WHAT WAS YOUR GAME SUPPOSED TO BE?

bahleted

When I first encountered RM and got so stoked by it, I burned through Pokémon Hunter so fast that it pretty much came out exactly as it was 'supposed' to be. But that was then. Now that it's part of a series I plan to continue, I can say that PH4 is more like what it's 'supposed' to be; same with the 2nd and 3rd before it. Hard to believe my RM high carried me through three complete games before I started questioning my design choices and taking it seriously. Then motivation dropped as community interest proved nonexistent and the program lost its charm. But I still want to finish PH4 as an example of what I can do with it, and to give a hopefully quality end to this chapter of the series.

I suppose now is as good a time as any to say that PH4 will be the last Pokémon Hunter I make. But I'm not dropping the series after this, no, I'm removing the Pokémon and going the 'originality' route (whatever that is pfff). Really, Pokémon was the only thing about them that wasn't my own contribution, and if it weren't for them, I could even sell the games (as terrible .05 cent RTP RPGs).

So, yeah, the future is bright I guess??? BUT, I still have to finish PH4 first. And that...well, I guess that's kinda what this thread is all about. If I ever finish it, I think PH4 will be what I intended. Then, when I finally move on, the next will be more like what I wanted the series to be.

Valthirian Arc was supposed to have a better gameplay, more classes and better system...But lack of time :C

We had so much plans for it too. I remember it started as a Norse Inspired mythology thing then it moved to some fantasy school. Funny how it jumped.

This is a great topic. I want to contribute but I have to think about it for a while first.

Okay, so to be brief the original Iron Gaia initially comprised the entire plot of ig1 and ig2, and i realized to ever release a "finished" game I was going to have to split it up. Iron Gaia was actually, originally, going to be basically a 'four elemental crystals' type gaem with different flavor text, and actually IG2 would have retained some elements of this.

Basically you would have had to defeat/destroy/escape from the Iron Gaia but that would just be the first half of the game, after that you'd crash land on the planet below and have to round up (either defeat or possibly acquire and merge?) the four aspects of the gaia (earth, ice, fire and void I think) for some reason I can't really remember. That second half was to be IG2, although by then the plot had become significantly more complicated and less symmetrical.

When it was only after 3 years that I was finally reaching the halfway point I decided it was time to rethink how I wanted to distribute this. Still, about HALF of the original characters/party members I'd planned for IG1 never saw play in ANY version of any Iron Gaia game.

So IG1 is a good example of a project that strayed MASSIVELY from the original concept (like, cut off literally half of it) but still managed to get finished.

Next up: Between Two Worlds (ha ha ha)...

My projects do tend to change quite a bit. Sometimes I realize I can't pull off my idea, sometimes I find out it sucks, or that it would take way too much work to do it.

Paradise Blue started out as someone elses project. All I was doing was modifying it to give them feedback. I ended up liking it so I just went replacing things and making it my own. First it started out with pure NES FF graphics, but a lot of the basics were still there. Story wise, it was really later in development when it'd fully form into what it is now, but I did have the same basic progression even if it was with some different characters. Size wise I didn't have an epic RPG in mind and it probably came out longer than I initially planned it to be. Overall the graphical remake was probably the biggest change I made to the game.

Azulea is my longest running project, and that one got caught up in the remake loop that plagues other projects. It was started in about 2006, as just plans. I made a little bit of it as an action RPG but never got far. It was pushed to a side anyway when I was working on Paradise Blue. When I got it back, I was asked to make it a one week thing and see how far I got. Still was an ABS but had a different idea, on where levelling only determined how much points you had for equipping stuff. After testing and testing I realized this wasn't going to hold up for a full game. I then went back to the DBS in RM2k3 to try it out and was actually making some progress. I was worried about the story though and went to show it to some people who agreed with my worries. I had a great story idea one day, randomly, which changed over the story quite a bit. I decided to stick with it and expand on it. However, Nessiah asked me to try RMVX for it so after some convincing I changed over. Now I am on the battle system before I can go on and work on the game, plot and maps themselves. Was pushed aside so I can work on commissions and Adalyn.

Island Sky got remade graphically and the maps changed, but other than that I think that one kept very faithfully to what I intended to do with it. The remake even had some extra minigames and levels that the original didn't. It is a 2002 game so it definitely shows its age but I had fun writing the characters silly dialogue and the silly enemies too.

Island Dreams got remade a bunch of times. To the point where it now exists as Adalyn. It was initially a shooter ABS about a girl called Vivian, but I never had a real story in mind for it. I did make some graphics for it but I was stuck on the battle system part so I didn't really go on far. Then for a contest game, I decided to try that on RMVX instead. I figured since the Vivian design there was so different than the one I'm using for Azulea, I'd just make her into a new character, who ended up being Adalyn. I had my friend write the story as I was busy enough making the battle system and knew he'd do a better job of it than I would. It didn't come out like I wanted it to, but that was mainly because I didn't have the time to do so. I'm using those ideas now. As far as it being like the first Island Dreams, even that one was very different in practice than what I had in mind, so it's okay.

Rubi is likely to get a far more Asian setting and to be expanded if I ever work on it, but since I haven't had the time to plan for it, I don't know how much it will change.

I'm far too laidback to be upset about my games changing from their original design. Usually for me it's changed because it initially sucked or didn't work for a longer term (especially since I start with the battle system).

I started making Vindication in 2001, when I found out that RPG Maker 2000 had been translated into English. I finished it in 2010. I'm still making edits and changes.

The first big change was to the engine. RPG Maker 2003 came out in, uh, 2003, obviously. And it included a method of importing an RPG Maker 2000 game and converting it to RM2K3. This took quite a bit of work, since it went from first-person turn-based battles to side-view ATB battles, but to be honest I hadn't put a lot of thought or effort into the battles at that point, so rebalancing them needed to be done anyway. I was three or four dungeons into making the game at that point. I was able to keep all my maps, story, and events.

The next big change was about a year later, to the connection to my previous game. Originally, Vindication was supposed to be a sequel to my RPG Maker 95 game, Double Trouble. In fact, it wasn't even called Vindication at that point. Since both games are largely comedy games, I entitled the sequel Double Trouble 2: The Third. Double Trouble was a game whose core ideal was "Lol I can make a game starring my friends and rip dozens of things off!" The heroes formed a group of rebels and called themselves Team Rocket, and did an extended version of the Team Rocket motto at every available opportunity while fighting the demonic empire. Fuck me, I was 15. Gradually I realized that Double Trouble was unbelievably awful and I needed to distance Vindication from it as much as possible. I renamed all the characters to not have the same names as the Double Trouble characters, renamed the game to Vindication, removed the playable sequence at the beginning of the game where you played through the final two battles of Double Trouble, and modified some minor plot elements that had only existed for the sake of continuity.

At this point I liked the game. I worked on it hard for some time, and got to what was supposed to be the midpoint of the game; the point where the main character leaves the team forever, and is replaced by his daughter for the rest of the game. But, it didn't feel like the midpoint of the game, and I wanted to release something. I tacked on an ending after the main character left, and released it as Vindication 0.8. There was no real final boss, and major plot elements were left hanging. One of the three primary villains was still alive! But I called it the temporary end of the game, and decided I was comfortable leaving it like that until I finished the rest of it. Which I was pretty sure would never happen.

Five years passed.

A friend found my game. He played it and gave me a lot of feedback. I somehow got interested again. I had been doing game design in the meantime on an online RPG - as a result I had a vastly better handle on gameplay and balance and general design theory than before. I redid most of the characters' skillsets. I redid most of the enemies' skillsets, and added a lot more variety to the enemies. I changed the way experience points worked. I redid about a third of the maps in the game from scratch, and made smaller improvements to a lot of the others. I added a hard difficulty mode. I added another three and a half dungeons' worth of gameplay - not after the current final boss, but before, because I actually liked how the game ended but I needed to add more content and fix the plot holes.

The game is now done. I'm still fixing issues as I become aware of them, but it's done.

Also, I am actually the lead designer for Duke Nukem Forever

Actually, RPG Maker 2003 was released late in 2002, but anyway.

The first four Dragon Kingdoms games are exactly as I meant them to be. Yeah, I didn't exactly aim for the stars, and it shows :\ However, this changed when I saw other RPG Maker games actually going places. Brandon Abley at one point (I think circa 2001) wondered what was the point of having a then-invisible series around. You guessed it, Dragon Kingdoms IV was originally even worse than the one now up on RMN.

While the Great Change (too much Captain SNES?) was a bit too late for DKIV, it came just in time for Dragon Kingdoms V. The series went from almost no ambition to almost being TOO ambitious. There were to be several optional areas, but they either were unfinished (originally the arena and the Greenland-like continent were supposed to have a lot more to them) or not even started. You were even supposed to go underwater at some point!

Did this all pay off? Well, I think it has. Maybe someday I'll even have an average-rated game ;) There's still room for improvement, of course, and I'm still making changes/adjustments whenever I get time.