KILLER WOLF'S PROFILE

http://rpgmaker.net/users/Killer%20Wolf/locker/FirstLook.png

My side project in progress.

EDIT - IMG tag didn't take for some reason

Tonight I got a sinking feeling that perhaps my trust in someone I never doubted may have been misplaced. I see them heading for a cliff, and I'm not sure how to head them off at the pass yet.

Combine that with a family member in the hospital, my eye acting up again despite getting a clean bill of health from my optometrist during my last appointment, and the discovery that a friend is dealing with some serious medical issues again. It all adds up to not such a great day today.

In an old project of mine, one boss used illusion based skills. He was able to summon up to eight "minions", and could resurrect himself. One player build featured a skill that made the boss's deception a non-issue, since the "see through illusion" skill insta-killed all the doppelganger and minion spawns and left only the illusionist enemy. Of course, in that instance I switched to an alternate version that had higher damage potential than the normal one, and a faster turn rate (justified, since he was no longer dividing up his concentration by running a ton of illusions in parallel). Other players just had to use enemy all attacks, or pay attention to see that the false enemies always did less damage then the real ones, and focus their attacks accordingly, since destroying one of the illusionist's duplicates killed off all the minions present at the time, or at least switched them back to "dark energy" enemies that had no attack function. It was partially to discourage "just freestyle on the enter button = win" gameplay, since I nested the real versions of the boss deep in the list of "Dark Energy" units.

In another game, the first boss was a robot bodyguard that had insane speed, defense, and attack. By that point, the player would have at least one grenade. Of course, before the battle, I had an event that swapped out the actual grenade inventory items with a switch version. When the player threw their grenade, the robot disabled it with onboard electronics. This added "Dud grenade" to the enemy list. By targeting the grenade, the player was able to blow it up, doing damage to the boss and frying his sensors. The boss's attacks were still deadly, but his turns were halved and his accuracy went through the floor. Of course, I realized that it would be possible for a player to reach him without having any grenades left, so I made a duplicate version of the encounter that featured entries for a pair of barrels in the backdrop in the enemy list. If the player targeted them, explosion animations played, doing the same armor drop/sensor fry to the boss and switching the background out for one with blast damage.

My western has been tricky to write up boss encounters for. Any normal enemy can be extremely deadly, with some able to wipe out an entire party in the first round if taken as a straight fight. The angle I'm going for is to try and encounter the enemies in different circumstances. If you have to get into a fortified mill to rescue someone, the best approach is to single out a couple of the guards when they are drinking in town during the day shift. If you take enough out, they'll be understaffed at night, or a specific entry point will be left unguarded, and the player will have a much easier time of it. Also, combat can be initiated in a couple of ways. Once an enemy is in range, the player gets an icon (with the requisite feat taken at level up) that lets them engage at range, gaining the drop on the enemy. The trick is that it also tracks what other enemy units are in range, so you could end up with more of a fight than you were expecting if you're not watching patrol routes carefully. Initiating combat from close range/behind an enemy lets melee characters land a first round hit that deals double damage with a high chance to stun, so even with ranged initiative, there is still a benefit to getting close. Enemies can also engage at range though, since they are built from the same templates as the players. If an enemy actually manages to initiate combat from behind via the "on touch enemy/player" tree, any party that doesn't include someone with boosted initiative skills is pretty much destined for boot hill.

The main hiccup is that I was planning on having unique names and stats for all of the enemy units, so it would never be "Gun Thug" but "Burt McCall" or whatever. The player will be able to overhear things about the individuals they will have to fight, sometimes even from the enemies themselves if the player catches them in a social situation and buys them enough liquor, that will help them in any future encounters. I'm trying to make the social skills for each class as viable as their combat counterparts, so I'm also toying with the idea of using information you obtain as a way of turning some of the enemies against each other during combat. Of course, there is a high price for all of this: The sheer number of redundant groupings I'm going to have to make encounters for is bordering on the ridiculous. I may have to change the name of the game to Schrödinger's Gun.

author=trentinxd
I bet their story line is fail

I had to do a double take to make sure I read that right. Moving on...

Personally, I am not a big fan of the "custom graphics, just 'cuz" approach, but I know that it floats some people's boats extra special. If I find the graphics for a game really unappealing, I'm disinclined to spend a lot of time staring at them, but there are some people out there who believe that ms-paint doodles are always superior to rips or edits. To each their own, but ugly is ugly.

It almost pains me to type this, since I'm not a big fan of the game in question, but you might consider giving Space Funeral a try. It boasts original graphics that fit with its aesthetic, which to borrow a phrase from Paul Mooney, is best described as "Crazy as cat shit."

I'd go on, but I'm not entirely convinced this isn't someone's joke account.