RYAREISENDER'S PROFILE

Oh, I also do RPGs with pure programming but they are graphic-free (except for ASCII maps and interfaces made with ASCII characters).

I've been doing these RPGs for years and what I've learned from them is:

1. Always document everything: monsters stats, how the character development growth works, draw down the whole dungeon maps on paper or in a grid file (spreadsheet works), document every single variable and what each value means, especially all the "bitsets" for quests. If you just leave one thing undocumented you will regret it later.

2. Put hero/party/map/etc. all in objects and give them an appropriate save function each. Design all the variables these structures need before you even start developing. Try to get them 100% at the start because changing them later will mean you can't use old saves you kept for balance and bug testing which means having to play from scratch or not being able to really estimate the stats of the party at a certain point anymore.
Keep enough room for array variables. At least double as much as you expect. Like if you think you just need 50 quest bitsets, make that 100.

3. Instead of putting all RPG object definitions (like dialogues!) right in your code, try to write functions that instead reads in external files of a format that's very easy to work with and adjust. Adjusting even just dialogues directly written into code later is a horrible mess. If you automatize as much as you can (like adding newline in appropriate places or showing the name of who is talking or text colour depending on the code type or choice inputs), you can save yourself more than 50% worktime.

author=Sooz

author=Jeroen_Sol
I'd say what's missing mostly is story. A game is not merely it's technical aspects but also it's narrative ones. So if you want to make a small game to practice, I'd say you should also give it a small short story, in order to practice writing.

With beginner games, I don't know that you need anything more than most NES games had: YOU HERO. THERE BAD GUY. SIC 'EM!

My first game was a one-room drama involving lobsters, their king, and his missing crown. Also a subplot with an aspiring lobster queen. By this I mean there were 3 lobsters to talk to and their dialog changed when you picked up the crown and gave it to the king. It was truly a dramatic tour de force.

I think for a small-scale RPG a philosophical story is best.

Y'know like: YOU HERO. THERE BAD GUY. YOU KILL BAD GUY. FIND OUT BAD GUY IS ACTUALLY YOUR BRAIN. YOU DIE.

author=Komisoft
I've been slowly working on a dark, dream-themed psychological horror game for about a year now. It's been progressing at a slow rate, and changing rather frequently.

Now, it's not so much help that I require, but more so opinions of what you would like to see in an RPGMaker horror game. I'm talking gameplay mechanics, puzzles, story and what would make it stand out. I would hate to waste my time making a game that nobody would find fun to play.

Excuse me if I'm in the wrong forum.

If I play a horror game, what's most important to me is the connection to reality in the story. It can feel dream-like, that might even be a plus, but the conclusion at the end has to be somewhat connected to reality. It could be "You were insane all the time" or "You were raped as a child and now have these weird dreams" or even "It's actually a serial killer who secretly gave you drugs".

I generally dislike horror games that are just about lots of scary monsters trying to kill you or ghosts that want to get your vengeance (unless there is really an extensive explanation at the end that something really horrible happened here to cause ghosts to appear).

Gameplay mechanics, I'm pretty much open to anything. I actually think there is quite a lack of horror RPG hybrid games so I don't actually mind RPGish battle systems in a horror game, but they need to stay in the mood (the default RPG Maker battle system interface would instantly kill it). A very good example for me is Parasite Eve 1.
I generally dislike shooter-like gameplay. I dislike limited ammo (it's okay if it's limited but at "save points" you can stock up again), so I prefer using melee weapons, so they should be somewhat viable.

The most important aspect in a horror game is the immersion and a strong part of that is the music. Also make extensive use of sound effects. It doesn't have to be loud jump scares, but work with background noises a lot.

Puzzles... no particular preference but please no move block puzzles. Puzzles in a horror game should be more riddle-like. You find pieces of papers or paintings at the wall with hidden hints and need to figure them out. Puzzles should be unique over the game's progress, so no repeated use of the same puzzles with increasing difficulties, that's lame. Rather viewer puzzles but all of them unique and interesting.

Also... exploration! Work with exploration. Don't just make it a linear path the player walks along.
Don't make everything too predictable. Don't just make it closed doors, then you find a key and then you can open a door. Make something unexpected happen too... like coming back to a location and suddenly a closed door is open without the player actually thinking he could have done something to even trigger that.

That's about it.

Well I'd say by definition it's sexist. I wouldn't say it's a bad thing. Men and women are fundamentally different and it doesn't really make sense to make both equal except for the sake of equality.

As someone who really thinks a party needs to have at least 4, better 6 members, having a party consisting mostly of 2 characters seems scary, but there are a lot of ways to still make it good, though I'm not sure if they really apply to RPG Maker games very well.

Probably not an option, but making the whole battle system center around the fact that there are only two party members works. Say we make a real-time combat system, having only two character allows a single player to control both of them at the same time with a gamepad. For example make the two party members a slasher and a healer. You will move the slasher and press buttons to do attacks, the healer will stay behind you in protection and will react to command buttons like "Heal / Buff / Cure status effect / Use XYZ". Then center the whole combat system around that it's quite important which commands to give to the healer at the current moment. If you have some time to rest, ask for healing. The monster changes its element, ask for an new elemental enchant of your weapon. The monster prepares a really strong attack that will one-hit kill you, ask for a strong magical barrier.

When having to use a turn-based battle system an idea would be to just make a single hero kind of act like multiple heroes. Give each hero multiple actions per turn, but give them some restrictions so they can't just use the same action multiple times. Maybe each hero has multiple professions and per battle turn he can use one action of each profession. Or while you don't have limitations per-se on the skill use, you have some kind of time system, where you can decide ahead of time when each of your actions should be performed and then make it quite important to time it right. Say you are a Fighter/Magician/Healer and at full HP and you know that the monster will first put up a magic resist shield and then use a strong attack, the right tactic would be to first use your magic action before the shield is put up, then do a physical attack and then use healing after the strong attack from the monster.