjust the MP curve, for crying out loud!

No, I will not provide a playable version for you guys. I recently looked back over it and WOW...So lame. I can't believe I thought it was good at the time. ;_; It was so dumb and I'm slightly ashamed of it and would rather no one ever had to subject themselves to it. XD

Legit, the only part of the game I'm even remotely proud of is that mining town I made, which had some great NPC actions, a good little self-contained-plot about the villagers being ordered to keep mining despite dangerous earthquakes, and the hero needing to gain their trust, get the only key to the lower levels, get past the goblins there and kill off the source of the quakes. Which was a blind and starved troll that had eaten an Earth Elemental Sprite and was randomly smacking one of the main supports for the mine. It was a good dungeon and town, if a little unoriginal.

Now I'm 26, and I'm a MUCH better writer. I have one short-length "serious" RPG out that despite being a little obvious in the themes is actually pretty good, with actually developed characters (and a balanced and challenging battle system), and I have an in-progress game that's lighthearted and funny with great characters (and a REALLY neat battle system that I'm super proud of)...while also dealing with a handful of serious themes and technically being a metaphor for a pair of people overcoming a breakup. XD

I really do feel like I keep on growing and getting better as a writer. Every time I work on something, I feel myself gettign better and better.

author=LockeZ
I love that in RPG worlds if you're more than 20 years old you're automatically "the old, world weary" person and if you're more than 12 years old you're too old to be a prodigy

wait did i say love

i meant the other thing, what's the other one you can do instead of love

XD I hate it too. While it makes some degree of sense that the adventurers are somewhat young, since the grown adults are more likely to say "screw this, I have a family/business/whatever to take care of, I can't afford to take stupid risks on a harebrained adventure!", the whole "no party members over 18" trope REALLY annoys me these days. It makes no sense that a pack of kids are able to outsmart and outfight grown adults who have had years longer to learn proper tactics and strategy.

Most RPG kid heroes should be getting their asses handed to them, honestly. :P

This is leaving aside that kids aren't all that interesting as older characters who have developed their own flaws and baggage that have become tightly bound to their personality.

author=LockeZ
I love that in RPG worlds if you're more than 20 years old you're automatically "the old, world weary" person and if you're more than 12 years old you're too old to be a prodigy

wait did i say love

i meant the other thing, what's the other one you can do instead of love

At first, I thought by 'RPG World' you meant these forums. But still, totally agree q_q

author=shogungari
I can say it has a pirate healer as a party member. As in, a pirate, who can heal people. One of his shields is a mug of ale.

I like this. It amuses me. XD

author=Liberty
As for prodigies, I guess it's more the shock-factor - the younger the child the more shocking it is that they can out-do those older than them.

At some point I'm gonna write a game about a two year old who saves the world.

He's gonna not even talk because two year olds are more fun when they just make the occasional silly sound and otherwise get shit done.

This annoyance with the trope of fuckin' teenagers saving the world is a victim of that trope's own merit, I'd wager. Look how many god damn games have done it and become successful, so it's sort of become its own enemy.

I like games where age is irrelevant or where its varied, Final Fantasy X comes to mind, Auron was my favourite character, he was 35, and was more competent than basically every one else.

The kids like Rikku and Tidus were hopeless. Khimari while barely ever on screen, seemed to handle fairly well.

And Yuna, ah fuck, moment she's out of our reach she's gettin kidnapped by al bhed or molested by seymour bloody naive skank don't know when to take a hint.

Lulu was also fairly cool, the characters with more age had more knowledge too, Auron especially so, since he was 35 WHEN HE DIED and not all up.

I've basically made games that have diversity, or where age is irrelevant, see Intelligence for this example, yeah they're only 4 or so human years old, but their mammals like cats and dogs n' shit, so who knows their actual age.

Then in Menagerie there's a 20 year old dwarf, an elf with an unknown age, but she's apparently immortal so god only knows, then there's a Goblin whose lifespan is only thirty years and he's already got facial hair, then there's an Alien who's nine (and his species can live upwards of 400 years).

Anyway, to go to a more classic example to save me further tooting my own horn, DooM95, one middle aged man who has a gun and superpowers (superpowers being able to run half the speed of a rocket while weighed down by a garageload of guns, ammunition and his marine armor.) and he shot demons to save his bunny rabbit (oh and Earth I guess).

NOW HIS BUNNY IS DEAD! WAS IMPALED ON A STICK! THEM DEMONS WERE HUNGRY FOR SOME BUNNY BITES AND THE DUDE'S LIKE "NO FUCK YOU, I'M GONNA TAKE IT'S SEVERED HEAD OFF YOU AND BEAT YOU TO DEATH WITH IT!"

Then he did and Earth was saved, it was awesome... the end.

But yeah, all depends on tone and theme.

As for the topic, my first game (only did doodles with my bro) was a sort of doom like game, where you played as a cat through a super-sized level.

This idea later bloomed into Hellcat.

Then there was this weird one where you were a piece of string with little clothe legs and a head sewn on and it was like a sort of platformery thing inspired a little by Spyro, one of the bosses was a giant pair of scissors that cuts the level in half and you have to run from it.

I'm going to revisit that idea in Unity sometime.