WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT? (GAME DEVELOPMENT EDITION)

Posts

BizarreMonkey
I'll never change. "Me" is better than your opinion, dummy!
1625
author=Someoneman
author=Rue
Hi, I am working on an Rpg maker game in RM2k. I read somewhere that it is illegal to make games with RM2k and distribute it. I am not trying to sell the game for money or anything. I am just wondering if I should just quit working on it because it might cause me problems with legal issues later?
It is illegal, as the English version of RM2K is free to download while the original version is paid software. However, I don't think anyone has ever actually been arrested for using it, so you should be alright.
inb4 They do another 2k3 on us only more years late and with even more brittle excuses in defense of it's money-milking self rather than the free albeit illegitimate version that everyone and their dog have only used because heaven forbid Enterbrain see an ideal investment when they're smacked in the face with it.

What I've been thinking about? Well, mostly the portraits for P:A, with how detailed the backgrounds are becoming it might be in better interests to draw portraits like this...


Rather than like this.
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
Games that use random battles and also have a few stationary, path-blocking touch battles in certain places in some dungeons aren't uncommon. Like, almost every game with random battles has its bosses and minibosses be touch battles, for example. And many games will also have dungeons where you fight, say, a group of guards with dialogue, blocking one of the doors. So it's not inherently problematic. You're just going to have several minibosses per dungeon.

Two things that these games tend to do though which are a pretty big deal:
1) You can see the touch encounters before you get in them. This means that the player won't get in a touch battle 1 tile after a random battle.
2) After a touch battle, the step counter for the next random battle is reset to zero. This means that the player won't get in a random battle 1 tile after a touch battle.

An alternate method is to put the touch battles on their own small map which doesn't have random battles, but put random battles in the rest of the dungeon. This method might actually work okay for you too, but it would affect your dungeon design.
I am browsing yanfly scripts and the lunatic battle system gives me an idea for a script. No idea if this has been made yet but I might like to have something like this for my game if possible: The less HP you have, the more damage all your attacks deal.

I see yanfly scripts that do things like, 100% critical rate if you are below a certain HP. But what I have in mind is more of a gradual scale, you don't have to be a specific HP, but the less you are the more powerful you become.

Something like:
50% damage if you are at 100% HP
150% damage if you are at 0% HP. (but maybe a teeny bit higher than 150, since you will be at 0 or 1 HP much, much less often than you will be at full HP.) So maybe the scale should go up to 200% damage.

EDIT: omg, a script like this really exists
https://yanflychannel.wordpress.com/rmvxa/battle-scripts/lunatic-parameters/lpp-empower/
I've been thinking that I want to make my first game this year, but my first game idea about robot battling rpg adventure is too big for me right now so I've been trying to come up with smaller ideas recently.

Most interesting idea was this game that combines asteroids-like shooter game with a tile matching puzzle game and I have most planned out on how I want the game to work and I opt to program it from scratch instead of using engine but I'm not sure with what programming language or development enviroment I should implement it and it would be a lot of work so I decided to try first even simpler game idea. That's how I decided to turn to renpy engine to develop a kind of visual novel.

I have an idea about a game where the player meets five different kind of characters and have conversations about important questions of life so it's going to be more solemn, philosophical and contemplation prompting thing. Now I only have to create interesting content for the dialogues, design and draw characters and compose some fitting music. I've also set a deadlines for myself: game page up within this month and game completed before september - it's going to be interesting and so exciting to make my first game ^_^
Our first game is supposed to be simple, but I might be more emotionally invested in a more serious project and therefore more likely to finish it? I found out about this logic from the creator of Spelunky: http://makegames.tumblr.com/post/1136623767/finishing-a-game

What is happening as a result however is that I find myself making my dream game simpler and simpler with the possibility of adding the more complex aspects post-release.

For instance I had an idea where the characters must infiltrate the Titanic but at the moment I'm not sure how I will set that up. One thing I needed was violently rushing water, I hope there are tiles for that.

I could cut the titanic, lately I'm considering cutting parts of my game I'd never imagine cutting, so far I've cut Japan (I might release Japan as a separate game), and a sequence on a rail yard. But I dunno, titanic was kind of a big deal to me when I first thought of it. It would've been like this centerpiece moment that was going to be really cool/funny. But realistically it would just be a couple of rooms and the player would simply be told that it is the inside of the Titanic. =|
The Fire Emblem series on GBA is so awesome for creating custom facesets :)
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
Oracle of Askigaga
There was a time when I thought I needed to make this game to help me forgive myself for something I've done. This... isn't as true as it once was, and that fact seems to hurt the development processes.

Myriad Cypher
I've had thoughts of dropping the tactical combat idea entirely, and very heavily considering doing something with the default engine. Graphics are probably going to be slated for later (RTP fill-ins for the win!), I mostly want to do this just figure out how unfair the game-balance is.

General thoughts
I dunno, I haven't really worked on anything major recently, so, maybe these thoughts are merely a product of me being in a slump, and just wanting things to be done, and out of the way.
13 years? I was hoping to finish it this summer. :<

I drew 9 pages of maps for the Eiffel Tower. I need a tileset. It doesn't have to be realistic. Probably anything remotely steampunk-ish or mechanical will suffice.

I've cut Titanic from the game. The game will be
1) prologue, tank boss named Goliath, Cain joins your party
2) rainy battlefield, tank boss, Bacon joins party
3) sandy battlefield, tank boss, Albert joins party
4) Eiffel Tower
5) Vatican
6) America/New York
7) big bad's fortress, final boss, the end

It will be called "Legends of World War I"
The Japan segment, will be a separate game I will make when this game is done. (so, never) No idea what it will be named. Oh, that's right, I think I was gonna name it "Meanwhile in Japan"

EDIT:
http://www.tobiasgame.co.uk/about.php
I'm avoiding most of the mistakes he made. For instance I'm using RPGM and not making massive tweaks to it aside from scripts others have offered. I'm not likely to switch engine or RPGM version at this point. The gameplay will have relatively little in the way of variety or puzzles. Also, I've already cut a lot of content from the game, even Japan and the Titanic which I was emotionally attached to, so I definitely don't have the problem of trying to stick to a particular plan too rigidly.

EDIT: Now I'm considering cutting New York from the game, and just have everything take place at the Vatican instead. The reasoning being that I don't want to end up having to scrounge for tilesets to build my New York, whereas The Vatican will only need cathedral, castle, and dungeon themed tilesets, which are typical RPG motifs and therefore should be in abundant supply. But, maybe I can just use those types of tilesets to make New York, since most of it will take place in underground castles, and sewers, neither of which should be a problem.

Anyway I'm using this tileset to make the Eiffel Tower.
http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/479-icys-modernfuturistic-tiles/
I hate making it, dunno why. Apparently I have ADHD or something, because after finishing one screen I want to do something else more than anything. But so far it's looking alright.

61 tiles wide, 40 tiles high
Did you consider making parallax maps? It can be quite hard to do the eventing for, but it's probably the easiest way to represent real-world locations by simply using a photo/drawing of the place as a map.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I am way too happy about this screenshot.
author=LightningLord2
Did you consider making parallax maps? It can be quite hard to do the eventing for, but it's probably the easiest way to represent real-world locations by simply using a photo/drawing of the place as a map.

I intended to use photos for the battlebacks. But it may be a nuisance finding the right photos, especially for battles on the Eiffel Tower. I may have to settle on photos of random bridges or oil rigs.
I'm thinking about a few general design decisions for my game, all of these ideas stemming from the fact that the game is a homage to Impossible Bosses:

-How do I work with an 8-player party in the turn-based system?
-Should I make an item that increases rewards when the character holding it never dies during the battle?
-What's a smart way to make players take advantage of the fact they have a skill that renders them invincible for one turn with a big cooldown?
-What should I do with the Defend command if the above exists?
I once had an idea for an Ace Combat themed RPG.
In certain Ace Combat games, there are long range strikes that can K.O. you if you don't evade it by staying out of a certain altitude range. (e.g. 1000-2000 meters) (you can also get far away enough from the blast, obviously, but usually this isn't feasible in time)

I wanted to do this in the RPG, so I had an idea for a type of Defend command that makes your character immune to the attack.
But later I thought of another way of doing it, by making your HP a figurative represenation of your altitude. So if the blast range is 1000-2000, that means you must quickly get your HP below 1000 or above 2000 or else you will be K.O.ed.

In this version, I figure you would have skills that "raise altitude" (increase HP) and "lower altitude" (lower HP) but the raise altitude would cause you to fall afterwards (i.e. poison status) while the lower altitude would induce a regen effect.
I figure the poison status should be stronger than the regen effect in order to balance the two.

What's kewl about this is that characters with higher HP represents that they can fly higher.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
In a game with no overworld map, consider a town with two dungeons, one connected to the east of the town and another to the west. If that's the case, is it silly to put two inns in the town, one near the east exit and one to the west, so players can get to healing quickly?
Seiromem
I would have more makerscore If I did things.
6375
You could make the town be longer vertical wise instead of horizontal, placing the inn in the middle of town and the middle of the dungeon entrances.

l......l
l......l
E.I.E
l......l
l......l

Like this.

author=LightningLord2
-What's a smart way to make players take advantage of the fact they have a skill that renders them invincible for one turn with a big cooldown?

- Broadcast a boss' super moves that deals loads of damage that you can't really interrupt. "You gonna die Next turn if you don't prepare!"
"Better use that invincibility skill!"
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
While that's a cool idea, I already built the town, and I made it mostly horizontal XD;;