LUCIDSTILLNESS'S PROFILE

Okay, I'll keep my thoughts brief :)

TRADITIONAL GAMEPLAY

Your traditional gameplay elements and your original gameplay elements should be one in the same; I find it is best not to include elements simply because they are expected, but to include them because they make sense for the gameplay. The best turn-based RPGs have an intricately balanced and playtested system that makes use of all of the abilities at a player's disposal. In that light, if an element serves little purpose in your game, the game will be better off without it. I recommend systematically going through every ability, stat, item, etc. in your game, and writing out its specific application in a separate document. It's more work, but it will make playtesting much easier.

STORIES

Much like with gameplay, you need to understand the conventions of RPG (and by extension heroic) storytelling more deeply as a designer than as a player. Heroic stories tend to fall into the basic 'beats' of what Joseph Campbell described as the "monomyth". Campbell described the monomyth as follows:

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.

You can read more about the monomyth here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth

It's not the only way to tell a story, but it is a good one; I advise thinking about how the elements of your game world and your game characters could fit into a monomyth.

ORIGINAL GAMEPLAY

The 'Crucial Items' sound like they could introduce some interesting new mechanics to the game, so long as they are used and not gimmicky.

Your dungeon idea could work; it does sound rather unusual, but I'd really have to see an example screenshot of what you mean before commenting on your idea in any detail. Depending on the size of the dungeon, having every tile do something could become vary tedious. I also believe you can accomplish your goal more easily with common events, random percentages, and terrain tags than with actually eventing every tile.

Speaking of faith in humanity...I recently came across something that suggests that we have a long way to go before seeing gender equality in escapist works.

A man recently edited a ROM of Donkey Kong so that his 3 year-old daughter could play as Pauline, since she enjoyed playing as Princess Toadstool/Peach in Super Mario Bros. 2. He succeeded in editing the ROM, and posted a video on Youtube with the following description:

My three year old daughter and I play a lot of old games together. Her favorite is Donkey Kong. Two days ago, she asked me if she could play as the girl and save Mario. She's played as Princess Toadstool in Super Mario Bros. 2 and naturally just assumed she could do the same in Donkey Kong. I told her we couldn't in that particular Mario game, she seemed really bummed out by that. So what else am I supposed to do? Now I'm up at midnight hacking the ROM, replacing Mario with Pauline. I'm using the 2010 NES Donkey Kong ROM. I've redrawn Mario's frames and I swapped the palettes in the ROM. I replaced the M at the top with a P for Pauline. Thanks to Kevin Wilson for giving me the lead on the tools and advice.

You can see the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeXDNg7scyU

Naturally, this being Youtube, many people took grave offense at this change, and were outspoken about their outrage. Here are some quotes collected in a different video (warning, foul, and at times incomprehensible, language):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9zIbiNqAM4

...Yeah. So, that kind of proves what Pentagon was saying about how you can't force people to take responsibility for their actions, and if nobody says what is happening is wrong, these people will feel further justified in their viewpoint that everything they just said was perfectly fine and acceptable.

I feel like that's where we are right now; developers have the ability, and in my opinion the obligation, to reduce or eliminate such attitudes by setting an example. Today, there are more 3-dimensional female characters in games today than ever before, and indeed more female characters than ever before, period. I think developers are taking more risks with the stories and characterization of their characters than was typically seen in mainstream gaming in the past. Even so, the kind of sexism you've just witnessed is still very prevalent in the industry's demographic, and that is something developers have to deal with, in a viscous cycle of consumer demands and expectations.

It's total "Facism".

I have only played a few traditional rougelikes, and I personally didn't care for the gameplay; I don't like randomness in games, and when I die or get a bad drop due to sheer randomness, it does kill the fun for me pretty quickly. It's just not my genre.

That said, as others have suggested, randomness and the sense of discovery can be a real asset to a game. I suggest concentrating on the aspects of roguelikes that I've often heard praised; an emphasis on ingenuity from the player, quick and fun gameplay,and continually new and challenging situations. That seems to be the direction modern roguelikes are moving in (since the mainstream game industry wants games to be fun and accessible, so that they will sell).

Alternatively, you could make an absolutely brutal classic rougelike, which also has its own fanbase.

@PentagonBuddy

It's cool dude; I don't have to necessarily agree with your opinions to respect them. I read your review of Spec Ops, and the point about not having control is a valid one. The player only thinks that he/she is playing as Walker, when really Walker was playing himself the whole time. I think that's interesting, but wouldn't it be much more effective if the player really did have to be the one to make the tough decisions, especially in a no-win scenario?

Well, I can think of one (and really only one) game that truly does this, and a guarantee that most of you have never even heard of it before.

Pathologic is a 2005 Russian game set in a small town where a lethal and devastating plague has just broken out. The player chooses to play as one of three characters; a doctor referred to as "Bachelor", a shaman-like character called "Haruspex" or a priestess-like character called "Devotress", all of whom are trying and stop the plague. The game gives the player 12 days to find a cure, and every day the town falls apart more and more. Allies can die, safe areas can become dangerous, prices for critical supplies will go up, and, since the player needs to eat and keep himself/herself healthy, many difficult ethical decisions lie ahead.

And that's where this idea of the player-avatar connection comes back; the player has full control of the doctor or the shaman or the priestess as they are more or less blank slates, but, since the game world treats each of these characters differently, players will soon find themselves fully taking on a role in such a desperate situation. The way the doctor can survive is not the way the shaman can survive, and with such a long and difficult road ahead, the player needs to think like the character in order to figure out how to solve the problem and stay alive. Just as the old saying goes that a dangerous situation can bring two people closer together, so too can an unforgiving and relentless game create a connection between the player and the character; much like in Spec Ops, you'll feel bad about playing the game further. Unlike Spec Ops, however, everything bad that you do is your call, and your call alone.

While all this goes on, the game just watches the player, recording everything that was done during a given day. If the player does nothing, the game still plays out in real-time, and eventually the plague consumes the small town. While most game worlds seem to only exist for the player, and depend on the player's input to get things going, Pathologic just dumps the player in a hellish scenario where characters lie and have their own agendas, events go one without the player being present, items are scarce, and failure is an ever-present possibility in a cruel, unfair and merciless world, and it does it all just to see what the player will do. Quite literally, this game plays you.

If you want to read more (spoiler heavy) thoughts about the game, I suggest checking out these articles:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/04/10/butchering-pathologic-part-1-the-body/
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/04/11/butchering-pathologic-part-2-the-mind/
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/04/12/butchering-pathologic-part-3-the-soul/

I brought up Pathologic because it's an example of what the industry could do if it left its comfort zone and started exploring other scenarios, different kinds of people to interact with in games, and different kinds of challenges for the player. The harsh, gritty reality of living in a plague town in Pathologic is far more true to life than the 'apocalyptic' scenarios of a typical zombie shooter.

In the same way Parchett was unable to make Lara as relateable and traumatized by death as she would have liked, for the sake of gameplay, we can't really take on a role in a game fully until game worlds more accurately reflect reality. This would mean sacrificing conventions that make games easy, and even fun, but the payoff might be worth it in the long run.

Or maybe not. You decide.

By the way, you can buy Pathologic on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Strategy-First-1628-Pathologic-Download/dp/B0030EFVDE

If you are making a visual novel, the typical way to do it is to draw portraits with slightly different poses and expressions. Many visual novels use a cell-shaded or semi-cell shaded anime style, because anime characters are quick to draw and easy to draw stylized expressions for; you don't have to worry about muscle movement or small details, as you would with more realistic portraits.

If you don't want to do much drawing, RPG Maker VX Ace does come with a face and sprite generator that will give you anime portraits for pretty much any kind of character you want, and while the generator doesn't technically create expressions, changing an expression with simple spriting is quite quick and easy.

Here is a tutorial by Archeia_Nessiah with lots of useful info about using Renpy:

http://rpgmaker.net/tutorials/514/

http://rpgmaker.net/tutorials/515/

Good luck!