EBETH'S PROFILE

I'm making a new thread for it right now! Should it remain in the creative corner or go over to game design?

Have fun with it! Start small and make a mediocre first game and a fantastic second one.

For any engine make sure to read tutorials ad documentation but nothing beats just messing around in engine & getting your hands dirty.

author=Kylaila
I don't know how well it translates to other engines, but you may find this bloody-newcomer-tutorial helpful : )

https://rpgmaker.net/tutorials/1027/

Also I'm sorry it didn't actually help here but I'm glad to see my tutorial being recommended! Thanks Kyaila!


In terms of game design itself, whoo buddy do I have some resources for you! Pick and choose what looks interesting and then get that knowledge!


First off there's some great resources on RMN!

Check out the Game Design Highlights page!

We've got articles & tutorials too!

Plus there's lots of people here who like to help out!


Now for the offsite recommendations:

_____________

Industry News & Design Discussion:

Gamasutra - THE video game site.

GDC Vault - Resources and talks from the annual Game Developers Conference.

Pixel Prospector - Indie game dev help & news.

80 Level - Usually more casual than Gamasutra, but lots of good news, talks with artists/developers and tutorials.

_____________

Game Design Theory:

Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics Framework - My personal favorite approach to game design. Focuses on making a cohesive game where all parts help build up each other for the end player experience.

Three Hundred Mechanics - Three hundred unique game mechanics to help you brainstorm

Making your Game Accessible - General design tips on how to make your game accessible.

_____________

Design & Gen Development Videos:

In general these are all discussions about game design though sometimes they included talking about the industry as a whole.

Extra Credits

Game Makers Toolkit

3 Min Game Design

Level Design Analysis

_____________

Game Design Document Help:

(You don't have to make one but I like to)

Game Design Logs - Explains what a design log is and how to use it.

Game Design Documents - Explains what a GDD is and how to use it.

GDD Template - Note: immediately downloads a word doc template.

Doom Bible - Doom’s GDD.

_____________

Further Resources List



Good luck!!

author=Altered
Rad collage angst~
Is the think on the left a bed or a weird treadmill?

~feeling sad but also rad~
*does a sick kick flip*

Its a sleeping pod! It's modeled after this one in particular. Anything you think I could do to get it to read more as a bed?

Hmmm, thats tough to say really! In many ways Yume Nikki isn't unique (or was only unique simply due to the time it was made) but I'll do my best to explain what I think the certain "thing" Yume Nikki has that makes it unlike most other games.

I think what makes YN stand out is that it is structured like a game that should have diverse and deeper game play, but doesn't.

Like other walking sims YN has a strong focus on atmosphere. Most walking sims or games that are low on game-play, such as, Journey, Abzu or Dear Esther are very linear. You aren't always "locked in" completely but the areas that you can explore along the way are still limited and you can only backtrack so far, if at all. And even in games's like Gone Home where more exploration is encouraged there's still no hub world or various levels to beat as seen in "standard" games. Yume Nikki just lets you wander around a large amount or areas in whatever order you please, whenever you please.

Now having a hub world (or starting area) and then having levels branching off of it is something usually seen in games with actual gameplay beyond walking and picking items up. Some environments need you to collect certain effects to reach, which is kinda metroidvania-y except there's not really enough of it to say that its the defining mechanic of the game. You can kill NPC's for coins but not all of them drop stuff and there's not much of a point. Enemies chase you sometimes but there's no real combat or chase sequences. You can't usually even interact with most NPC's anyway. Some effects that you equip are useful but many are just cosmetic and don't affect gameplay at all.

It's like everything you'd expect from an rpg, metroidvania or sdventure game is there but it either doesn't actually do anything or is in such small doses that walking is still the prominent mechanic of the game. It is pure exploration for explorations sake. Yume Nikki is basically an open world walking sim which is just, kinda weird.

Then all of this is combined with well done and diverse pixel art and lots of symbolism left up for interpretation. Now this might not be enough for it itself to be "genre-less" but I think this is what make YN functionally different. Wow okay I think I've rambled enough.

TLDR: Yume Nikki is like playing an open world game except you can't actually do anything but walk and occasionally pick stuff up and equip it.

It's perfectly understandable if someone doesn't like Yume Nikki or it's fangames. They're light on actual game play and plot and can be tedious but barging into a thread of reasonable discussion to let everyone know you hate them is just kinda pointless.

Anyway, back to the actual discussion,I think we're using the term "genre" loosely here anyway. YNFGs may not fit the broad definition of a genre (again I would classify them as surreal walking sims) but there are definitely enough of them and they all have enough similarities and take enough from the original Yume Nikki that lumping them all into the same category works. It doesn't means other games with a similar formula are automatically YNFGs since YNFGs have to self identify as being a YNFG. It might technically be more of a classification than a sub-genre persay but I don't know if the terminology matters too much in the end.

author=Red_Nova
Demon's Souls has the exact structure you said makes Yume Nikki unique, and I can promise you that Demon's Souls is not a Yume Nikki fan game or even anything close to it.

I'm super curious how these two games have the same structure- if you have the time could you explain? I've never played Demon Souls myself but from what I've seen and read about it I can't see a connection beyond some of the themes but I love the idea that these two (seemingly?) wildly different things follow the exact same structure.