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On Like Donkey Kong

I put in about 14 hours today so I'm a little burned out but I'm going to try to stay coherent. First, I have some good news! I played with the new battle system last night and decided to go ahead and switch Dragon Warrior Tactics to Tomoaky's SRPG2 Tactical Battle System. This is a pretty big move for DWT but I think it will be good in the long run. I projected that I would be finished with the switch by Monday. I have almost finished the change and I am ahead of schedule! There are still a few things that I need to tweak, but my initial tests are looking good. If all goes as planned I should be able to wrap up the loose ends and continue my progress tomorrow.

If this system doesn't work for some reason or another, then I don't know what I'll do. My backup plan is to use a roguelike battle system if the tactical battle system fails. I'm hoping that I don't have to do that though. Not because roguelike isn't good but because I want to create a different game with a roguelike battle system some time in the future when I finish DWT. It's a good system and it does resemble tactical battle systems. But, I think an actual tactical battle system fits what I am aiming for in DWT.

I have a few other ideas rattling around in my skull so I don't know if the roguelike will be the next one I make but at least it gives me some more motivation to finish DWT. The sooner I finish DWT the sooner I can start another project. The only problem is that even if I want to finish it tomorrow or next week or next month, I still can't predict the game crashes, setbacks, or simply the huge amounts of time that it will take to make my ideas take shape.

Unfortunately, I think that's one of the biggest obstacles that people run into when they are making an RPG with a program. There's a lot of neat little tools for making what you want come true but I think it's a lot more work than what someone expects when they start a project. Maybe that's why so many people dropout with unreleased games. We get these grand schemes and plans for our games but when it's time to do it, it just gets to be too much. You move a mountain and there's another one behind it. You want to make your game special and unique but that costs time. Every feature, graphic, side-story, battle, etc. that you add makes the game more complicated and more work.

I went back and played my (really old) demo the other day. I've posted it in the past but I haven't linked to it here because it is flawed and I don't want it to represent this full version. But there was something that the demo had that this full version doesn't have, simplicity.

It didn't have 20 custom scripts so there was nothing to conflict with each other, it didn't have ridiculously long cut-scenes, etc. It was just a basic grindfest on monsters outside of town and it was an unforgiving and difficult to start game but I enjoyed it!

I got a rush running to town to buy my first armor and weapon hoping to not get killed by a slime. I knew that any battle, even against a single blue slime, would mean instant death and I loved it. I feel like I was firewalking. I moved quickly while repeating my own little gamer's prayer "oh shit, oh shit, oh shit" and I only stopped after a few steps to say "whew" in my head and mentally prepare for that one last random encounter square tile between me and safety.

After a few minutes I had burned through all the money I had on inn visits to replenish the "one-foot-in-the-grave" hp I had after every single battle. Eventually, it just got cheaper to die and let the king take 1/2 my gold to revive me.

If I took anything from this experience, I think it might be this: KISS. "Keep it simple stupid". The other thing might be: If you plan on trying my game you better bring a helmet because I'm going back to my roots and its going to be brutal. I might hold your hand until you put a stick or a blade in it but then it's on like Donkey Kong.

ps. I added a comic page and a video page to DWT's game profile. There's not much in them yet but I hope to add some video previews of actual gameplay and some fun comics once I get close to finishing the game.

Posts

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This sounds good! I'm not familiar with the custom battle engines but hopefully it will stay tactics as I haven't played a fun tactics game in a while.

On the subject of difficulty, it's fine as long as the player realizes. If they know to be cautious and to ensure that they update to the latest equipment and keep the appropriate number of healing items on hand, then they should be fine.

Excited to see more!
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