Anyone who knows me knows I'm big on flavor and worldbuilding type things, and the potential in that with items and whatnot are no exception. Nothing big, just messing around with expanding the game world through that avenue. Disregard the lack of stats to some of those weapons, I'm getting to that, most of the meat of that is in the background for now!

Throughout a lot of RPGs, the player comes across non dialogue sources of text, such as letters, notes, books, and other things like that you'll discover around.

Initially I wrote these out like regular text boxes, but I found that odd to read and it didn't 'flow' with the default text boxes like regular scene or NPC dialogue does. So I decided to do this instead;



This is sort of similar to what games like Dragon Age does with letters and notes, and I think it's much cleaner for the player to digest and read, especially since notes/letters/books are focused on just the text, and not the person speaking, a scene, or the environment. It allows the player to focus on just the words on the scene, similar to how the characters must also do the same with words on the piece of paper they're reading.

After a long while waiting for the dream to be fulfilled *sheds tear*, awesome RMNer Elder71 offered his talents and exceeded by expectations by delivering me an awesome world map! Just want to present my game world, and extend a special thanks for Elder71 for his talent and time!

Full Disclosure; with some exception to account for taste and timing, I more or less love JRPGs. That's why I'm here.

However, I find myself on thinking about how some of my tastes have evolved and how the genre has been throughout the years. Moreover, how do these things relate to my game? When I work on my game, I'd ideally like it to be a great example of some of the old school things I enjoy about those games, even now. Challenging turn based combat, sprite based graphics, exploring spells and weapons, and so on. None of these things I've found conflicts with my enjoyment of current games. For example, I can and do like both The Witcher 3 and Final Fantasy IV.

But as time goes on, there's some things about the genre that eh... Things about many, even modern JRPGs that I don't like, mostly in its presentation. Teenage protagonists, with anyone over 30 being 'old' (and as someone who's 27, I feel anything but old). Lack of challenging combat. The whole 'moe' or 'cute' trope. General differences in Japanese and Western culture that don't translate well. These are flaws that don't prevent me from enjoying JRPGs as a whole, but definitely dent the experience for me in some more than others.

Basically, there are a lot of cultural, and some gameplay, factors in many JRPGs that don't really vibe well with me. My hope is that my game picks out and avoids some of those things that I, and probably many other people don't like, mostly via my Western origin viewpoint.

Specfically, when I think; "What is a cool atmosphere from a JRPG that I really enjoyed?" I turn to Yasumi Matsuno's works; Tactics Ogre, Vagrant Story, and FFXII's worlds, dialogue, and atmosphere are examples I look up to.

I dunno, just ranting!

So I've been thinking about the role of money in my game recently from a gameplay perspective. What role should money play in the eyes of the player? How should I manage it? Of course I could make it nontraditional and not have money at all, but I love economics too much to do that, so I mulled my thoughts a bit.

I like money in games, and not even just RPGs. However, there are some common pitfalls. One situation is that the player never makes enough money, or never acquire the means to make enough money to feel comfortable spending it, so that player hoards it. Another situation is having too much money than you know what to do with (I'm looking at you, FF8), and not having anything meaningful to spend it on. A cash flow is important, earning it, spending it, and having it.

Here's some things I'm doing in my game revolving that.

-Only 15 consumables are possible to have in the inventory at one time. This, combined with the fact that healing items must (generally) be crafted instead of bought (they can still be found) avoids the entire "buy 99 potions and call it a wrap" scenario. There are still some consumables that may be bought, but not basic healing agents. Don't worry, there are other ways to heal in the game, this doesn't make it especially difficult. This is more of a financial decision.

-Enemies don't drop shitloads of cash. Enemies DO drop money, but not enough to live on. You won't be able to make all of your purchases on cash that enemies drop, but it'll be enough to mean something.

-Cash is also acquired through chests and mostly selling loot. While there are some items that are purely loot, this isn't FFXII's Bazarr; mostly what I mean by 'loot' are items that also double as crafting items. So you have to make a decision, do you want the 500 gold for that Dragon Scale, or do you want to use it as one of the ingredients for that armor you're salivating over? You can't have both.

-Equipment can bought, or if you have the ingredients, crafted for a nominal fee. The crafted stuff is usually a step above what you can buy, but it costs you the components if you have them. Equipment is expensive enough where you will not be able to completely outfit your team every time in one shopping trip.

More or less, I want cash to be a useful tool to supplement the player's gameplay decisions on how to progress through the game. I don't want it to be a handout, but I don't want it to be rough going, either.