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author=Craze
i've seen too many nifty-looking games that are just boring button-mashing battles and walking through corridors.


I think part of the reason you see so many of those types of games is because RPG Maker is a very easy engine to inject art into, which leads to a lot of devs overlooking or outright ignoring numerous other aspects of RPG design. I guess if RM excels at anything, it's making "pretty" games a cinch.
Putting a solid hour into more ice slidey puzzles... Half the dungeon layout is done.

Was gonna redo the first of 4 sectors because it's too easy, but hey, people who hate ice puzzles should be able to get at least 1 of the 4 boss-weakener gimmicks with little pain.

Second one is decently challenging and has an optional very frustrating puzzle that will hold loot.

Third "skeleton" layout is done, just need to puzzle it up and create zones for monster patrols and NPCs. And I'm going to plonk an optional "tower" mini-dungeon there with some hard mini-ice puzzles and a miniboss (fan request to add more diversity to dungeon). Clearly, this is the spot in this dungeon for a Special Weapon, and I should make it a good one.

And finally...I'm feeling stupidly ambitious for the final sector. I'm going to attempt a giant freakin' ice lake with little islands, so you're jumping blind on some slides. Will try to have loot to make it worth it, and make the puzzles themselves not so hard to mitigate frustration. XD
Seiromem
I would have more makerscore If I did things.
6375
I'm working on a simple 3-person RPG =o
I plan for an hour of content!
I plan for death!
I plan for despair!
I plan for Atmosphere!
I plan for Pain!
I plan for comfort.
I have no plan.
Plans are for the weak.
Chaos is the prize.
@Craze


Oh, thanks for the advice! Don't worry, no offense taken! :3 It's rather that I don't really know if our mapping is good or not? I've played a bunch of RPGs, but in regards of deving, I'm always really skeptical about my work. It might be because I'm too harsh on myself, or just that I'm right about not being good.

I'll just post some more screenshots, so maybe you can help us with some opinions on that matter? Or any indications of good map making from other projects you might know of?



Regarding battles, I really hate when turn-based battles play out so dumbly they're better as autobattles, so I'm giving so much thought into making our systems interesting that I'm going crazy here. >XD
The artist is a huge fan of good combat in gaming in general, and I'm more of a story-freak, so we're joining our forces to create something pleasant focused on these two features, with some cool art as background.
We did a small 20ish minutes project in RPG maker before this one, with default assets, plugin-less and very little depth, It's not lots of experience, but it's something.
We wanted to explore more of the program using our own assets, but I'm not sure we're ready. (or plugin list looking like a mess says a lot about this)
author=Xenomic
So I'm currently stuck designing a boss. And having problem with said boss:


Nirai Kanai: Removes all buffs from the party and prevents buffs from being applied. Used as first action of the battle.
Spirit World Demise: Inflicts unblockable damage to the party equal to character's current MP x5.
Ninth Reincarnation: Grants Absorb Damage: 10% and Return Damage: 20% for X turns.
Senji Ryakketsu: Reverses physical/magical resistances. Nullifies one while being weak to the other.
Cosmic Liner: Inflicts 3000 Mystic-elemental damage to one.
Time Stop: Inflicts minor Mystic-elemental damage and Time Stop: 15 turns to one.


Reacts to specific commands. If a character uses a command 5 times, then that command is Sealed for X turns.

That's what I have so far. What's not here are Night (Inflicts Sleep to all enemies and allies who are not immune to Sleep) and White Wind (Restores HP to all allies equal to caster's current HP. If current HP is greater than 9999, heals 9999 instead). White Wind isn't going to come back in this fight, but Night will. The thing about Akyuu is I'm trying to make her super defensive, using defensive skills to deal with the party (such as what Ninth Reincarnation does), but I'm having problems coming up with GOOD defensive skills. In addition, Akyuu's native ability is "The ability to remember what she's seen once", which is what the gimmick is trying to allude to. However, I'm not sure how I'd go about doing it that way (I mean, if a character used Items once, she'd know all about it from that point onwards, so if that same character used it again, she'd do some sort of counter to it or something). I dunno, anyone got any good ideas on how to deal with this fight? It's one of the few bosses that's got me completely stumped, and I need to get her done before I can move onto the next boss that needs looked at. >_<


Hope it's not too late to throw in my idea for your boss.

Core mechanic: whenever your party repeats the same combination of moves, the parties turn is nullified and a party member instantly dies.
Ninth Reincarnation: Absorb 25% damage, reflect 25% damage, and take the remaining 50%. Used on the end of the first turn, and lasts the entire battle.
Spirit World Demise: Damage to all party members equal to ~50%. Used every 3rd turn or so.
Senji Ryakketsu: Reverses physical/magical resistances. Nullifies one while being weak to the other.

First thing is trim down the skill list while making each more meaningful. The core mechanic represents her using her native ability to counter the party. An example of what I mean by the parties combination of moves would be: first party member attacks + second member uses Fireball + third member uses Potion. This makes the ability more threatening than the original "if a character uses a command 5 times" while giving the player room to switch up the party's moves each turn. Just make sure it's clear to the player how the mechanic works.

With Ninth Reincarnation, the boss will be taking 1/4 damage the entire battle. To balance, you can give her 1/4 hp. This makes her feel defensive, while not drawing out the battle. The reason for using it at the end of the first turn, rather than be a battle long passive, is it gives a clever player an advantage going into the fight a second time if they happen to lose.

The other two skills are simply to play into the core mechanic by limiting the parties moves and forcing repetitive combinations. The damage skill isn't threatening on its own, but now the player has to think of unique ways to heal everyone before the attack is used again. The physical/magical resistance reverse is there for the same reason - force the party into making the same combination of all physical/all magical moves that turn.

The battle is simple and clear. The boss is trying to lock the party into a state where they have to make a move they've already made, but the player has many choices on how to be effective without have the party repeat a previous combination.
Working on a new sprite base.



And other pixel stuff.



author=Luchino
And other pixel stuff.


That is a BEAUTIFUL sunset. :o
Working on a tileset/autotile tutorial for VX Ace. Been brainstorming and experimenting for a while, and yesterday I wrote up an outline that I think covers everything I want to say.

What are tiles, tilesets, and autotiles? Why do we use them?

Importing tilesets
Map editing (including shift-copy)
Layers and how Ace decides which to use
Tileset modes (including VX Compatible)
Tile flags
A2 bush and counter
A1 ship and boat passability
4-dir passability for star and autotiles
The 4 autotile templates and the 48 versions of each autotile
Converting between autotile_type and tile_id
Terrain-based battlebacks
List of all autotile_types and their sheet, template, layer, and special behavior


Now I need to draw my demonstration tilesheets and get my event scripts working so I can finish my research.
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
I ran my first PlayStation 4 build today! It took a couple of hours to get all the SDKs and firmware and engine add-ons to sync up in harmony, but once that was settled, it was surprisingly easy to deploy, and seems to load quickly and run well. Only issue now is a hang related to a missing DLL (I think so, anyway), so I'll work on that tomorrow.
author=Ramshackin
author=Xenomic
So I'm currently stuck designing a boss. And having problem with said boss:


Nirai Kanai: Removes all buffs from the party and prevents buffs from being applied. Used as first action of the battle.
Spirit World Demise: Inflicts unblockable damage to the party equal to character's current MP x5.
Ninth Reincarnation: Grants Absorb Damage: 10% and Return Damage: 20% for X turns.
Senji Ryakketsu: Reverses physical/magical resistances. Nullifies one while being weak to the other.
Cosmic Liner: Inflicts 3000 Mystic-elemental damage to one.
Time Stop: Inflicts minor Mystic-elemental damage and Time Stop: 15 turns to one.


Reacts to specific commands. If a character uses a command 5 times, then that command is Sealed for X turns.

That's what I have so far. What's not here are Night (Inflicts Sleep to all enemies and allies who are not immune to Sleep) and White Wind (Restores HP to all allies equal to caster's current HP. If current HP is greater than 9999, heals 9999 instead). White Wind isn't going to come back in this fight, but Night will. The thing about Akyuu is I'm trying to make her super defensive, using defensive skills to deal with the party (such as what Ninth Reincarnation does), but I'm having problems coming up with GOOD defensive skills. In addition, Akyuu's native ability is "The ability to remember what she's seen once", which is what the gimmick is trying to allude to. However, I'm not sure how I'd go about doing it that way (I mean, if a character used Items once, she'd know all about it from that point onwards, so if that same character used it again, she'd do some sort of counter to it or something). I dunno, anyone got any good ideas on how to deal with this fight? It's one of the few bosses that's got me completely stumped, and I need to get her done before I can move onto the next boss that needs looked at. >_<
Hope it's not too late to throw in my idea for your boss.

Core mechanic: whenever your party repeats the same combination of moves, the parties turn is nullified and a party member instantly dies.
Ninth Reincarnation: Absorb 25% damage, reflect 25% damage, and take the remaining 50%. Used on the end of the first turn, and lasts the entire battle.
Spirit World Demise: Damage to all party members equal to ~50%. Used every 3rd turn or so.
Senji Ryakketsu: Reverses physical/magical resistances. Nullifies one while being weak to the other.

First thing is trim down the skill list while making each more meaningful. The core mechanic represents her using her native ability to counter the party. An example of what I mean by the parties combination of moves would be: first party member attacks + second member uses Fireball + third member uses Potion. This makes the ability more threatening than the original "if a character uses a command 5 times" while giving the player room to switch up the party's moves each turn. Just make sure it's clear to the player how the mechanic works.

With Ninth Reincarnation, the boss will be taking 1/4 damage the entire battle. To balance, you can give her 1/4 hp. This makes her feel defensive, while not drawing out the battle. The reason for using it at the end of the first turn, rather than be a battle long passive, is it gives a clever player an advantage going into the fight a second time if they happen to lose.

The other two skills are simply to play into the core mechanic by limiting the parties moves and forcing repetitive combinations. The damage skill isn't threatening on its own, but now the player has to think of unique ways to heal everyone before the attack is used again. The physical/magical resistance reverse is there for the same reason - force the party into making the same combination of all physical/all magical moves that turn.

The battle is simple and clear. The boss is trying to lock the party into a state where they have to make a move they've already made, but the player has many choices on how to be effective without have the party repeat a previous combination.



Hm...it's not a bad idea, though already got it set up. : S I basically made it so that at the start of the fight, she gives a bit of dialogue that hints that using a specific command may trigger something bad (in this case, Doom: 20 turns which CAN be cured). The command varies from character to character (for instance, if Marisa uses Magic, it'll trigger on her, but any other command is fine. For Aya and Sakuya, this is set to Item. For Remilia, it's set to Attack. And so on and so forth). Since she already KNOWS what they're going to do, I think this is a fairer way of handling it without outright killing the player (your suggestion, which isn't a bad idea per say) or having a massive time limit before it goes off.

Ninth Reincarnation DOES sound interesting though, and I wonder if I shouldn't have that trigger alongside Nirai Kanai at the start of the fight (she still HAS to use them for them to go off, but that's 2 turns she's using to use them, which is fine. She only has 30,000 HP, which at that point isn't TOO much). Nirai makes it so that the player HAS to find other methods of fighting her without buffs (Aya takes a bit hit here since her Doublecast buff is useless, for instance), while if I make that version of Ninth Reincarnation used after/before Nirai, that'll make her defensive without having to reapply it all the time.

Though that would leave her with Spirit World Demise, which my version is kinda blah, though not sure what yours is about? 50% current HP? Max HP? MP?? And I'd like for her to at least have some other offensive options that are defensive too (Night being the big one. 100% chance of Sleep without 100% resistance is going to be brutal. Time Stop is also offensive but super defensive as there's nothing that can prevent Time Stop status. Unless I somehow made Nirai Kanai negate that too oops!). Cosmic Liner...I guess I gave that to her just so she HAD a solid offensive attack, and the only one too. Hmm....
Welp! Seems for whatever reason, my MP+% coding is being REALLY weird despite not doing so before, so probably just going to drop all the +% stuff. 2K3 isn't built for that anyways, but it sucks since now I have a big void in my crafting shop....uuuuuuuugh!!!
author=Xenomic
Though that would leave her with Spirit World Demise, which my version is kinda blah, though not sure what yours is about? 50% current HP? Max HP? MP??


I meant it to be a standard magic attack with the stats balanced in a way to deal around 50% Max HP to the average party member. It wasn't meant to kill the player, just force them to heal in a predictable way that triggered my suggested version of the core mechanic. It would be better to replace it with something that works towards your new version of the mechanic.
I've been trying my best to focus on a game which I've been working on for 3 years now and I've only just started to put together a demo to release at the end of the year. (Anyone have any tips on how to stay focused on a project?)

This project is actually kinda special to me and went through a lot of re-imaginings to get it to where it is today and I'm quite excited to see if people play it.
author=Aquablue11
I've been trying my best to focus on a game which I've been working on for 3 years now and I've only just started to put together a demo to release at the end of the year. (Anyone have any tips on how to stay focused on a project?)

This project is actually kinda special to me and went through a lot of re-imaginings to get it to where it is today and I'm quite excited to see if people play it.


I know that feeling so well.

I wish I had tips for how to stay focused on a long project like that, but I don't. That's part of why it's taking so long on my end (That and school being insanely frustrating)
Y'know I really should be working on stuff that's actually going to be in the first demo.

OzzyTheOne
Future Ruler of Gam Mak
4676
Currently writing the main plot of a project I started today. Title of the game so far is just this placeholder "Mercenary game" and as you might guess, it has do to with mercenaries.

I'd like to focus mainly on my other project, Assassination Heist, but I have to do something with the huge influx of ideas I've been getting lately.

How do you guys handle huge influx of ideas?
author=OzzyTheOne
How do you guys handle huge influx of ideas?


I Come up with even more ideas, start documenting them in a large GDD.txt file, maybe have multiple text files for story and gameplay and themes, then start prototyping and eventually just get nothing done unless it's small enough to finish in a month tops. XD

I have no less than 4 ideas for games all in various stages of development sitting on my hard drive. A monster-huntery game in my main game universe, a thief RPG set in that world with a nifty lockpicking minigame, a well documented in text sci-fi dungeon crawler, another pretty much documented standard RPG in my main universe, and my perpetually-taking-forever major project that's slowly inching forward between school, illness and other stuff. x_x
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
When you have too many ideas, the key is to never do any of them and be constantly disappointed in yourself
Seiromem
I would have more makerscore If I did things.
6375
You guys have a lot of ideas?
Aw...