WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT? (GAME DEVELOPMENT EDITION)

Posts

Waxius
"Someday I'll finish my game... someday.."
3898
author=PhantasmaX
My first game that I am making for the past 3 months started out as a platformer Mario-like game, then I wanted to make it more like Megaman because we need action. However, some elements from street fighter are cool and might look good in the game, so I wanted to add that. Then I wanted to make it an RPG like Diablo, but plays more like the SNES Tales of Phantasia game (2d hack and slash sorta). Then I remembered an old MMO I played (Wonderking) which is kinda like maple story, and wanted to make it kinda like that. However the most important part is that the game kinda needs to feel like an SNES RPG somehow, not the same gameplay, but the same feeling you get from the story. Well, not to my surprise, my game became kinda complex. Now I am wondering if I made a mistake somewhere with my thinking!


Did you get all that sorted out?
author=Waxius
author=PhantasmaX
My first game that I am making for the past 3 months started out as a platformer Mario-like game, then I wanted to make it more like Megaman because we need action. However, some elements from street fighter are cool and might look good in the game, so I wanted to add that. Then I wanted to make it an RPG like Diablo, but plays more like the SNES Tales of Phantasia game (2d hack and slash sorta). Then I remembered an old MMO I played (Wonderking) which is kinda like maple story, and wanted to make it kinda like that. However the most important part is that the game kinda needs to feel like an SNES RPG somehow, not the same gameplay, but the same feeling you get from the story. Well, not to my surprise, my game became kinda complex. Now I am wondering if I made a mistake somewhere with my thinking!
Did you get all that sorted out?


Hmm, I'm not sure to be honest. I've been building the systems in my game for the past 4 months and it's turning out like how I was imagining it, which is good I guess. I broke all the rules for building your first game (make a small game, with low complexity, etc) so I find myself going back into old code and fixing things often because when I started, I had no clue what the heck I was doing. I probably need a few more months before things get fleshed out. The big problems will come later when I need to come up with a story, and find someone to do the art/music etc.

Here's what it looks like so far...

Waxius
"Someday I'll finish my game... someday.."
3898
PhantasmaX,

That is an awesome video. I love how the heroine starts with a sword, and later gets a gun and throwing stars. It's a great demo and your game shows incredible promise.

Nothing wrong with having an ambitious first project! Most of the battle engine in my game I wrote back in 2013, then I left it alone for four years. It was only just recently that I was able to share stable versions of the game while I iterate improvements on it over time.

author=Waxius
PhantasmaX,

That is an awesome video. I love how the heroine starts with a sword, and later gets a gun and throwing stars. It's a great demo and your game shows incredible promise.

Nothing wrong with having an ambitious first project! Most of the battle engine in my game I wrote back in 2013, then I left it alone for four years. It was only just recently that I was able to share stable versions of the game while I iterate improvements on it over time.



Thanks! Glad you like what you see. I'm hoping to get enough progress done on it to the point where I can make a game page here, and maybe showcase a playable demo!
Your project reminds me of MapleStory, PhantasmaX.

Looks amazing ^.^
Waxius
"Someday I'll finish my game... someday.."
3898
I'm thinking about making an Animal Crossing type game on RPG Maker 2003.
I've only watched my kids play a bit of "City Folk" on the Wii, so I know very little about the game itself. From what I've observed, your human character has moved into a random town filled with animal characters. There's a guy named Tom Nook that people either love or hate for reasons unknown, you collect insects and fish, and neighbors move in and out all the time.

Ok.. does anyone actually WIN an animal crossing game? Is there ever a point where you have seen and done everything?

The part that intrigues me is the "randomness" of everything. The town is never the same right?

Obviously RPG Maker 2003 has some limitations to what it can do. I wouldn't be able to, for instance, tell how long it's been since you last played and give your character bed-head hair. Nor would I be able to tell if you didn't save properly.

But there would be things that I COULD do, like make a huge random town with four seasons, have a Julian calendar, random animals that you can build relationships with and such.

Still, I guess I have to ask... what is the major point of such a game?

EDIT: I may not make an "Animal Crossing" game per se... but I'm intrigued by the open world with random stuff in it.

I've got a proof of concept for Four Weather Seasons here:
lol, making a game really is terrible.. I keep getting burned out after just a few steps. At this rate it will take forever.
Trying not to get distracted and open Unity up, nope to late... Youtube hour.
Well if I'm too bored and unmotivated to program, spriting works, better find some metal first.
I just created a snake enemy but I can't get it to inflict poison on my character. Is this another glitch? That makes two in a row. (I originally mentioned another glitch in my previous post but decided to edit it out for some reason. It was about how you sometimes can't delete sound effects if, after choosing one, you click Cancel instead of Ok. Turns out going back and clicking Ok fixes it.)

Anyway I don't really mind the lack of poison. It's all good. Even though it works just fine on enemies for some reason.

edit: VX Ace btw
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
There could be a number of reasons why a status would not be applied. If the ability that applies the state outright misses, then, the state wouldn't be applied. Also, it would depend on how often the skill applies the state in the first place, versus any applicable resistances. Which may include the LUK formula (which is an absolutely terrible formula)?
yeah I just use 1 LUK for every enemy, seeing as I don't intend on making use of it. To troubleshoot, I made the state a 100% chance. It still didn't work. Maybe I should try increasing the enemy's luck and see if that works.

States work just fine when the player causes them, including poison. I never had an issue with that. Also I just realized that I definitely need to solve this, I made the error of focusing on that one state (poison), but I need to get states to work in general, otherwise my game idea is more or less ruined.

EDIT: So I just checked, and my classes have 999 luck. This could be bad... I can only assume I had a reason for making it 999, meaning that if I change it, it will cause something else to stop working. Grr!
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I can never remember the exact forumla when it comes to LUK, so I copy-pasted it for you reference:

class Game_Battler < Game_BattlerBase
  def luk_effect_rate(user)
    [1.0 + (user.luk - luk) * 0.001, 0.0].max
  end
end


Which means that if monsters have 1 LUK, and are trying to apply a state against a character with 999 LUK, that alone would make the state apply about... 0.2% of the time?
Wait, couldn't I just go in the the script editor and change the luck formula myself?
Hope I don't break nuthin' :p

This looks very promising. (Game Battler, lines 606-620)
#--------------------------------------------------------------------------
  # * [Add State] Effect: Normal Attack
  #--------------------------------------------------------------------------
  def item_effect_add_state_attack(user, item, effect)
    user.atk_states.each do |state_id|
      chance = effect.value1
      chance *= state_rate(state_id)
      chance *= user.atk_states_rate(state_id)
      chance *= luk_effect_rate(user)
      if rand < chance
        add_state(state_id)
        @result.success = true
      end
    end
  end
What do I change exactly? I'll delete luk_effect_rate and change it to... 100.

edit: Works so far! My actor got poisoned after being attacked once.
edit: Changed the skill from 100% to 25%, it took three attacks for my character to be poisoned. I have control over my game again! Yay!
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I've been known to basically change it to...

class Game_Battler < Game_BattlerBase
  def luk_effect_rate(user)
    1
  end
end


...this, either because I want LUK to do something else, or the stat is totally irrelevant.
Should I it do it your way, then? I've been testing a new enemy with three triggers of poison, even if I put them at 90% each they consistently failed to poison my character until I lowered his LUK from 999 to 1. But now that his LUK is 1 the percentages seem to work how they're supposed to and I can freely control the success rate. On the surface it seems like I fixed the problem but it means I still haven't completely eliminated LUK from my game and it could potentially cause issues down the line. But that's okay, I think, because I can always wait until then to change it.


dammit man can't you see I'm hardcore game designing here

this is from forever ago, pay no heed to the timestamps
So I’m trying to get back to work on Monopoly again after a bit of a hiatus on it and find myself pondering a bunch of different options that I might wanna adjust, change or implement throughout the course of the game thus far. Here's a couple of things that I have in mind that I’m thinkin’ about:

CPU Behaviour Patterns:



So in the original version of the game, the CPU functionally and thought process to thinking about and performing certain actions were pretty limited back then as I mainly just had the CPU do whatever seemed best on paper and a lot of decisions made were mainly focused on remaining cash flow and property count. Instead, I’m considering having each CPU player fall under a certain parameter list that has that particular CPU perform under a certain playstyle function.

So, for example, some CPU players will try to think a lot more cautiously in their overall tactics while others will try to play a lot more aggressively and try to acquire the right set of properties immediately and build houses and / or hotels without delay. This would also factor into trades too, where some CPU’s will tend to trade properties later on after everything’s bought up and acquired and some CPU’s will try to trade immediately, or tend to trade with only one player. And some CPU’s will act even merciful sometimes towards another, cutting them a bit of a break and allowing a player to acquire a property if they’re not doing so well or if they particularly need it. And, of course, some CPU’s will be total lunkheads - just like before - and do some incredibly stupid moves too. Can't forget that!

Available Funds Also Determining What NPC’s Say:



Just like with the original game where certain NPC’s, such as The Tax Man, will say different lines of dialogue depending on what character you’re playing as, I’m also considering having them say different things based on how much money you have on hand as well. I already have something in place if you land on the same NPC multiple times in a row, or if it’s your first time landing on there in the game, but currency conversation changes are something I’m thinking about doing.

Properties Remaining Icon Display:



I might be able to squeeze one more H.U.D. indicator left on the screen, and that might be something to indicate how many properties are left unpurchased on the board. This could go either underneath the mini-map section or underneath the economy changes section, I’m not really sure... I do already have a pop-up message that tells players how many properties are left on the board to purchase, but maybe one more indicator might be a good idea to add in for better clarity.

Jail Space: Invisible Cell Bars And All 4 Players Being Locked In All At Once:



Two things I’m considering with the jail space:

First, I would like to see if I could place a transparent, cell bar that covers the entire outer edge of the holding cell to give it a better illusion that it is a real jail cell and that players can’t simply just walk out of it because nothing looks like its holding him or her in place from doing so. You know, to make it a bit more believable and all.

It might be a bit tough to implement using events, because the space above it, St. Charles Place, the spot where the transparent bars have to go on are already covered with houses and hotel events there. But maybe I could still do this with teleporting the cell bars on the event space and maybe try something with fiddling around with the elevation of the events to make it work.

And second, I would like to be able to place all four players in jail now at any one given time and give the option to have the Prison Capacity ruleset go up to four and be more like the classic version if possible. The reason why the original game only could have two players in prison at a time was because the dice rolling animation would display on top of the character sprite surrounding each other, resulting in a very odd looking effect that I didn’t think looked too appealing. Now, thanks to changing the Y Axis Line in the animation setup, I might be able to have all four players in jail now with no animation hiccups at all now; and if that doesn’t work, I might be able to manually adjust this with using different animation files instead and cover up the sprites during animation that it doesn’t have that problem anymore.

A More Accurate Properties Display:



When testing my game recently, I noticed that when it came to property knowledge of what I had and what I still had to acquire in order to complete my set, the current display screen that I have thus far only displays how many said properties of that particular color group that I have and NOT what I need to complete my set. So if I had, say, two oranges properties and I needed and I needed the other one, the original display would make me have to guess what other property I need. Is it St. James, Tennessee or New York Avenue? Sure, I could always remember what I need by watching the gameplay and other players walking around the board when it’s not my turn and all, but it is a bit of a problem here when I need to rely on luck and memorization to remember what I need.

The solution: maybe something along the line like setting the property display screen up like the example above. Having the properties listed in order and jotting out the ones that a player doesn’t currently have might make it a bit easier for players to know what they need and what they don’t. The only problem is the picture setup. I’m currently using the David Overdrive Patch and using ALL 120 pictures to display what I need on screen. When I’m in a pickle, I do substitute pictures that I’m not using for the other, but I’m kind of a bit taxed out on that method too, so this might be a bit difficult to do without some adjustments done to it – but it might be possible.

---

Yeah, there’s still plenty of work to do from the looks of things here, so I’m going to be busy for a while! But every single moment spent on this game is one step closer to finally ridding myself of this terrible nightmare.

(Just kidding; I love this game. It's like being involved in a rocky marriage that has its shares of up's and downs, but ultimately I still love it.)


Huh… So that’s why in some of the past Monopoly video games that I’ve played, like the SNES version, that the CPU immediately tries to trade with you after you first purchase a property and then tries to trade you double or triple the face value of what it’s worth. Interesting...

I was always kinda perplexed as a kid why the CPU would even do a trade like this in the first place. But after watching this guy’s video, I kinda understand why they would do that now, as it’s an important strategy to acquire as many properties as possible in order to open up for potential trades with other players, and there’s even a good chance that the CPU player can quickly acquire the second property in that said color group if they’re lucky enough to do so in their next roll or two, putting them in a good spot.

So I’m going to try to get the CPU in my version to do something like that as well, and maybe even potentially fool some new players in to thinking, “What the hell is he or she doing...? Sure, lol, I’ll take that $480 for Vermont Avenue, you stupid idiot...” only to find out that they've been playing you this whole entire time.