TELL CRAZE: WHY IS YOUR RPG FUN?

Note that I never actually named any games or provided a link to any downloads. Like you said, I was describing DESIGN features.

post=135575
Chill, bro, I wasn't talking about you in particular. You're not guilty of coming across as a marketer.

I'll step out until I have time for a proper response to the OP, as I had hoped to do initially.

Fair enough. You just hit one of my pet peeve nerves. I generally don't like when people deem posts "proper" or "improper", unless it's in jest.

I never understood how Final Fantasies 8 and up were fun.

Well, as with everything subjective, what is "fun" to someone may not be "fun" to everyone. But being such an amateur game designer, I'm pretty much going to follow suit with Kentona and to try and rip off what games I think are fun. Games like Castlevania, Metroid, Zelda, Golden Sun, and the like... games that focus heavily on exploration, puzzle solving, and utilizing the environment in order to get through dungeons. Battles are fun, but more often than not in RPGs, I feel like battles detract from what I really want to do: traverse dungeons and find treasure!

I like being able to explore large levels with plenty of secrets and hidden items. I like solving puzzles that comprise an entire dungeon, as opposed to single-room puzzles (example: I prefer a rising-water dungeon akin to Zelda, not an arrow puzzle akin to Pokemon), but also enjoy single-room puzzles from time to time. I like utilizing items and spells to overcome obstacles. I like the progression of a game to be defined what items you've acquired and areas you've explored, and not by what dungeon you're on.

I like challenging battles, but would rather they not be central to the gameplay. I like having to dodge projectiles, and utilize the environment in order to defeat enemies.

I like secrets to be -really- hidden. Like in Castlevania or Metroid. Some walls could just be blown up, and behind the wall would be a room full of treasure. Contrastly, some walls NEEDED to be blown up in order to complete the game. But I like that feeling of finding a new room through pure explorative ambition.

I like having to backtrack. I like going through a dungeon where everything seems closed off and impossible to reach, and then going back later in the game with all my new items and spells and being able to explore all those areas that were unreachable before.

I enjoy a variety in enemies. Enemies that just attack you are boring. I like enemies to move all around and make you WORK to hit them.
I also enjoy having to utilize monsters as an element of the puzzle I'm trying to solve. Like making a patrolling enemy step on a switch to open a door. That is cool to me.


In any case, I hope to include all these things in the game I'm making. I'll find it fun even if you don't.

The real FUN part about my game is that your character is very customizable and the player is thus able to choose the level of difficulty, speed of progression, and story arcs of the game. It is a real "Role Playing" experience, I believe.

Also, I wanted to make a game with no real "grinding" required. I hate having to leave a certain dungeon to go back to town and buy potions or whatnot, or to stay in one area because monsters are too difficult. I THINK I found a way to resolve that problem with this game, but some people like grinding so as stated before, fun is a very subjective term.

I think we try and take our personal fun factor perspectives and implement them into our games as best we can, regardless of the audience. That is why some games have both 1 and 5 start reviews.

I enjoy writing things, and I reason that if I had fun writing it, there is a pretty reasonable chance someone will enjoy reading it.

post=135584
Rather than trying to do a million things at once and trying to cater to all audiences, I think the key is finding the one key strength of your game and pushing it to its absolute limit. That's what Call of Duty does. That's what Puzzle Quest does. That's what Street Fighter does. And that's why when you sometimes play a demo for a game, it never feels as good as the full experience.

Find the one key mechanic and drive it into the ground. Watch this nerdy guy to see what I'm talking about.

I agree with the spirit of what you're trying to say, but be careful, FFXIII did this and failed miserably.

post=135591

post=135584
Rather than trying to do a million things at once and trying to cater to all audiences, I think the key is finding the one key strength of your game and pushing it to its absolute limit. That's what Call of Duty does. That's what Puzzle Quest does. That's what Street Fighter does. And that's why when you sometimes play a demo for a game, it never feels as good as the full experience.

Find the one key mechanic and drive it into the ground. Watch this nerdy guy to see what I'm talking about.

I agree with the spirit of what you're trying to say, but be careful, FFXIII did this and failed miserably.

I actually enjoyed FFXIII's Battle System Exhibition, but yeah -- it would've been nice to have had a recurring minigame. I can only take so many battles. That tidbit is probably what keeps FF13 from being a solid A instead of an A- for me.

No I mean, the best part of FFXIII WAS the battles. That was the mechanic they focused on (along with the graphics...arguably they focused on the graphics more than absolutely anything). They poured the entire effort of the gameplay on the battles, and as a result...everything else got left behind. Sure, the story isn't too bad, and the characters (especially Sazh) were done pretty decently, but gameplay wise? Nothing, man. It pales in comparison to FF's like FFIX and FFXII where there was so much the gameplay offered and so much to do at any given time. But with FFXIII, instead of diversifying what the player could do, all you do is fight shit.

It was absolutely maddening that the only thing to do in FFXIII was cutscene/battle/cutscene/battle/cutscene/battle so on and so forth.

Because, and a lot of other people apparently, didn't find the battles that fun to remove every other game mechanic as if they were mutually exclusive (they aren't).