namida's new RPG project

[namida]

So, I've posted another video, showing off a fair bit more than the last one did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbI_zjvP8Yo

Of particular interest:
- A random encounter about 1/3rd of the way through the video
- Three different maps are visited.
- Visiting an Armor forge near the end. This is a shop that can custom-make armors (and yes, equivalents for weapons exist too).

Read after watching

Regarding the maps, if your thought was that the three maps are "outside", "armor shop" and "inn"... wrong!

The inn and the armor shop are actually on the same map - just far enough away from each other that you can't see one from the other (in fact, the weapon shop is inbetween them, but again, not visible from the others).

On the other hand, the area east of the town is actually a separate map. The engine isn't quite fancy enough to connect two maps together like this (I could probably do it, but I don't see it as being worth the effort at this stage - I may change my mind on this later) - instead, all segments of the map that are visible in the overlap are identical on both maps, and the fade in / fade out isn't applied when switching between them. The drawback here is that there can't be any moving events in the shared area - or at least, I'd need to write code to carry over their positions.

The exact warp points are one tile either side of the wall. As soon as you step one tile past the wall, you're insta-warped to the other map.

[namida]

I've mostly completed the first town, the first field area (these were both seen in the video) and the first dungeon - including a boss.

Still missing are proper graphics and lines for the majority of NPCs, and most of the cutscenes (I've only made one so far, and it's a very simple one). Also, very few attacks have proper animations so far (all enemies have a proper graphic, though). Also, I've only done rudimentary balance-testing so far, so it'll likely need more tweaking. And, no custom music yet - I'm still using Lemmings music as placeholders.

For story-related reasons, the player won't be able to learn any attacks (or have any of the learnable ones pre-learnt) at this point, which means the boss is mostly a matter of equipment, and good use of items and Defend. The boss was somewhat inspired by - though far from identical to - Klunky from the original game.

[namida]

For those who've played the original game - you may recall that there were some guys near the start that explained a lot about game mechanics.

So one issue there, obviously - it's very easy to miss this. That's easily solved; for the new game, I've made it so that a mandatory cutscene draws attention to their presence, and specifically points them out as people who will tell you useful info about how the game works (though in less fourth-wall-breaking language).

But another is - there's HEAPS of them, and the information can be a bit much to all take in at once. So I'm wondering - to those who have played, what information do you think would have been useful to have in such a place? What doesn't really need to be there? (FYI, nothing about learning abilities beyond maybe "you'll eventually be able to" needs to be discussed there, because you only gain the option to do that after defeating the first boss - so an explanation for that can come later.)

Also, more preview stuff! Keep in mind these will likely be replaced with better, higher-res ones later*, but here's the current face graphics for the first two summons your party obtains - the fire-elemental Laraven, and the water-elemental Sualvelon. I have story-related reasons why I've decided to make all the summons humanoid. (Besides these two, I've made the face graphic for one other, and have a decent image in my head of what two more will look like.)

* maybe. I'm actually starting to be a bit undecided on this, in some ways, I like the simple graphics even if they don't look amazing. Also, chances are if I want better looking art, I'm going to have to look at hiring an artist because I'm not likely going to be able to produce high-quality, high-resolution artwork myself and I don't want to use stuff (other than sound effects, because those simply aren't all that feasible to get any other way) from resource collections, free or otherwise.

[namida]

Progress has been a bit slow over the last week, but I'm still making progress. I've done all the cutscenes for the first "quest". Still using placeholder graphics for all the NPCs, aside from one who's very plot-significant. Attack animations, except Miana's physical attack, are still all placeholders.

I might just stick to leaving placeholders except for major characters, for now (including for attack animations). I intend to replace the current graphics with better ones later anyway, so it's probably not that vital to have not-as-placeholder-y placeholders. But I do like to have proper graphics for major characters (including non-party-members), even if they're low-quality placeholder ones.

I've also created the heal / fast travel points (these are the same thing, you can do either at them). Generally, fast travel points in towns can be travelled to, while ones in dungeons / fields cannot (you can only travel from them, or use them to heal). You can save anywhere, so I won't be calling them anything resembling "save point" this time around.

Heals, however, are limited. While there's no permanent cap, either globally or per-point, you need to fight a certain number of battles inbetween heals at these points. You begin the game with a heal available, but after this, you must win 3 battles before the next heal, then 5 before the one after that, and so on. This is capped at 32 battles between heals. Battles you escape from, or losing a battle that doesn't result in a game over for losing, won't count towards the requirement. Discovering a new destination point will immediately drop the "battles until next heal" to zero. This is not tracked per-point; it's a single battle count requirement shared across all fast travel points in the game.

Note that the heal is not automatic when you access a fast travel point and are eligible for a heal - you must explicitly select to use it. This also means you can fast travel, while still saving your heal for a later time. If you aren't currently eligible for a heal, the fast travel points will display in a darker color on the map, and when you try to use it, the (disabled) "heal" option will have a number next to it indicating how many battles you need to fight until you can heal again.

I haven't implemented the actual fast travel mechanism yet, only the healing mechanism and the unlocking of new points. The travel itself is probably one of the next non-content things I'll do.

I may revise having the cap set at 32, but aside from that I'm pretty happy with these mechanics.

[namida]

Here's the whole combined outdoor area so far. This doesn't include the insides of buildings in town, or the dungeon segment.

To the player, this would seem like one huge map (some of the transition points could be detected by the music changes, or the split-second lag when changing map) - but it's actually five maps altogether, using three different tilesets.

There are some parts that are abruptly cut off, but it's impossible to get close enough to those points to see it in-game (at least, not without using a debug feature that lets you walk through solid tiles).

Note that this is purely the map - it doesn't show NPCs, chests, etc. Also, these are rendered by the map editor, which doesn't share the game's codebase (it's not even written in the same language - the game is C#, the map editor is Pascal), so there might be slight differences in color etc. There shouldn't be, but it's possible.

[namida]

Haven't had the most time where I feel like working on it lately, but I got some stuff done today. I also implemented the actual fast travel a while back, so that's fully functional now too.

I've added the option to push a button while on a map screen (that has encounters) to get an instant random encounter. I'm considering combining this with a random encounter cap per area, after which you won't get any more encounters in that area unless you specifically trigger one with the button. Alternatively, I might consider having only touch encounters outside of specifically-requested ones - possibly with the added factor that the touch encounters cannot be escaped from.

I've also changed how enemy AI works. Instead of an unnecessary script interpreter, I'm now hardcoding the AI into the source code itself. This averts a lot of mess. (Some other things still need interpreters, eg. event scripts, because they can't just be run entirely in one go but often need to stop at certain points; while equipment drops are simple enough that it's easier to keep them as scripts in the data files.)

Finally, a very familiar random encounter foe from the first game has been made for this one too. A certain one that's well known for their tendency to appear in large groups and gang up on a single target...

[namida]

So, I've been thinking a lot about this, and found that in general - I'm just not really feeling it with creating the overall story / world for this new game. I had some interesting ideas, but couldn't really come up with much of a great way to tie it all together, and wasn't really enjoying that much creating the maps / etc.

Maybe that's something that will change, I don't know. But I'm strongly considering taking this project in a new, and somewhat unique direction... one that will likely appeal even more to people who quite enjoyed my first game. I won't go into too much more detail than that for now, while I'm still working out some of the details of this new direction (and deciding if I actually want to take it), but I think it's something that I'd be much more inclined to keep at it with.