BLIND'S PROFILE

Do you have the water graphic? Could you post it here?

You can always try adding the water animation into an event graphic, and modify the transparency as necessary etc. Or do a manual overlay of the water with the cliff in Photoshop and put it into the tileset.

Congrats man. Take what you've learned from this experience and hopefully craft a project that's even stronger in the coming years.

Nice work getting this running bb.

I’m still surprised how many 2k3 users haven’t hit the ground running with Cherry’s updates.

Hm, you may want to edit the title of this topic, because a list of clichés isn't the same thing as "what not to do in an RPG."

I found this page to be a pretty useful/simple list of jRPG tropes. These have probably been hammered-down to death at this point. XD

Here are a couple that stuck out to me:

Hey, I Know You!
You will accumulate at least three of these obligatory party members:
The spunky princess who is rebelling against her royal parent and is in love with the hero.
The demure, soft-spoken female mage and healing magic specialist who is not only in love with the hero, but is also the last survivor of an ancient race.
The tough-as-nails female warrior who is not in love with the hero (note that this is the only female character in the game who is not in love with the hero and will therefore be indicated as such by having a spectacular scar, a missing eye, cyborg limbs or some other physical deformity -- see The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Rule.)
The achingly beautiful gothy swordsman who is riven by inner tragedy.
The big, tough, angry guy who, deep down, is a total softy.
The hero's best friend, who is actually much cooler than the hero.
The grim, selfish mercenary who over the course of the game learns what it means to really care about other people.
The character who is actually a spy for the bad guys but will instantly switch to your side when you find out about it.
The weird bonus character who requires a bizarre series of side quests to make them effective (with the ultimate result that no player ever uses this character if it can be avoided.)
The nauseatingly cute mascot who is useless in all battles.

No! My beloved peasant village!"
The hero's home town, city, slum, or planet will usually be annihilated in a spectacular fashion before the end of the game, and often before the end of the opening scene.
Thinking With The Wrong Head (Hiro Rule)
No matter what she's accused of doing or how mysterious her origins are, the hero will always be ready to fight to the death for any girl he met three seconds ago.
Cubic Zirconium Corollary
The aforementioned mysterious girl will be wearing a pendant that will ultimately prove to be the key to either saving the world or destroying it.
Logan's Run Rule
RPG characters are young. Very young. The average age seems to be 15, unless the character is a decorated and battle-hardened soldier, in which case he might even be as old as 18. Such teenagers often have skills with multiple weapons and magic, years of experience, and never ever worry about their parents telling them to come home from adventuring before bedtime. By contrast, characters more than twenty-two years old will cheerfully refer to themselves as washed-up old fogies and be eager to make room for the younger generation.

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With that being said, I think tropes and stereotypes are perfectly fine to use (and to an extent, probably unavoidable) if the developer makes some effort to subvert/enhance them. I counted probably at least a dozen in that list in my own game.

Another option (something like Hero's Realm comes to mind, but there are other examples) is to intentionally imitate the genre conventions - a video-game-version of "pastiche." A pastiche is a work of visual art, literature, theatre, or music that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists. Unlike parody, pastiche celebrates, rather than mocks, the work it imitates.

author=psy_wombats
Having a nuanced, niche category isn't currently recognizing games that do a nuanced, niche thing though -- mostly it just serves to give another award to one of the like 5 games everyone played this year. Like even though setting/atmosphere are different, they're always going to get the same nominees, just like each of the half dozen story-related categories this year all have the same nominees. Although reviewing last year the voting is at least slightly different.

The problem you described isn't an argument against diverse award categories - it's the fact that people aren't playing enough games/are nominating the same ten projects for every conceivable option.