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 ListsROOTS'S PROFILE
Roots
14
Close
I'm a professional software engineer. I've spent my spare time over the last several years working on an open source RPG project that I founded.
Search
Filter
All
Game Pages
User Statuses
Hero of Allacrost - Pixel artist needed for a high-quality title
Yeah, our ideas are very similar. I think you took your design one step further though. I like that you can "kill" a body part and disable an enemy's attacks, etc. In our design, each part has modifiers to defense, magic defense, and evasion from the base stats of the character or enemy, as well as different elemental resistances and weaknesses and the ability to inflict status effects by targeting them (ie, hit the legs for a chance to reduce their agility).
I really like the name ABBS too. We called our design MAPS, standing for multiple attack point system. I really don't like that name though (even though I came up with it), because the phrase "attack point" sounds like some sort of accumulator value like hit points, when it means something entirely different.
You're also doing something much fancier than us for the UI portion of the part. Where you do your fancy polygon highlighting deal, we simply select an x,y point on the enemy sprite and draw the target reticule there with the name of the selected point in the menu (ie: Spider - Legs). Ours is much simpler to implement, but your concept is a really nice touch.
An issue for both of us is that balancing the game well becomes more difficult with this type of system. You don't want to make exploiting weaknesses cause the game to be too easy, or make them not worth the time and effort it takes to discover and target them.
I really like the name ABBS too. We called our design MAPS, standing for multiple attack point system. I really don't like that name though (even though I came up with it), because the phrase "attack point" sounds like some sort of accumulator value like hit points, when it means something entirely different.
You're also doing something much fancier than us for the UI portion of the part. Where you do your fancy polygon highlighting deal, we simply select an x,y point on the enemy sprite and draw the target reticule there with the name of the selected point in the menu (ie: Spider - Legs). Ours is much simpler to implement, but your concept is a really nice touch.
An issue for both of us is that balancing the game well becomes more difficult with this type of system. You don't want to make exploiting weaknesses cause the game to be too easy, or make them not worth the time and effort it takes to discover and target them.
Hero of Allacrost - Pixel artist needed for a high-quality title
Most of our artwork (around 75-80%) is original. Yes, we do use other assets, mostly from OpenGameArt.org and other free open source game projects. All of them are used with permission and are credited appropriately.
And yes, we are looking for an unpaid artist as stated at the bottom of my original post.
And yes, we are looking for an unpaid artist as stated at the bottom of my original post.
Hero of Allacrost - Pixel artist needed for a high-quality title
author=Trihan
It'll be interesting to see how you guys do your battle system as I'm doing something similar, inspired by the battle system in Vagrant Story but in a turn-based environment.
I expect our battle system is going to be continually evolving for a while. While our ideas sound reasonable in theory, implementing them has been more challenging than we thought. Not the technical details, but the design aspect of making everything we have planned work together well. I'm not reluctant in the least bit to completely throw out a major feature in the future if we find it isn't working out like we had hoped. Do you have a gameplay video of your battle system? I'd be interested to see what you've done.
RE: Seraph
Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions. No worries. I don't take anything personally and want to hear people's honest thoughts and opinions more than anything.
- On scaling
True, we could just render the graphics in their native size and reduce the screen resolution. Hadn't thought about that to be honest. We want to allow the user to run the game in both windows and fullscreen modes though, and a small window (say 640x480) is really tiny on a large monitor that has a 1920x1080 resolution. So we'd want to upscale the graphics there anyway to have a reasonable sized window. Maybe we'll change things in the future, but for now things are working fine and we're focusing our efforts on more immediate issues.
- On map design
The 3-tile rule sounds like an interesting rule of thumb. One of the challenges particular to our maps stems from the fact that we have to have large structures, because there is no separate map for the inside of a home, castle, etc. It's difficult to explain how this work, but just believe me when I say if we have a 3x3 tile house, the interior is going to be 3x3 tiles as well (which is not sufficiently large for a home). We didn't realize our game would have this problem until we created our first maps. I'll take a look at the tutorials on the site though (I mistakenly presumed they were RPG-maker specific).
Thanks again for your comments.
Hero of Allacrost - Pixel artist needed for a high-quality title
Thanks for asking those questions.
1) I've always been a fan of JRPGs. Chrono Trigger and FFVI are my two favorite games and when I first played them as a child, they had a great influence on me. One of my goals was to create my own game someday, and this project just sort of happened a few years ago when I was bored one summer.
2) Honestly, I don't have a good answer for this one. When we started out this project, our team was very inexperienced and ignorant about many things. We debated different tile sizes and screen resolutions and ultimately settled on these dimensions. The screenshots I posted in the top post are not the resolution you would see in the game. Those were made that large because they are from the map editor, where I was trying to capture as much of the map as possible to illustrate the map design. Our native resolution is 1024x768, although the game can be run in other resolutions. We wanted to keep our requirements modest because a game like this shouldn't require modern hardware to run well.
Here's an older screenshot that is running in 1024x768 so you can get a better idea of what an in-game screen actually looks like. We render all the artwork at a 4x zoom, so each 32x32 tile becomes 64x64 pixels on the screen.
Here's an even older screenshot at the same 1024x768 resolution. In this version we didn't do the 4x zoom, so you can see a wider area. We decided to not use this perspective because the characters felt too small and distant, and you could see too great of a distance in dungeons.
3) When I used high-quality in the title, I was referring specifically to the artwork. I feel that we have pretty high quality visuals. As for the rest of the game, it still needs work to do to make it as high quality as the rest. I wasn't completely happy with our last demo release and I felt the map design, battle system, and balancing weren't very good. But we learned some good lessons from our design and I have high hopes that our next release will be something much better.
1) I've always been a fan of JRPGs. Chrono Trigger and FFVI are my two favorite games and when I first played them as a child, they had a great influence on me. One of my goals was to create my own game someday, and this project just sort of happened a few years ago when I was bored one summer.
2) Honestly, I don't have a good answer for this one. When we started out this project, our team was very inexperienced and ignorant about many things. We debated different tile sizes and screen resolutions and ultimately settled on these dimensions. The screenshots I posted in the top post are not the resolution you would see in the game. Those were made that large because they are from the map editor, where I was trying to capture as much of the map as possible to illustrate the map design. Our native resolution is 1024x768, although the game can be run in other resolutions. We wanted to keep our requirements modest because a game like this shouldn't require modern hardware to run well.
Here's an older screenshot that is running in 1024x768 so you can get a better idea of what an in-game screen actually looks like. We render all the artwork at a 4x zoom, so each 32x32 tile becomes 64x64 pixels on the screen.
Here's an even older screenshot at the same 1024x768 resolution. In this version we didn't do the 4x zoom, so you can see a wider area. We decided to not use this perspective because the characters felt too small and distant, and you could see too great of a distance in dungeons.
3) When I used high-quality in the title, I was referring specifically to the artwork. I feel that we have pretty high quality visuals. As for the rest of the game, it still needs work to do to make it as high quality as the rest. I wasn't completely happy with our last demo release and I felt the map design, battle system, and balancing weren't very good. But we learned some good lessons from our design and I have high hopes that our next release will be something much better.
Hero of Allacrost - Pixel artist needed for a high-quality title
About the Game
Hero of Allacrost (http://www.allacrost.org) is a RPG that has been in development for a number of years. It uses an open source custom engine and is cross-platform, available on Windows, OS X, Linux. We've released several demos (mini-RPGs) using our assets and technology in the past, and are now working toward the full title.
In a nutshell, Allacrost is inspired from SNES-era RPGs and tries to improve upon the formula. Our three primary design goals include:
All of our major features are designed with this criteria in mind. Our About Page explains some of these core features, such as status effects with various levels of intensity and the ability to target specific areas on an enemy to reduce their strength, etc.
About the Art
We use 32x32 pixel tiles and sprites that are 32x64 pixels. Here's a sample of our artwork assets so you can get a sense of our visual style.
Here are a few links to where you can view more artwork if you are so inclined.
Screenshots - most of these are very old
http://www.allacrost.org/multimedia/screenshots
Artwork Style - explains our artistic style and influences
http://www.allacrost.org/wiki/index.php/Artwork_Style
Artwork Categories - lists all of the various types of artwork we use in the game
http://www.allacrost.org/wiki/index.php/Artwork_Categories
What We Need
We're well on our way to getting the first chapter of our game released. We have about 80% of the art we need, but recently we've found that our missing assets are holding us back. Most critically, we need to finish some artwork for a castle/city map in a desert setting. Below are a couple screenshots from this map (keep in mind that it is a work in progress) and a link to the full album.
(This one is concept art for the environment we are creating)
FULL ALBUM
Some of the things we are most in need of to complete this map include:
This thread on our forums elaborates on this list. Some of these tasks are easy, and some are more challenging. I've been knocking out a couple of them myself this week. Although if tile/environment art isn't your thing, there's plenty of other art to do (including non-pixel art). Sprites, spell effects, and so on are all on the table. Map art is simply our highest priority at this time.
How to Help
Visit http://www.allacrost.org/contribute to find out how to contribute to the project. There's no formal process or anything. This page simply gets you pointed in the right direction to better understand what Allacrost is, what is expected of contributors, and how to get the most out of your time on the team. Essentially all you have to do is make an account on our forums, state that you'd like to help, and you'll be on your way.
The following page on our wiki is really informative: New Artists. We accept artists regardless of their skill level, so don't be intimidated if you think you the level of art is above your abilities. We'd rather have a novice artist than no artist at all, and we can help you learn and grow. You will retain the full rights for all content that you create for Allacrost. The only thing you give away is permission for us to use your creations in our title. We also make our assets available for others to use at OpenGameArt.org.
This is a non-commercial project that is made freely available to those who wish to experience it. There's no financial compensation, as this is a labor of love for us all. Our compensation comes in the form of developing our skills, learning new things, and having a stellar title in our resume/portfolio. And most of all, it's fun. If we didn't have fun creating this, we wouldn't still be doing it.
Please feel free to reply to this thread with any questions, comments, feedback, etc. You can send me a PM if you'd like to ask something confidentially. Thanks!
Hero of Allacrost (http://www.allacrost.org) is a RPG that has been in development for a number of years. It uses an open source custom engine and is cross-platform, available on Windows, OS X, Linux. We've released several demos (mini-RPGs) using our assets and technology in the past, and are now working toward the full title.
In a nutshell, Allacrost is inspired from SNES-era RPGs and tries to improve upon the formula. Our three primary design goals include:
- Design the game such that the major focus is on gameplay and story, not advanced 3D graphics and physical simulations.
- As much as possible, remove the tedious, meaningless, and micromanaging aspects of many historical and modern RPGs.
- Require a high level of strategic thinking and planning from the player, and less mindless "button mashing" found in many RPGs.
All of our major features are designed with this criteria in mind. Our About Page explains some of these core features, such as status effects with various levels of intensity and the ability to target specific areas on an enemy to reduce their strength, etc.
About the Art
We use 32x32 pixel tiles and sprites that are 32x64 pixels. Here's a sample of our artwork assets so you can get a sense of our visual style.
Here are a few links to where you can view more artwork if you are so inclined.
Screenshots - most of these are very old
http://www.allacrost.org/multimedia/screenshots
Artwork Style - explains our artistic style and influences
http://www.allacrost.org/wiki/index.php/Artwork_Style
Artwork Categories - lists all of the various types of artwork we use in the game
http://www.allacrost.org/wiki/index.php/Artwork_Categories
What We Need
We're well on our way to getting the first chapter of our game released. We have about 80% of the art we need, but recently we've found that our missing assets are holding us back. Most critically, we need to finish some artwork for a castle/city map in a desert setting. Below are a couple screenshots from this map (keep in mind that it is a work in progress) and a link to the full album.
(This one is concept art for the environment we are creating)
FULL ALBUM
Some of the things we are most in need of to complete this map include:
- A tileset for the castle's interior
- Items to complete a throne room
- Interior walls for the houses in our town
This thread on our forums elaborates on this list. Some of these tasks are easy, and some are more challenging. I've been knocking out a couple of them myself this week. Although if tile/environment art isn't your thing, there's plenty of other art to do (including non-pixel art). Sprites, spell effects, and so on are all on the table. Map art is simply our highest priority at this time.
How to Help
Visit http://www.allacrost.org/contribute to find out how to contribute to the project. There's no formal process or anything. This page simply gets you pointed in the right direction to better understand what Allacrost is, what is expected of contributors, and how to get the most out of your time on the team. Essentially all you have to do is make an account on our forums, state that you'd like to help, and you'll be on your way.
The following page on our wiki is really informative: New Artists. We accept artists regardless of their skill level, so don't be intimidated if you think you the level of art is above your abilities. We'd rather have a novice artist than no artist at all, and we can help you learn and grow. You will retain the full rights for all content that you create for Allacrost. The only thing you give away is permission for us to use your creations in our title. We also make our assets available for others to use at OpenGameArt.org.
This is a non-commercial project that is made freely available to those who wish to experience it. There's no financial compensation, as this is a labor of love for us all. Our compensation comes in the form of developing our skills, learning new things, and having a stellar title in our resume/portfolio. And most of all, it's fun. If we didn't have fun creating this, we wouldn't still be doing it.
Please feel free to reply to this thread with any questions, comments, feedback, etc. You can send me a PM if you'd like to ask something confidentially. Thanks!
[Music] Dibur's Music Commissions & Royalty-Free Audio (JRPG, Retro, and more!)
Wow, I was completely blown away by your demo reel! I guess 13 years of practice really pays off. If someone told me that a renowned game composer made that music, I wouldn't have doubted it for a second.
Looking for tips and feedback from experienced map designers
I thought about posting in that thread, but it's for screenshots and that's not what these are. Plus as I said, I was hoping to get both general pointers on map design in addition to feedback on what I've got so far.
You're right about the roads being empty. The ground in general does not have much variety simply because I haven't gotten around to it yet. I'm trying to get the most important parts of the map built up and looking right before I add all the fine details. The same applies for the interiors. They are not finished yet, as you suspected.
As for the town wall, you're right. The top of the wall is not a wall, it's the face of a cliff. This location is a rocky outcrop in the middle of a desert, and a castle is built on top of the largest of the two rocks. I hadn't added the castle yet when I made the first post. I worked on it some more last night and created a first draft of the part of the castle that sits on the left rock.
Again, not finished, missing details, etc. But hopefully you can get an idea of what I'm trying to do here.
You're right about the roads being empty. The ground in general does not have much variety simply because I haven't gotten around to it yet. I'm trying to get the most important parts of the map built up and looking right before I add all the fine details. The same applies for the interiors. They are not finished yet, as you suspected.
As for the town wall, you're right. The top of the wall is not a wall, it's the face of a cliff. This location is a rocky outcrop in the middle of a desert, and a castle is built on top of the largest of the two rocks. I hadn't added the castle yet when I made the first post. I worked on it some more last night and created a first draft of the part of the castle that sits on the left rock.
Again, not finished, missing details, etc. But hopefully you can get an idea of what I'm trying to do here.
Looking for tips and feedback from experienced map designers
I'm working on a RPG that is made with a custom engine and editor. At the moment I'm working on producing a rather large city/castle map, and I was hoping to get some feedback on the early designs. If there are any resources you can point me to as far as tutorials, etc. that can teach the fundamentals of map design, I'd appreciate it if you could point me in that direction.
Below is a link to the screenshots of the current draft of this map. It is still largely incomplete but has all of the major structures there except for the castle which will be built atop the cliffs. Please ignore the obvious graphical glitches like some of the shadows are wrong and the roof tiles are not repeatable. That's not what I'm looking for feedback on.
http://imgur.com/a/ttfGE
Some important features to note about this map and our game in general:
We've put together some release demos in the past and the maps were less than stellar. I really don't want to feel the same disappointment with our maps again. Here's a video of what I mean (the first minute or so is all you need to watch). The maps were massively large and very empty. They just weren't that interesting.
So am I on the right track with this map so far? What do you feel would improve it the most? Here's a link to the project website if you're interested in learning more about what we're seeking to create.
Hero of Allacrost - Website
Below is a link to the screenshots of the current draft of this map. It is still largely incomplete but has all of the major structures there except for the castle which will be built atop the cliffs. Please ignore the obvious graphical glitches like some of the shadows are wrong and the roof tiles are not repeatable. That's not what I'm looking for feedback on.
http://imgur.com/a/ttfGE
Some important features to note about this map and our game in general:
- The interiors of the homes must roughly the same size as the exteriors. This is because we don't contain our interiors on separate maps like most RPGs do. Thus, the structures have to be large.
- I tried to vary the size/orientation of the structures so that the town doesn't feel like a maze of nearly identical houses.
- I'm planning for only about half of these structures to be able to be entered by the player. I feel like having them all have an interior would make the map too complex, and removing houses would make the map feel too small (this is supposed to be a rather large city).
- I tried to make each area of the map somewhat unique so the player has "landmarks" as they explore the city the first time and understand what's in it and where things are. Also makes it a more interesting environment.
- The sprites are roughly as tall and half as wide as the entrances you see to the buildings, if that gives you a reference point.
- It should be obvious, but the in-game the view will be zoomed in quite a bit. I doubt you would be able to see the entire view of most of these structures if you place the player sprite directly in front of it.
We've put together some release demos in the past and the maps were less than stellar. I really don't want to feel the same disappointment with our maps again. Here's a video of what I mean (the first minute or so is all you need to watch). The maps were massively large and very empty. They just weren't that interesting.
So am I on the right track with this map so far? What do you feel would improve it the most? Here's a link to the project website if you're interested in learning more about what we're seeking to create.
Hero of Allacrost - Website
[IDEAS] What does a RPG need?
I think the real answer is "it depends", as everyone has different reasons and motivations for playing RPGs. Having said that, these are the three things I most desire in RPGs:
1) Great story and writing
I'm most interested in continuing to play a game when I'm interested in the story and I want to find out what happens next.
2) Character development
Even with a great story, stale and boring characters can really drag down the experience. I love having interesting and dynamic characters that I build a sort of attachment to.
3) Gameplay
Gameplay is really important as well. If you have a boring or tedious battle system in between story events, then only half the game is fun (whenever you're not in a battle). If battles are lame enough, I tend to stop playing before the game is finished.
1) Great story and writing
I'm most interested in continuing to play a game when I'm interested in the story and I want to find out what happens next.
2) Character development
Even with a great story, stale and boring characters can really drag down the experience. I love having interesting and dynamic characters that I build a sort of attachment to.
3) Gameplay
Gameplay is really important as well. If you have a boring or tedious battle system in between story events, then only half the game is fun (whenever you're not in a battle). If battles are lame enough, I tend to stop playing before the game is finished.
Improving Menu-Based Battle Systems
LockeZ, you wrote while I was typing my last reply so I didn't see it until after I posted. I agree 100% with every recommendation you wrote. That demo gameplay video I linked in the first post was to a release that was made a few years ago and was still unrefined and missing many of the features we have since implemented.
Yup, already planning to do more or less everything you mentioned here. We're still playing around with the balancing of battles to find the right combination of speed, timers, and damage dealt so that battles are challenging and interesting. The demo release was poorly balanced and we kind of rushed it out without spending too much effort refining it.
Absolutely. Right now enemies aren't intelligent at all as we haven't really invested any time into developing their AI. We'll get around to this, but probably not in our next release. Its still very much a work in progress, but I do want to invest some serious time and effort to make interesting AI for our enemies instead of having them randomly select a skill and target as they do now.
The full game (not the demo from the video) starts out with three party members. I agree that there should be very few instances in the game where there is only a single member to fight in battles, as the battle system just doesn't work very well for a single character.
And yes, the animation is pretty...well, non-existent. The reason for this was that we simply didn't have the resources at the time for it. Definitely something that will be improved.
author=LockeZ
- Slow down enemies so they get turns at about the same speed as the player, for most enemies. One obvious exception would be when fighting a single enemy while the player controls several characters.
- Increase enemy damage to compensate.
- Then, triple or quadruple the speed that the turn bar increases. This will make the time that the player spends waiting for turns be negligible, and when you combine it with the above two suggestions, it won't cause any problems with how fast enemies get their turns.
Yup, already planning to do more or less everything you mentioned here. We're still playing around with the balancing of battles to find the right combination of speed, timers, and damage dealt so that battles are challenging and interesting. The demo release was poorly balanced and we kind of rushed it out without spending too much effort refining it.
author=LockeZ
- Give every enemy at least one unique property that the player must respond to. Most enemies later in the game should have two or three properties. Make sure that properly responding is important - if the player can win battles while ignoring what the enemies are doing, then the system becomes boring again. The player should have a margin of error they're allowed of course, but that margin shouldn't be so big that everything but bosses is beatable while ignoring the gameplay.
- These properties don't have to be limited to elemental abilities and basic status ailments. Enemies can charge up an attack to use on the next round but you can stop the attack by stunning them before then. They can buff themselves or each-other. They can summon allies. They can heal, or prevent the player from healing. They can deal damage based on their remaining HP, or the player's. They can alternate between two attack modes. They can enrage when an ally dies, or after a certain number of turns. They can do thousands of other things.
Absolutely. Right now enemies aren't intelligent at all as we haven't really invested any time into developing their AI. We'll get around to this, but probably not in our next release. Its still very much a work in progress, but I do want to invest some serious time and effort to make interesting AI for our enemies instead of having them randomly select a skill and target as they do now.
author=LockeZ
- Get a second party member on the team ASAP. Your combat is obviously designed for party battles and it is very obvious that things like targeting would be adding more depth to the battle if there were at least two characters. It's possible to create deep engaging combat with only one character, but you don't seem to really have a strong grasp on how to do so.
- This is unrelated, but the battles are very hard to "read" because there's no animation on the target when they take damage. I'm sure you plan to fix it, but at the moment it's making the battles look even more boring than they really are, because it's hard to tell that something happened at all.
The full game (not the demo from the video) starts out with three party members. I agree that there should be very few instances in the game where there is only a single member to fight in battles, as the battle system just doesn't work very well for a single character.
And yes, the animation is pretty...well, non-existent. The reason for this was that we simply didn't have the resources at the time for it. Definitely something that will be improved.
Games - Tester
Games - Other
