Full Games List
Featured Games
New Games
Reviews
Media
Images
Blogs
Game Updates
Images Feedback Summary
Game Design Highlights
Tutorials
Articles
Scripts
Utilities / Plugins
Resources
Engines
Engine Bulletins
What is Makerscore?
Past Events
Achievements
Misaos
Forums
Chat
New to RMN?
Full Store List
RMN Music Pack (free)
Profile
Locker
Play ListsDESPAIN'S PROFILE
Despain
415
CloseSearch
Filter
All
Game Pages
User Statuses
Town-Dungeon-Town(The ever exhausting formula)
Eh you can make 1 town with 10 dungeons but then people get bored of seeing the same town and crave something new even if you open up shops to them.
then the town is missing the most important factor that makes Clock town great: people.
notice that I didn't say NPCs. fuck NPCs, man. Clock Town in MM is full of real people, and that's what made is so good. they all had names (or at least were recognizable), personalities, they MOVED AROUND to different places at different times during the game (not only based on where you were in the three-day cycle, but also based on what you had accomplished in the game). Clock Town was ALWAYS CHANGING and it never felt boring. even though it really wasn't very big.
that's what a lot of games don't have: people. people copy and paste shitty little NPC events but don't bother to populate the world.
Sidequests/Errands
Imagine two different players. One player wants rewards that in one or another way makes him notable stronger. Now, imagine another player who wants the game to stay challenging, so he doesn't want to get ahead of the expected power curve. However, he spots a sidequest that involves NPCs he finds interesting.
a great and easy way to solve this is by having the player know the reward before he takes up the quest. have the NPCs hint at owning a special item, or maybe the NPCs talk about doing it because "it's the right thing" to tell the player that the reward is story-based.
personally my favorite kind of reward is opening up new areas to explore. that can get sort of goofy and blur the line between sidequest vs main quest but whatever fuck it.
one of the best side quests of all time man has to be (from majora's mask of course) filling out the bomber's notebook and ultimately the kafei/anju storyline. the story of it was so emotionally-packed and as you played it you had to interact with LOTS of NPCs and go to lots of places—it was intertwined with the rest of the game in a way that almost made it feel just as important as the main quest itself. it even had its own dungeon.
Town-Dungeon-Town(The ever exhausting formula)
I loooooooooove hubs.
it comes from my love of 3Dplatformers (banjo-kazooie/tooie and mario64/sunshine), but the idea of a hub city can work brilliantly in an RPG. you can do MORE with less—more familiar NPCs, locations that matter and a whole lot less repetition. with only a couple central towns, the civilization has a lot more character and doesn't feel like a COPYPASTE FANTASY WORLD
my favorite example of Majora's Mask. There's only one real town/city in the game and that's Clock Town. sure there are plenty of little civilizations around it and before each dungeon, but you always find yourself revisiting the central hub.
hub also allow for lots of replayability and exploration and shit like that because you can have them change as the game goes on.
it comes from my love of 3Dplatformers (banjo-kazooie/tooie and mario64/sunshine), but the idea of a hub city can work brilliantly in an RPG. you can do MORE with less—more familiar NPCs, locations that matter and a whole lot less repetition. with only a couple central towns, the civilization has a lot more character and doesn't feel like a COPYPASTE FANTASY WORLD
my favorite example of Majora's Mask. There's only one real town/city in the game and that's Clock Town. sure there are plenty of little civilizations around it and before each dungeon, but you always find yourself revisiting the central hub.
hub also allow for lots of replayability and exploration and shit like that because you can have them change as the game goes on.
Pixels
What other genres/games do you like/play that AREN'T RPGs?
PLATFORMERS :)
in fact platformers are my favorite genre. 3D platformers—when done RIGHT like (mostly the mario games)—are my absolute favorite games to play. in fact I very rarely play RPGs—they're usually pretty boring. when I play a game I want something with lots of gameplay, lots of interaction—and that usually comes in the form of platforming.
I also am not a multiplayer kind of guy, which helps feed the platforming as my favorite genre. I play games for myself, so fighting games or online stuff don't really appeal to me.
my favorite game of all time is Mario Galaxy 2.
in fact platformers are my favorite genre. 3D platformers—when done RIGHT like (mostly the mario games)—are my absolute favorite games to play. in fact I very rarely play RPGs—they're usually pretty boring. when I play a game I want something with lots of gameplay, lots of interaction—and that usually comes in the form of platforming.
I also am not a multiplayer kind of guy, which helps feed the platforming as my favorite genre. I play games for myself, so fighting games or online stuff don't really appeal to me.
my favorite game of all time is Mario Galaxy 2.
What are you thinking about right now?
RPG Maker VX Ace
AWESOME FUCKEN UPDATE GUYS:
there will be a damage algorithm thing in the database. and by the looks of it, for individiual skills and weapons too. how sweet it'll be to change this stuff without messing around with the rgss.
This image, which also appears on Tkool web, is for editing the damage calculation formula for the command used in battle. Although I think that anyone with decent intuition can make sense of this, the above is the same formula in VX. 'Attack of A' x 4 - 'Defense of B' x 2. Incidentally, it is shown side by side how A will strike B.
Then, next is this picture. It is the damage calculation formula for a sword based ability called "Radiant Blade" which is found in the sample data.
To translate into the terminology used in game, it means 'Attack of A' x 5 + 'Magic Attack of A' x5 - 'Defense of B' - 'Magic Defense of B'. This is a technique which unites a physical attack with magical damage, and so it factors in both the physical and magic defense of the opponent.
In Ace, you're able to include other parameters such as luck, level, HP, and MP as well as the previously mentioned attack and defense parameters. Of course, you can also refer to a variable.
*** Usage Example ***
After all, there is no use for an ability which doesn't use a variable!
For example, let's use "Karma (Behavior)" with karma for values (variable) which may be increased when doing good things, and decreased when doing bad ones. Then, in the damage calculation formula we could implement the variable to weigh how effective a recovery type skill is. You could increase the power for skills of evil people! This might be how one system could work.
there will be a damage algorithm thing in the database. and by the looks of it, for individiual skills and weapons too. how sweet it'll be to change this stuff without messing around with the rgss.
This image, which also appears on Tkool web, is for editing the damage calculation formula for the command used in battle. Although I think that anyone with decent intuition can make sense of this, the above is the same formula in VX. 'Attack of A' x 4 - 'Defense of B' x 2. Incidentally, it is shown side by side how A will strike B.
Then, next is this picture. It is the damage calculation formula for a sword based ability called "Radiant Blade" which is found in the sample data.
To translate into the terminology used in game, it means 'Attack of A' x 5 + 'Magic Attack of A' x5 - 'Defense of B' - 'Magic Defense of B'. This is a technique which unites a physical attack with magical damage, and so it factors in both the physical and magic defense of the opponent.
In Ace, you're able to include other parameters such as luck, level, HP, and MP as well as the previously mentioned attack and defense parameters. Of course, you can also refer to a variable.
*** Usage Example ***
After all, there is no use for an ability which doesn't use a variable!
For example, let's use "Karma (Behavior)" with karma for values (variable) which may be increased when doing good things, and decreased when doing bad ones. Then, in the damage calculation formula we could implement the variable to weigh how effective a recovery type skill is. You could increase the power for skills of evil people! This might be how one system could work.
A new combat strategy (cutting off heads, making limbs useless)
This would be ridiculously tedious in low-level regular battles. Something like this would be falling into the "features for the sake of features" thing.
I can think of two legitimate ways to incorporate this into a regular battle system:
1. make them unique skills. if every character can just do this then there's probably going to be way to much shit going on in the battle and it wouldn't really be as cool. having a special move to target an enemy's limb would be a cool way to implement this without bogging down the core of the battle.
2. bosses. lots of games have bosses with targetable limbs.
I can think of two legitimate ways to incorporate this into a regular battle system:
1. make them unique skills. if every character can just do this then there's probably going to be way to much shit going on in the battle and it wouldn't really be as cool. having a special move to target an enemy's limb would be a cool way to implement this without bogging down the core of the battle.
2. bosses. lots of games have bosses with targetable limbs.
Short games, yay or nay?
One of the most important lessons I learned about writing came in my freshman honors course. After we were assigned our fist paper (on the first day of class) one student raised her hand and asked how long it should be. The professor laughed and replied with "as long as it needs to be and not a word more." And that was the only length requirement he ever gave in that class at all.
Conciseness and brevity are vital in writing—and they're vital in game design too. short games are usually more enjoyable because most of the time long games don't need to be as long as they are. Take a short game and pad it with 40 extra hours of mazes and backtracking and grinding; that's not a good thing.
A good game is as long as it needs to be and not any longer than that.
Conciseness and brevity are vital in writing—and they're vital in game design too. short games are usually more enjoyable because most of the time long games don't need to be as long as they are. Take a short game and pad it with 40 extra hours of mazes and backtracking and grinding; that's not a good thing.
A good game is as long as it needs to be and not any longer than that.
On the Subject of Hating
i didn't think so at all. the story was about a girl who was using her imagination to escape a shitty life, which isn't particularly groundbreaking or meaningful. it felt like the story was a good excuse to link together nonrelated action scenes by saying they were in her head.
maybe i'll have to watch it again from the other perspective man. but if i do it'll probably kill the movie for me. :(
i think I watched it after a marathon of The Sopranos or something similarly character-heavy so it was the kind of movie to enjoy without thinking about. like—do you remember that guy who made those cool cgi videos with videogame characters fighting (he made one with samus vs master chief and one with final fantasy girls iirc)? sucker punch was like that.
maybe i'll have to watch it again from the other perspective man. but if i do it'll probably kill the movie for me. :(
i think I watched it after a marathon of The Sopranos or something similarly character-heavy so it was the kind of movie to enjoy without thinking about. like—do you remember that guy who made those cool cgi videos with videogame characters fighting (he made one with samus vs master chief and one with final fantasy girls iirc)? sucker punch was like that.
Games - Tester
Games - Other
