What engine are you using?Or are you making your own?Do you miss RPG Maker if you used it before?Post progress BTW.
>>3920498Shame, seems like these threads don't work on this board. Making a re clone and am thinking about the injury system. Want an armor and health system with semi permanent injuries. Armor works rather as damage negate, think of a plate and a knife. You won't do shit against a breast plate with a knife, except for well placed or ciritcal hits. Injuries reduce max health and have further debuff. Tedious or fun?
>>3921113Oh, and if someone has any idea on how to use skelletons(?) for animations, is there a structured approach or do I just need to have an eye for it. Like using the same animations for humans, ghosts, demi humans aso. A werewolf in a hunched position could also be the skeleton of an ox.
>>3920498Yay, you're back!
I'd post my game here, but /vrpg/ won't let me because I used AI voice acting in it.
>>3921115it is really dependent on the engine you use
>>3921204Godot, so far. I haven't made any animations, yet, besides experimenting. I've read that blender is better as godot and easy to integrate into the game engine.
>>3921200I don't see an issue with it.
>>3921200Post it, I don't really care.
>>3920498really rough so far
Mongol update. Fully switched to Unity. 2D turn based. Localizing it in romanian ( română).
For someone wanting to heavily mod Quake 1, how do I approach QuakeC but starting with easier 2d projects? I was thinking of Raylib, are there others?
Today I had my biggest scare in a while>Decide to configure steam cloud saves because why not>test in my dev account before publishing>test goes okay, it saves and then brings them back if they are moved>publish>go into my player account to verify>saves gone>FUCK>disable cloud saves>go back to dev account>saves are there again>huh>turn on cloud saves again. Go back and forth, it seems the OG saves were bound to dev account and steam detects it and cleans the saves from the save path when the other account is logged.>boot up my spare laptop with a third 3 account and yeah it's working fine.Never attempting this on a live game again.
Recently converted my text-based RPG "Aura Clash" from ChoiceScript to a new engine I had to build off Tweego, calling it the Aurillian Framework.https://www.auraclash.com#gamedevThe game's going well so far, the 1m word translation went smoothly and I'm 150k words into writing chapter 9. Hoping for a March/April release. Still didn't finish Tian Fang's quest (pic related) so my fans will continue to call a fatwa upon me.
>>3923626Forgot the link to the game:https://www.auraclash.com/adventureAnd yes the pics are AI sloppa; I wasn't going to have many/any in the final product but two fans made a set for me. The focus of the game is text and not pics, I have an option to disable them entirely but I've grown fond of a few as placeholders, hoping to find a good illustrationist for the final product since it's made enough patreonbux to fund it.Does anyone know good anime-like artists that are accepting commissions and producing work that would be worth putting in a full Steam game?
I have the urge to make a TES-like or Fallout-like from scratch in a custom engine
>>3924831Are you focusing on narrative or gameplay? If narrative you should seriously consider text-based. If gameplay, try a CRPG to capture the adventure essence.
What's the best engine to use if I want to make a battle system like in MMBN?
>>3925055Game maker or some of these obscure newer engines that came after 2020? The gameplay there comes from the vast amount of builds. There's one castlevania where you have 50 power ups that you mix and match as you see fit. Imho such a game really easy to make and has a strong fan base, too. AFAIK there are no clones, too.
Considering makinga fallout fangame
>>3924831>>3925496Kiss
>>3925499Anon...
>Want to make a Bethesda-style RPG>Look online>Apparently everyone hates Bethesda RPGs now>My game will probably either suck or no one will play it, or bothDamn
>>3925506>Bethesda-style RPGCrpg?>people online mightIrrelevant. You lack the funding to care for such things. Make what you like and gather a niche following.
>my wagie full corpo job pays way more than my attempts at making a game ever could>arrive home late, tired, depressed and barely have any willpower left to work on gameanons, I feel like I'm not gonna make it
>>3925633Pay people to help you?
If I'm making something in Pico8 and desire to make it bigger with less constraints, any particular framework you recommend? Something with Lua?
>>3925714tic-80 is pico8 with less constraints
>>3925667My pay is still well below what is needed to hire skilled people.
>>3925811Yet you were saying you're making way more than a game ever could, LMAO
>>3925812>more than my* game ever couldI don't have my hopes up.
>>3925813Idk, you could hire a paki rookie for little money. He'll learn eventually. If you can't spend 500 usd for a hobby, then>jobs pays way moreSeems like a lie ngl
>>3921719Please don't post anything like this ever again.
>>3925824We don't talk about paki devs here, they bring bad luck
>>3920498How lovely is to see the comeback. Sadly, my project is at a standstill because life is being rough at me.
>>3925920I worked with pakis in rl and online. Best people, really. There are countless scammers though, so beware.
>>3925998You're probably right but it was a reference to this board's history. The less you know the better.
>>3926017You don't think it's... Him? He could be everyw9, damn.
An rpg where you go full luigi on epstein, corrupt politicians and corpos would surely sell a lot on steam.
>>3925055rpgm mz with sang hendrix plugins
Are there any sites where devs actually discuss game(s design)? Seems like there's almost nothing done form a scientific standpoint.
>>3926941Nigger will steal your idea
>>3927508Certainly, this one of a 20000 games per year idea! I doubt ideas are much worth in vidya this scene fails to monetize a booming market, so it's safe to say most devs are clowns.
>>3926941My idea is to clone a game from 20 years ago only it'll be 10x worse in every aspect
>>3927634Huh? That's not what I wrote. Did you hurt your head?>>3926941>game designHave you read papers or textbooks about game design? One could argue that bad games are a direct result of bad teaching materials. Fun (in vidya) is a topic that's basically non-existent in the serious science scene. Arguably the latter is a dying breed, but that's a whole different story altogether.
Is a KOTOR-style CRPG even doable solo?A FONV-style CRPG, either?Classic Fallout CRPG even?
>>3927741One man made Ken’s Labyrinth
>>3927741>Is a KOTOR-style CRPG even doable solo?I pray so, that shit was cash. Does anyone know the best way to implement a similar engine? That would be the hard part.
>>3927741>Is a KOTOR-style CRPG even doable solo?If you only need the control style and the RPG system, as well as battle processing and other minor systems, then yes. It will not even be that time consuming. Click to move and camera processing are standard (or easy to find plugins) for all modern engines, and implementing minor systems is a matter or basic coding.>A FONV-style CRPG, either?If you only look for simular controls and RPG system implementation, then yes, they're easy to implement as well.>Classic Fallout CRPG even?Yes as well.Here comes the bad part. The above is true for core mechanics only. Making a good RPG requires a BRUTAL amount of content - text, 3D/2D designs, animation rigs, interface graphics, databases, SFXs, OST... Getting the engine running is not the hard part, it's letting go filling the world.
is designing story before gameplay a valid approach
>>3928432If you can write like a game designer rather than a book writer, then sure. Otherwise, make a story roadmap and write it along the creation of the game.
>>3928432 #it can potentially clash with your themes and worldbuildinga lot of "great"/immersive rpg stories were ones that had their story integrated with the game. gothic for instance had a barrier that prevented you from leaving the open world and it served as the main motivation for the protagonist
>>3928432Sure. You can slap almost any story/gameplay onto any gameplay/story. It's cool if some mechanics are mirrored in the story.
I have an idea for a game and I want opinions on it, because maybe it's trash, but if it's good and somebody steals it I will kms.
>>3928658Ask chatgpt
>>3928658Don't beat yourself up over it. If you couldn't make something of out of it, it wasn't a good idea for you.There was a time I used to believe "If I can do it, so can you."
>>3928658No one will steal it, lol. Imagine thinking someone wants to invest money to execute an untested concept. Kek.
I just had a wacky idea for a CRPG or TTRPG system>Every session, your character will chase their Goal (what they want). They’ll also be tempted to act on their Personality (defining aspects of who they are). When they act on their personality, they risk triggering their Flaw (weakness that gets in the way of their goal).>When a player does anything that pushes them towards their goal, they're resolved using a regular d20 check against a relevant stat. If the roll is successful, they gain XP. Normal.>BUT, when their Personality urges them to do something, they are presented with whether or not to do that. If they do it and the roll is successful, they gain a short-term buff they can use once. Their stress also decreases by 2 (more on that in a moment).>BUT, if the roll is a failure, their flaw takes over and they gain a short-term debuff that, when (immediately) activated, causes them to act in accordance to their character flaw. Their stress will decrease by 1, because at least they tried.>If they suppress it, nothing happens... but their stress increases by 1. Every time their stress reaches 10, it resets to 0, but their character hits a breaking point, where they AUTO-FAIL the next in-character action and their flaw activates.
>>3928658>>3929381I actually have a genre defining idea that will change not just one but multiple genres forever and I'm not sharing it because it's just that good.When I make it I'll come back to this post.
>>3929642Certainly you do. In any case, a good game is always welcomed.
>>3929636>when (immediately) activatedYou need to roll to avoid activation every x hours
>>3920498do we accept action-adventure games in here or nah? there's sword and monsters
cozy
>>3930486This is not a real general. There are no rules. Just do whatever.
>>3931081nice! Well I've added zombies to my game. They have a ton of health so the best approach is to use a finisher move on them, or alternatively, using either fire or holy element attacks
How do RPG's track the player's progress through the story?is it a series of boolean like hasBeatenXDungeon, hasXItem and then these booleans just turn on and off different events and dialogue across the map?Or is there a better way to go about this?
>>3931401I structure my game in milestones you can do that or chapters. If you have a "main quest" line you can use that. Save an array of booleans with each index being one of this milestones or main quest points.
>>3931401You can do a bool array and just keep track of what index applies to what event.Or something like a struct can be relatively easier to manage, if your language uses it.
ManI want to make a game that's like JRPG and CRPG had hot babymaking sexsomething like FF5 with mechanics from BG or FONVOr something like DQ9 with shit from TESBut such a combo would probably either be a content nightmare or total tonal dissonance
>>3931419>>3931437So my idea is okay but I want to know if there is a better way.I don't trust myself with my own ideas
>>3931446Me too.AGDG wouldn't respond so maybe you folks have some thoughts on this:They updated paperZD so it wouldn't be absolutely terrible to actually use for a full game anymore so I've been thinking of revisiting this project idea. That said, what graphical style do you think would actually be appropriate for a world in the vein of Dark Sun? Should it be more JRPG looking or should I try to find some shitty western style akin to the original DS games? Or something much more simplistic (eg ultima 4, kingsvein for a contemporary example)
>>3931401That will depend a lot on how you structure your game. In the end you have pile of booleans or integers, but you need to structure them somehow for your own sanity. For items you could just have one big array of booleans for example, or each map tracks all flags that are relevant while you are on that map. For story, games often break things down into quests or acts. You can look at Skyrim modding for some very detailed examples.Personally I'm using a SQLite database with a bunch of tagged keys. So when you talk to Dave it loads all the flags with the "people/dave" path. It's not finished, but so far it does the main thing of keeping track of which character knows what.>>3931446>>3932506That's what I've been working on and it's basically just a CRPG that doesn't use a D&D derived combat system or Infinity Engine graphics. I think the space really is underexplored, where CRPGs have all this room for expressing player choice, but but are weighed down by bloated systems that were not made for video game. Meanwhile JRPGs put everything in up-front appeal but restrict choices so much they basically disappear entirely like in Final Fantasy 16: an action game that only carries vestigial RPG features because of a historical obligation.>art styleThat's something I'm also not sure about, I'm afraid the only way to gage audience reaction for random hobbyists like us is to look at other games that tried it. So I'm just going with a style that I can make, which is gonna be somewhere between Paper Mario and Bugfables.
new here. I was looking for the rpg maker thread. Is this the right board? I remember that I visited the thread once years ago and got inspired by the amount of rpg maker games.
>>3932804>You can look at Skyrim modding for some very detailed examples.Dunno where to start with that bu does seem like it'll be useful>SQLite database with a bunch of tagged keys. So when you talk to Dave it loads all the flags with the "people/dave" pathOh, I studied coding at one of those bootcamps that teach you web development stuff, I've used postgreSQL but never did anything with it, I can see a database being the best way to track a story, I'd have to read more about this tho, like how do get my engine to interact with the database but thanks, this is what Ii wanted to hear.
>>3932819>>3932963
"Quirky Earthbound-inspired indie RPG secretly about depression" is overdone at this point. What about an inverse?"Final Fantasy-inspired rpg secretly about... [idk]"?One idea is to do what Live A Live went for with its final chapters.
>>3933675A jrpg that is secretly a wrpg
>>3933819Dragons Dogma
>>3933820hey my game's a Zelda-like Dogma-esque, check it out:>https://files.catbox.moe/4tp2ua.webmplase don't mind the shitty level, it's just my test room
It's really hell being a solodev, you have a ton of blindspots and no one to help you see them, a demo can help get feedback but even then it's still lackluster help. I do have recurrent thoughts pop up in my head on how to polish or make a certain feature more cool for the player. I.e. there's a npc that fast travels you from X to Y using an airship, well currently its fade out/fade in, but a small cutscene of the airship riding the clouds would make it somewhat cooler.So everyone would tell you polish comes at the end right? So i usually write these ideas on a document and keep going, but at the same time these little things are pretty cool to sell the game so it comes down to how to optimize the development to keep people interested.What is your experience with this anons?
>>3934748I try to make things as polished as possible so I don't have to ever go back to them and can focus on creating new stuff
>>3934868Your dev cave looks comfy
>>3934748This is why I've grown schizophrenia so my shadow friends can help.
>>3934868cute :)
>>3934877Maybe our shadowfriends were the devs we made along the way
Should I make my RPG systems-focused (CRPG-ish), or should I make it world/narrative-focused (JRPG-ish)?
>>3935692What am I looking at?
>>3935696Terminal brainrot.
>>3935723Fallout 1's final boss
Hironobu Sakaguchi's first game was a text adventure (with graphical supplements).This was his GDD for ithttps://x.com/auuo/status/1995504635000635845
>>3924831I vote for fallout like. Or fallout2 like. A Morrowind like just sounds too painful to create.
>>3925811Think smaller. Let the smaller project fund the larger more ambitious ones.
>>3930506Comfy
>>3920498Are there trpg where both teams move simultaneously? Trying to design a system, but no matter what you do, action economy trumps everything. Another idea I have is to improve counters and reactions, but especially the latter leads to rounds being constantly interrupted by said abilities. What do? Is the genre doomed?
>>3927617>I can't recognize good shit. HurduurrSomeone just needs to see the ones ranked fun, play them, and then take yo money.
>>3936186Make turns a time slot where both teams need to act, and when both decided it unfolds with special interactions if for example, if both sent characters to the same tiles Or Make it small time slots of like 5 seconds with a limited amount of actions like a regular turn basedGot another idea but forgot
>>3936355>Got another idea but forgotStory of my life
Should my game be NES-styled 2D pixel art, SNES/GBA-styled 2D pixel art, PS1/NDS-styled 3D low poly, or just 2.5D (i.e DOOM)?
>>3937001Whichever you like the best
>>3931446>>3932506I feel like that's more or less what the SaGa series is. Have you played any of those?
Maybe we should create a pastebin with resources or links to share. I dunno if it has ever been created.
>>3937894Not that I know of
I'm trying to make a first person RPG in a similar style of Daggerfall.What size would you say the average sprite for an NPC is, pixel wise?For the moment, I'm using a standard 64x64 for everything, but I don't want it to seem like I'm trying too hard to be low res.
>>3938598>, but I don't want it to seem like I'm trying too hard to be low res.Non issue. Idk if you researched your competition, but there are like a dozen announced and afaik many are 2dhd and few 2.5d, too. Meaning a 2d pixel in 3d, looks cool.
I just spent an entire hour arguing with and seething at a chatbot
>>3938708>I just spent an entire hour arguing with and seething at a chatbotBased anon just spent an entire hour on /vrpg/
Reworking a buncha anims before I commit to the pace of each turn in combat.It was too slow before.
>>3938710thisguydoubters went awfully quiet since this post dropped
>>3938710I think its too fast, too much distance covered in too little time. try lowering one or the other
>>3938790It might be too fast by, unironically, a singular frame. I'll have to plug it in to find out. Two frames between keys is fine. Dunno about just one.I know, for sure, that the distance covered is fine.
>>3924831>>3920498making an engine for multiplayer rpg with this stackLanguages: TypescriptRuntime: BunGraphics: 2D with PixiJSECS: BitECSPhysics / Collisions: SAT.jsNetworking: Bun WebsocketsBinary Protocol: ProtobufDesktop: ElectrobunStorage (Server): PostgresStarted yesterday and its going well. Wish me luck bros
>>3938708Just learn to prompt bro
>>3938657I'm not talking about 2dhd. I mean something similar to the early 3d of games like daggerfall or doom. 3d simple polygonal worlds (I know how Doom actually works, don't say it), but with enemies represented by billboard sprites pre-rendered from a 3d model (or real life sculptures, like I think Doom did.)My goal is to make it look reasonably authentic to the style of the late 90s while subtly forgetting about certain limitations. For example, it's going to have a large open world with a long render distance, and NPCs are going to be able to reflect the different gear they wear (I'm implementing a strategy to make that work)Anyway, I'm locking the resolution of the game to 640x480, and just letting it scale to the player's chosen display. So I don't know how many pixels I'd need to give to NPCs and enemies to keep that old-school style.
>>3939127I was merely stating what your competition does>>3939127>My goal is to make it look reasonably authenticDoableIMHO qol > strict authenticity>how many pixelGod, make 3 examples and show us.
Using Twine to make a text RPG and have the prologue just about finished with Harlowe but considering switching to Sugar Cube, is the code pretty much all the same or do I have to change some things around regarding the Variables and Events? If there's any other engines that are better suited for this I'm all ears, I'd love it if there was something like Legendary Tales from the early 00's to manage aspects within the game like races, classes, stats ect but I can't even get that to run properly anymore on Win10.
Top screenshot is a fucking atrocity I made 3 years ago; it's a macro to apply Status Effects to a target.The bottom is a macro I made this evening that does the same thing.
>>3940301Also with the top one, if I ever thought up new Status Effects, I'd have to add another part to it.
>>3940301unrealchads rise up
>>3931401I use a <string, bool> Dictionary stored in a global script. In that same script I have functions for setting and checking each entry.
>>39370012D art is quicker to make, depends on the systems. There is a lot of 2D games on the market though so make your art stand out
Back working on this project again, I had a whole turn-based battle system made, but I couldn't come up with any original ideas to make it fun. Anyone else here struggle with those thoughts?
>>3940490Most games look like shit.
>>3940498Make the turnlike, roguelike.There. now finish your game.
>>3940498comfy 'sthetic
hope this looks cool, I want to start the game with a nice prologue section, half tutorial and half kinoludo>>3935094>he saved the 'blinsbased!
>>3941696save all bins
Remodeled a Player Character again 'cus I'm figuring out the body proportions I want.Longer legs, smaller head. Also, for some reason, he was an inch and a half taller than he was supposed to be.Gotta finalize the second party member, too.Everything in my power to do everything BUT make the first fucking dungeon.
>>3942056This is a cool model! Who's this handsome guy?>>3941841https://cyberpunk.fandom.com/wiki/Rebecca
>>3941841based Becca poster goblin saver
>>3942206He's one of the Party Members you can play as in my game, Ben Wong.I'm planning on having him start as something Monk-like for his Primary Class and having Players unlock an alternate Primary that'll play like a Blue Mage later.Currently finishing up a second Party Member. She's gonna be a Thief, but was originally a Warrior before I planned out more characters.
>>3942265I like your style, these look really professional!
>>3942265I agree with the other anon, very cool models dude
AI won
>>3943950Now you just need some cool graphics anon, way to go
>>3944090It's ridiculous how bad some indies do their ganes
I've added some more areas to the first town, and also a material system for the ground tile map. I want to add dynamic footstep sounds, Silent Hill 2 is really rubbing off on me. Hopefully people like ambient tracks, they seem easier to make than actual music, haha.
>>3944342Is this a Sh clone?
>>3938913goodluck fren
>>3944933It's (meant to be) an action RPG, I want to have a mix of fast-paced battle sequences and calmer, more ambient exploration sections. SH is just a big inspiration of mine.
>>3934748>What is your experience with this anons?Perfectionism is a curse and its usually better to not bother with developer communities. They are rarely about development and just about tearing down and permabanning anyone they can target. It just demoralizes you and makes things even harder for no fucking reason. What starts off as a fun hobby just turns into a reminder of every bullshit permaban you'd experienced trying to piece together a workflow that some 'cord or twitch cliques just outright share with their friends within a few minutes. Deciding to make things take 10000x longer for you for no fucking reason. 'cord grifters are a plague.>"join our discord with any questions!" When its always just baiting newdevs in to attack and demoralize them.
Here's a little concept that's been mulling around in my mind for a while, and I'm curious what others think.How would you separate and categorize fictional human races?I want to create sub-races for every playable race in my game, like Elves can be Shadow, Sun, Mountain, or Forest variant.Naturally, since humans in our real world are separated out into convenient color-coded categories, how would you go about designing an all new set of these distinctions?The idea I'm semi-attached to was to not try to mimic any real life races by just mixing random traits from all races for each of them. So for example, you might have a black-skinned human with long straight red hair and blue eyes, and more asian-like rounder facial structure. I'll be honest, that idea only sounds good in concept. Most normies playing a game with a character creator will probably just try to make someone who looks like themselves, or at least an idealized version, and that kind of thing sounds like it'll just make everyone upset.I'm not too concerned about being called racist for giving the different human tribes different racial skill bonuses, but I'd also like to try and not stoke that flame war too much. (so, not making the blacks a bunch of bone-through-the-nose spear chucking savages) I'm probably asking for enough of that just by calling the sexes "male" and "female" and giving slight stat differences based on your sex.So, what would you do for this sort of thing? At the moment, I'm thinking of just doing some mild research of the environmental pressures that it's theorized that racial traits emerged because of, and just get creative in writing the cultures in those biomes without just ripping from real civilizations too heavily. I'm thinking of naming them based off of the four elements plus magic.
>>3945832>The idea I'm semi-attached to was to not try to mimic any real life races by just mixing random traits from all races for each of themI don't think this is a good idea. Most players would not see weird new ethnicities, they'd just see that all the characters look off and that they can't make a normal looking human.What other such games do for their humans is to just use cultures/nations instead of sub-races. Gets you all the same benefits, lowers the racism risk and you can make up new groups whenever you need them. Personally I'd prefer it for the non-human races too because I'm sick of a dozen Noun Elves and leftovers nouns for the other races.You can decouple the visuals from the gameplay element and players will largely self-select by how much they care about stuff like this. You can still go research all this stuff and use it in content you make, just give the player the choice to move away from it. The power of the default is strong.
>>3945832>Most normies playing a game with a character creator will probably just try to make someone who looks like themselvesThis is what will make the most people happy, so this should be the main focus. Maybe have different races be a different hue, with each having a "white" and "black" equivalent? I think it could be annoying for a certain skin color to be set to a specific race, and that would probably be the first thing modded out.
>>3946115>>3946155Decent points. I'm of a similar mind overall. Elder Scrolls is actually pretty unique in how it handled the different human races. Three white ones, one black, and even in Skyrim the lightest Redguard skin tone is around the same as the darkest Nord, Imperial, or Breton. Some have even used this as a point in theorizing lore-wise.I kind of like the idea of just making the visual difference amount to the set of defaults you could choose from. It would mean that I can properly differentiate between the sub-races for NPCs without stopping a player from playing a Fire-Human with white skin. and now I'm also thinking I want to obscure the names of these sub-races a bit so they aren't just literally called Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Magic humans. Making fake words for things that don't exist in languages that also don't exist: It's what fantasy writers do best.
>>3920498I'm not a dev, but a musician. And I'd like to gain some experience working in this field. I have had no luck figuring out how to enter into the pool, so to speak, so this is just a dog out the window in the dark; if you need a musician I'll be happy to help, if you think my style fit with your project. Willing to do it 4 3, unless...
How annoying would it be to make an RPG with no journal? Because the protagonist is an illiterate barbarian, you see. I imagine it'd be quite annoying in today's "everyone has to be held by the hand" environment, but I'm really enamored with the idea.
>>3946416Even the illiterate can scribble pictographs and make dots and arrows on a map, assuming he has one or can draw a somewhat reliable oneYou could probably reach an interesting and fun middleground there.
>>3946416>Because the protagonist is an illiterate barbarianMake spirit visions you get when sleeping/using a specific item.
>>3946416Excess handholding is what put us in this situation in the first place, more handholding will not solve it. We need to filter at least one generation of players.
>>3946416In an RPG the player should be given the same information that the character could plausibly know. If your character knows what to do but the player doesn't you're just being disingenuous. Just don't call it a journal. If the character really doesn't know wtf to do then you're not playing a barbarian you're playing a drooling mongoloid retard. Which may be a hit on steam
>>3946464I agree that the PC should be given information, but he can't store it in a notepad because he can't write. It should be up to the player to remember stuff.
>>3946465it's your game so do whatever you want but if your character knows something the player doesn't then you're not roleplaying as him so it's not a roleplaying gameare you really saying the only way to convey information is through a journal? why not have the character have conversations with himself to remember stuff? that's something a barbarian would do
>>3946416If you can make it fun to remember things, that'd be great. But I'd probably just write down things myself.
>>3946416You've really got to be wary when not giving the players any way to re-view their objective. I'd say more often than not, it just adds tedium and annoyance. Especially so if you can't go back and see old dialogue again.So, some NPC tells you to go and slay the Wyvern in X cave. Well you're too low level to handle that right now, so you just leave it for later. Well now that later becomes never because you can't go back and re-assess your goals. It means that small pieces of information that should be important are just up to you to remember, or understand that they're important to write down.Also remember that you're more than likely going to want to appeal to adults with adult responsibilities, so the many hour-long play sessions from youth are now a few hours every week interspersed with many more important things to take up your limited mind-space.I'm not saying it wasn't fun to have games that "don't hold your hand" but sometimes a bit of a hand up is all you need.
Working on a new tileset for a church-type area. I'm still a novice when it comes to pixel art, but I think its crappiness makes it unique. Any artists ITT have any advice?
>>3920498Having an flash of inspiration. You all know tree dialogue, clunky and boring imho.My idea is hopefully an improvement. Cut the cycles, meaning you can't go back or ask the same thing twice and add plenty of nuances as answers. Thee serve as fluff and reactivity trigger. On top of that they have a score that adds to attributes like ruthless, compassion aso and the world or the group treats you based on your character (class, race) and the attributes you earned. Better or worse than classic dialogue tree?
>>3946416It depends heavily on the structure of the world and volume of quests. I personally think quests are somewhat overrated. If your world is full of non-quest-based incentives to explore and learn the lay of the land, and the world itself is memorable, you'll find the question of a journal or no journal isn't such a big deal.
>>3948025I think most games have trees that don't allow you to go back on "progression" dialogue. Anything that advances a quest, trigger events, etc. Only exposition type dialogue lets you loop so that the player can access information.But what you are describing sounds pretty close to the system I've planned.>Dialogue StatsPlayer and companions have three stats. Roughly "Lawful Good", "Chaotic Good" and "Neutral Evil". Depending on player choices the balance of alignment shifts, with important choices making for bigger shifts. You can also use rare drops in alchemy to shift the balance around.>CompanionsCompanions react to what they see. Imagine you do a quest with a corrupt noble while you have the idealistic knight with you. If you "fail" the quest and the evil noble wins, the knight has their faith shaken and moves towards the center. But if you punish the noble the night is reaffirmed and pushed further towards lawful good.If you want to avoid that, leave the companion at camp while doing that quest.>Skill TreeEach character has a skill tree and whenever you advance you get to chose one of a handful of abilities and the Alignment unlocks extra choices.That was the original idea behind the system: You start out with a young, idealistic squire. Reaffirm their chivalric beliefs and they develop into a paladin holy magic and support abilities, break them and they turn into a barbarian all about offense. You can also unlock outfits since I'm too lazy to code a visual armor system. The skills are limited by skill slots and you can carry over learned skills and outfits to New Game+.>ItemizationThere's a variety of items and skills that tie into the system. Simple things like a holy smite scaling with your lawfulness, a heal that gives one of three buffs depending on alignment, the church zealot enemy targeting Evil characters, etc.What's important is that I always unlock extra choices, I don't funnel the player into their alignment.
Been retargeting my animations after tweaking the scales. It's been a tedious nightmare.Will players care if the Item Cast anim is shared with the Spell Cast anim?
>>3948251no dude, nobody will carewow does that and nobody caresnice anim tho
>>3948251he cute
>>3948246>If you want to avoid that, leave the companion at camp while doing that quest.Maybe - 50% alignment shift? People talk. 0 allignment shift is lax
>>3948246>funnel the player into their alignmentShould be forbidden. Devs still think it's pong, reward and punish. You either choose advance quest or abort in many rpg. That's barely a choice. It's like the choice stay alive or die. What kind of choice is this? One door closes, another should open.
>>3948251I wouldn't, but you could always play the animation at twice the speed for items.
>>3947644I hated it, this is better. Still getting the hang of the style for the game, I want it to be sort of sketchy and comic-like.
i've been working on my next gamehere's a minigun
>>3949305minigundoubters have been awfully quiet since this post dropped
>>3949305This is awesome!!
>>3949305Kalemonvo 2: now it's personal
I always wanted to make RPGs or RPG-adjacent games like immersive syms. But after releasing my game on Steam, I realized that gamers don't deserve RPGs. So I don't know if I should continue making RPGs. On the one hand, I would want to, on the other, it's near impossible to find motivation to work on something like an RPG for no gain, financial or any other kind.
>>3949599>gamers don't deserve RPGsMeans what
>>3949599>But after releasing my game on SteamLink the steam page
>>3949599You should make games that you want to play. Doing it for money is a horrible gamble that more than likely won't pay off.
I want to make a crpg but it seems too hard for a solodev to do
>>3949599>But after releasing my game on Steam, Iand you don't tell us which one it was... why?
>>3949599>the world doesn't deserve my workIn an era where media is more widely available than ever before, why do people insist on such useless masturbation?
>>3949814Artistically inclined people have bigger than average egos. Been that way forever, since long before times depicted in Plutarch's memos.
I've crunched 60 characters in 2 weeks. That's 120 spritesheets and several other graphics. I think next game I'll try 3D low poly modelling.
>>3949892prove it
>>3949307>>3949308cheers>>3949324:^)its surprising how quickly this is moving compared to 'monvo. it helps that i just copy pasted a bunch of systems that worked fine. i also have the benefit of knowing what worked and what didn't, and i'll get to apply all the lessons learned from it.
>>3949999I'm fairly new to this gen, have you made games in the past? You seem to really know what you're doing. It's killer
>>3950004thanks anoni made a diablo 1 clone which released almost a year ago. i posted progress about it around here since basically 2020. it has basically the same camera position and visual style like the webms i postedi wouldn't say i know what i'm doing though, i just make stuff and iterate based on feedback a lot.
I should enginedev my rpg to be a cool guy, but dealing with 3d models in my own engine was a complete nightmare. So I'm going to explore Godot to see if it's a more realistic way to make a 3d game.I was thinking doing 2d or billboards, but I want to make a RTWP type game and I think 3d is needed for visual clarity on what's happening on the battlefield.so pic rel is literally me>>3949999damn her hair looks so silky and smooth, I want to lovingly wash the blood out of it. Is that the same tech you used for capes?
>>3950053it is the same cape physics yeah!what was your engine anon, have you posted about it? i'm interested.i heard godot is still a bit wonky with 3D for one reason or another, though
>>3950086Yo, it's battydev!Making batty vamps in my engine has been fun but I've never found a good enginedev workflow for 3d models and I'm tired of trying to figure it out.
>>3950053I don't think making a whole engine is worth it unless your game has to do something crazy and unlike any other game. Otherwise you're programming all the basic features that other engines do natively instead of actually building the game proper.
>>3950125oh shit, whats up battychadwell, why not just get the whole thing done in unity? it sucks in many ways but handling 3D models is not one of them
At some point I plan to begin learning C#, Unity, and Git. I haven't done that yet, but it's in the cards.Ideally I would make all of the music and art for a project as well. More soul that way, but more importantly more frugal. I have artistic talent but it's super newbie level - i.e., never put skill points or effort into it enough to make something decent.Can guitar, can piano, can drum, but right now it would all sound like a bull in a china shop mixed with screeching owls and howling dogs.I can draw in pencil decently, probably pen/marker if I were confident. I'm not sure how my digital art would be. As a kid I would first trace strategy guides, then I would freehand them. I can mimic art, but I never made an earnest attempt to produce something from my own mind and soul. I would like to just for the sake of experience, even though I am not confident it would be anything good.
>>3950194I did it originally to just sharpen my skills. It was great for that, I don't regret it. I'm absolutely a better programmer now.But if all you want to do is make a game, there's no reason to make your own engine. Well, I'd say it's close for 2d games. But 3d games, fuck me, there's so much shit.>>3950207I'm just kinda into the open source thing. Nice to know I can pick through the code at will and maybe contribute down the line.
>>3950224Quality and Soul are two seperate axis, my friend. The art in your game doesn't necessarily have to be high fidelity to be appealing, I've played many games that look "amateur" and still stuck in my mind because they look so iconic. I would much rather play a game that looked unique than just having "good-looking" art.Music isn't something I know a lot about but as long as it fits the tone of the scene you should be fine. Unless you're doing something incredibly resource-heavy I wouldn't worry too much about the code. Computers are incredibly powerful, as long as your code runs, aim for that. Optimize later if need be.
Simple combat systems are fun to make!
>>3950053I've also switched from a custom engine to godot + bilboarding(well, planes with subviewport textures so I can animate in engine). It's been working quite well as long as you ignore my utter lack of skill and constant procrastination. I think RTWP could still work with sprites as long as you are careful with the visuals: very clear and simple animations, prevent units clustering, run it slower than your usual Infinity Engine game.If you want the custom engine feel, making your own gdextension is pretty easy. I've got both C++(gdcef with custom bugfixes) and Rust(game logic) and the integration is very smooth. You really just make your own custom nodes that expose functions to gdscript, but you can also break out into conventional code to use whatever library you need.
>>3950560The dog is cute! I really like the houses in the distance too
How do you guys plan out what aspects of your game you make first?I keep getting wrapped up in smaller details when I should be focusing more on the big important stuff first.I got terrain generation working, but lighting is so non-existent that you can't tell how smooth the sine waves look. Also, the movement keys are hard coded in main, I can't show UI yet, and the texturing is just garish.Not to mention that this is supposed to be a first person real time RPG, and terrain generation is what I chose to work on next.
>>3950880Thank you, I really appreciate it! Art isn't a strong skill of mine, so I'm still trying to figure things out.
>>3950884Make something playable asap. Simplest game loop first. Does terrain provide a game loop? Lighting?
>>3950884First processes, then unknowns, then difficult things.Start with your work processes because introducing these later is a pain in the ass. Source control, backups, pipelines, automated testing, and so on.Then you figure out the things you know you will need, but don't know how to do yet. Draw your first artwork, make your first 3D model, write your first shader, etc. You want to know as early as possible when your assumptions are wrong so you can adjust your plans or pivot. Then you just go down your list by difficulty because you probably underestimated many things and you don't want to learn that when you're strapped for time. It's ok to "to take a break" once in a while buy working on fun stuff.You will learn a lot and realize that you've been completely wrong on many things, so you want to get that out of the way before sinking too much time into those stupid early decisions.
How do model anime hair?
>>3951198one of the biggest mysteries of the universe
>>3946416Can't he have a journal full of doodles related to the quests he took?
If I want to make a fairly simplistic first person dungeon crawler (think old SMT, but maybe low-poly 3D instead of 2D walls), and I want to make it a bit moddable for reasons, is Godot my default option or is there something that could work better? Not sure whether it's easier to do this without relying on a full engine or not.I know RPG Maker MV/MZ can do this with plugins, but I'm a Java monkey so I prefer something with actual code and not menu coding with poorly documented JS scripting.
>>3951198There are many methods. The one I used once for a VR avatar was bezier curves that expand into strands using some Blender function I can't recall. Some Japanese modelers use flat stripes and cylinders with semi-transparent textures. Honestly just watch some tutorials on YouTube and check out models on Booth, you'll probably find an example/method that you like.
updated my journal
>>3951132NTA, need a refresher on rigging and animating 3D models. Im mostly making mechanical enemies so don’t need weight painting.
in about a week, it'll have been a year since Mirrored Soul released. me and some of the other members of the devteam are gonna be doing a retrospective. can't guarantee it'll be ready to the date (april 4th) but regardless, it should be soon™we will be answering questions regarding the game and its development; if anyone has any, feel free to ask itt. try to keep them polite, please.I don't have any new screenshots since development is over, so here's a cool tribute someone made in minecraft.
Thoughts on making a KOTOR/FF12-like?
>>3952592I don't know too much about any of this, but my game is also a first person dungeon crawler, (not tile based or turn based though) and I'm planning to add mod support through json files and lua script bindings for everything.If it's a thing, have it load in from a json file containing all relevant data, and linked to asset files like textures, sprites, models, or music. If it's a process, have it load in from a lua script tied to functions within your game. If it's really a low fidelity game, it's not likely to struggle with performance issues from using interpreted code, or doing so many file operations.I'm not using an engine though, so you'll have to find something compatible with whatever you're using.
I've applied to every festival that aligns with my game for a year and I've been rejected every single time. The rejection letter always reads like "we have received thousands of applications" when previously we used to receive in the hundreds. Chris Z has been telling everyone to apply to everything so then we have slop stuck in the pipeline of games that could use a festival, the consequences of gamedev tools going mainstream have been absolutely catastrophic.
>>3952999What game is it?
>>3952705>got a tribute in minecraftYou've already made it anon.I gotta be honest, I've only played the demo so I have very few questionsWhat are the team's favorite mons?Are you planning a sequel or making another game?What was the most difficult feature to implement?
>>3950414Good points. What game is that from in the picture you posted?
>>3952778FFXII is my biggest inspiration
>>3953075Space Funeral, it's incredibly short and easy, don't go in expecting a traditional RPG. It's incredibly personal and soulful though, it's pretty popular in RPGMaker cliques.
A lot of games try to prevent or punish grinding, but I'm wondering if there's a way to reward aggressive players, liking encouraging them to not grind or rewarding them for clearing a dungeon in one go.
>>3952999>Chris Zyoure part of the problem
>>3953592The best way to stop grinding is to have your scaling/currency be perfect so the player has no reason to grind in the first place. Rewarding a lack of grinding is a cool idea, how would you monitor that though? The way I see it, if grinding is boring, it's already a punishment.
>>3953592It might be a good idea to increase XP rewards for players doing content against far stronger enemies. So beating the level 10 Goblin Chief at level 10 could award 200 XP, but beating it at level 5 could give 1000 XP.You could also let loot and rewards scale just a bit below the player's expected level. At level 5, most of the gear you find could be bronze, with Steel being a rare drop from a boss monster, or you could go to a level 10 dungeon and find steel gear all over the place, letting you power up even quicker if only you can use your tools well enough to survive the initial challenge of fighting overleveled enemies.Discouraging grinding is as straight forward as making the intended gameplay loop be also the most efficient. If the best way to level up is by finding quests and clearing dungeons rather than crafting a million iron daggers, or killing boars for two weeks, then that's what players will do.On the topic of clearing a dungeon in one go, I'm considering an idea I got from Dark Souls for my Elder Scrolls inspired RPG. What if in a Daggerfall Dungeon, you could only rest outside of the dungeon. The moment you step out, everything respawns, meaning you have to press on through, or go back to restock your health and spell points in hopes you can try again.I probably won't do it exactly like that (especially with Daggerfall's dungeon sizes) but I'm still considering a way to stop players from just smacking the rest button every time they stub their toe.
Why punish grindingIf grinding is not desired remove the incentive (exp, whatever)
Is there a better feeling than fixing that stupid lag spike that you have been troubleshooting for weeks?
>>3953972you're cute
I just had an idea for how I can make my game concept work. Let me know what you think.So, it's mostly inspired by the Elder Scrolls series in that it's a first person dungeon crawler with more of an emphasis on character building rather than story and narrative choices. (Morrowind fans, quit typing that reply)I want it to have a similarly sized world to the canonical Tamriel from Arena. Roughly 6 million square kilometers. All procedurally generated with a seeded value so every playthrough is unique.The issue (among many I'll need to figure out) is how do I encourage players to move through the world from province to province instead of just picking up quests in their first town. I realized this would be an issue when I first started playing Daggerfall, and I realized that the world was so huge that it took forever to get somewhere on foot, and there's really no reason.I had the idea for your goal to be to collect the 10 shards of the Philosopher's Stone so you can save your world from an other-worldly threat. The details aren't important and neither is the story as a whole. Each province is going to have a shard, and the order you start questing in each province dictates the scaled level of everything. So your starting zone could be 1-10, then the next zone you go to and pick up a quest in will be 11-20. Even if you're still too low level to handle it at the time.To find the shards, you have to explore numerous dungeons. On occasion, one of them will have a Primordial Diamond, which you can use to charge up a magical locator to point you in the direction of the closest shard (within the same zone, so it isn't going to be too high level for you)When you use the Primordial Diamond, you'll be given a vague direction which will persist on your map. This means that you have to explore with direction instead of just trying to see a different area. Follow the trail for long enough, and you'll find the mega-dungeon housing the shard, and a few extra tough enemies.
>>3954313Procedural generation at that scale is sketchy. It's easy to go No Man's Sky and say "18 quintillion planets," while having a lot of area feel basically the same. For another example, Oblivion caught flak for having dungeons that looked the same - one question to ask is how many dungeon templates you're going to have, compared to the number of dungeons you're expecting players to explore? Not just story dungeons, I mean in total.As you say, "The details aren't important and neither is the story as a whole," so there's a question of what, exactly, you'll use to retain players. "To get stronger" only really holds as long as there's something interesting to test that strength against, and even that's no guarantee.Most games like this are shorter, but the scale suggests you'd like it to be pretty long. I don't know if many people would stick around for the full ride.
>>3954347Yeah, those are all things I need to take into account.When I say the story isn't important, I'm mostly meaning in this context when talking about gameplay. It's still not ideally the main draw, but I think that's alright as long as the gameplay is good enough to keep people around. I'll be definitely making more than just a main quest with stuff like guilds, orders, covenants, and other groups to rank up with and get quests from.The plan is to come up with a handful of different dungeon generation algorithms made up of as many rooms as I can think of in various styles to be mixed, matched, and combined as the numbers dictate. I'm expecting to spend months just testing and adjusting these algorithms for cohesion and fun. This goes for dungeons, towns, quests, and even names. So it might start out as a decrepit mausoleum, and then lead way into a narrow dank cave, and finally at the bottom is a large cavern with glowing green crystals and a cultist lair. They'll all have different probability weights based on the country it resides in, and the surrounding terrain of the outside.Maybe I'm weird about this, but I actually really enjoy the massive labyrinthine dungeons of Daggerfall. When I first started playing that game (pretty recently, oddly enough), I spent about three hours doing my first one outside the tutorial dungeon, and have tried to do as many as I can since then. It was a ton of fun, and I'm hoping to capture a similar audience. Most of them aren't going to be as big as Daggerfall's though. I'll save those for a special treat that you'll only find on occasion.Really, it's one of those "scale-creep" moments where I'm promising the stars and the sky so that I can meet my limits before setting them. I know the Elder Scrolls backed away from having these huge worlds that need to be measured in what landmass they best relate to the size of, but I'm personally trying to see how I can make an idea work first, then figuring out whether to cut it.
Also, I realized how that last post sounded out of context, so I want to explain: I'm not just making this project because I'm currently playing Daggerfall or anything. It's really more like that I wanted to distill down the best parts of Skyrim and Morrowind, and put it in a package that can be played more-or-less forever. I also had a huge list of ideas on how the RPG mechanics could be implemented, and why I think it would make for good gameplay, all that.I don't know if I'm the only one, but I'll often get concepts for games I want to make that are basically just slightly remixed versions of whatever game I'm currently playing. This project has been a long time coming, and I've been working on it way too slowly for a while now. I'm only recently picking back up speed.Just this past weekend, I implemented UI sprites, billboard sprites, texture blending, and an actual input handling system. (I'm not using an engine, I just think it's more fun like this)
Why is leveling even a thing>hey your numbers went up>go fight the enemies with bigger numbers now
>>3954409Doing bigger numbers feels "fun", even if relatively you're doing the same amount of damage. Learning new moves is cool too, although that doesn't have to be tied to levels.Imagine if you were still doing single-digit numbers on the final boss, would be pretty lame.
>>3954409Leveling does multiple things that you want your game to have with fairly low effort to implement it, so it's just incredibly convenient.>incredibly granular reward system>gates choices and complexity to prevent choice paralysis>gives players a goal to reach and road to follow>signposts areas of a game the player isn't meant to go>player adjusted difficulty through grinding/challenge runs>simple storytelling device, e.g. mentor character guest party member has higher levelAlternative progression systems are more difficult or come with limitations. Equipment or consumable based progression doesn't work with multiple playable characters due to funneling all power into one unit, milestone/story based takes away flexibility, exploration runs the risk of players missing crucial upgrades and adds bloat to second playthroughs. You probably can find solutions to any of those issues, but it's just a lot easier to go with what is proven to work.
>>3952608Had studied some models but none of them used the strand method. It was always some kind of simple solid for the parts of the hair that had no detail like the top of the head. Just sucks how most game engines just seem to fight you every step of the way and get even more sabotaged with every update to stifle competition.
>>3954409Before RPGs there were wargames. Wargames had different unit tiers, for example "conscript" or "veteran". Think of how in Chess you have different pieces Wargames were not officially published games with a set of pieces and rules; they were rules invented by fans of miniatures who wanted to play with their miniatures. This meant the rules were pretty loose, fans would modify the rules or invent new ones just for fun. So some players played with the rule that if your units won enough battles, they would upgrade to a higher tier. Conscripts would become veterans or something. Keep in mind in an individual match you might use 20 units and lose half of them. This upgrade system was not an inherent part of the game design - it was added purely because players thought it was fun.Before DnD, players were already started to house rule games that were like DnD, with each players controlling an individual hero instead of an army. And players asked their DM "why doesn't our units upgrades?" like in wargames. So Dave Arneson created the leveling and experience system for his campaign due to the demand of his players, which was later officialized in DnD.Now, whether you were playing a wargame or DnD - those were long campaigns, played over months or years, with players often in opposition. So nobody would say "let me go fight weak mobs over and over to gain a lot upgrade my units/level up". This only became a thing when the EXP and leveling system was brought over to video games, where you can play without other players and enemies can respawn infinitely.tl;dr it's not an inherent part of RPG design, it was added because players liked it and wargames already had a similar upgrade system.
>>3953740The ideal grinding is something between ff2 and romancing saga 2. Just not as arcane and obtuse.
>>3954913number doesn't have to go up
>>3954944Some progress has to be there
>>3950053In Godot you can cast a 3d character or object -from a camera in a 3d scene that is running off screen, such that it generates 2d sprites live for a 2d scene. It's incredibly lightweight if done properly and the product you get would require thousands of preloaded 2d sprites if done the traditional way.I'd consider making the game actually 3d before doing this though. Pervasive filters are far easier to solo dev, converting them to 2d means an extra step basically... I'm personally not a big fan because the payoff doesn't generally effect the actual gameplay, vibe or narrative too drastically when comparted with the amount of extra work and headache generated.
How do you guys do your playtesting? Giving copies to friends, or something more in-depth?
minigun showoff wip>>3955912on my last game i just submitted to DD a bunch and tried to get anyone willing to play through it. getting people who hate your genre or have no experience with it is just as valuable as getting it in front of people familiar with it.friends will usually not give you harsh feedback. anons will gladly rip your game to shreds, it's just a matter of sifting through the criticisms to get earnest feedback.
>>3956643transvibes
>>3956643> minigun showoff wipi presume the showoff feature will work for all weapons?>>3957018crabnigging faggot get out
>>3956643I love the sly smile she does after showing it off
>>3956643>getting people who hate your genre or have no experience with it is just as valuable as getting it in front of people familiar with itI don't agree to be honest, feedback from people who play the genre is more valuable as they will know what things click and what don't with the genre. Also people who play other genres might throw you into a wrong direction with their suggestions. But I guess it is still valuable to get feedback from different devs.
>>3957018which part>>3957226probably. right now i'm doing big animations for cool weapons, but every weapon type has its own animation. might not be flashy, just an idle holding loop.>>3957399cheers>>3957426it depends i guessi got pretty good feedback from people who disliked the genre i was making precisely because they didn't approach it as those experienced in the genre did. i'm not saying it's the only avenue to approach, but it did offer me a perspective others didn't. of course, a lot of that feedback is just what the genre is, and that part you can safely ignore. in general, just get a game in front of as many eyes as you can.
this will sound autistic but i'm autistic so i might as well not mask it. i'm a relatively experience programmer with some art skills. i want to make a simple solo crpg but don't know how to design one to be appealing or good, or how to write for rpgs. i've basically only been a consumer of games so far. how do i approach this problem? are there any good resources youd give a sperg on how to write for vidya and design a game?
>>3958259>how do i approach this problemWhat problem? The scourge if vidya developing is that devs hate games and gamers hate devs.If you lack skills, can you pay up? If not, I suggest on originality.>resources for writing and designingHonestly, there aren't any good resources on designing. Flipped some papers and can say they are basically useless for general advice. Regarding writing get some novel writing courses. If you had acceptable education, you don't need additional courses.>experienced programmerWhat do you code and how do you approach new projects?
>>3958273> What problem?designing and developing a game is much different from playing it> If you lack skills, can you pay up? If not, I suggest on originality.feels weird to pay for an idea guy to design the game for me, but i guess thats what game designers do anyway> Regarding writing get some novel writing coursessounds reasonable, i'll scout around> What do you codetractor and combine harvester firmware lol> how do you approach new projects?my team gets the spec from the project management, we divide up the job, the regular code shop setup. i'm not really good with setting up the specs myself
>>3958279That's the most stupid thing you can do, paying someone creating a game. If you don't see it, and don't have a team, don't do itGo work somewhere as a wagie or founder. You will never get your money's worth ever. Literally impossible.>machine coding1010100110110>my team gets the spec from the project management>we divide up the jobYou really think you can solo a game? Like the worst kind of coding/creating in SD? Getting in a team is imho your best bet. You can start coding some mechanics or some parts of your favourite games to get the hang of it. Idk if offline meetings are a thing where you are, try to meet teams and dive into the scene. If offline isn't an option, reach out online.Don't get me wrong, I love good games and if you can make one, I'll buy. Rn you neither have an idea, nor an overview of the market, nor qualifying experience. You dont see a game you want to do. Don't forget that even professionals frequently fuck up. For 40 years 80% of all started games at around 80% completetion get cancelled.Another way I just came up with. Want to learn how to write? No problem, good thing to learn, even if you never publish something.While you learn to write, try to publish a free vn. Rather short, but could be an prequel to your crpg. Maybe try that? Can be done in 3 months and then you know if you want to make a game or not. Last tip, check out solo devs. Trpg, crpg, metroidbrainia aso, solos are everywhere. Check their socials and reach out.
>>3958313> That's the most stupid thing you can do, paying someone creating a game. If you don't see it, and don't have a team, don't do ityeah I don't see myself actually paying someone to design the game, which is why i asked> You really think you can solo a game? right now no, or i'd be doing it instead of asking about tips> Rn you neither have an idea, nor an overview of the market, nor qualifying experience. You dont see a game you want to do.i do have an idea (vague), but ideas aren't really worth anything. i'm trying to see how to facet it. no relevant experience or market overview is correct, though.> Idk if offline meetings are a thing where you are, try to meet teams and dive into the scene. If offline isn't an option, reach out online.i'm a bit rural but it's doable, i can take the train into the city on weekends and go to some geek spaces. that's a good idea i totally overlooked, thanks anon> While you learn to write, try to publish a free vn. Rather short, but could be an prequel to your crpg. Maybe try that? Can be done in 3 months and then you know if you want to make a game or not.i've thought about it before but got put off by how many weebs are in the space. nothing against them, i just can't connect with them at all so i bounced off. won't hurt to give it another shot though. that's another good idea, i can draw it and code it at the same time, and there's no real game design involved, and if i hate the process of writing for a game like i can just trash the crpg idea too because it won't get better. solid advice yeah> solos are everywhere. Check their socials and reach out.yeah thats probably a good thing to do, i'll look around on twitter and discord and connect with people maybeyeah this wasnt quite what i asked but the answers gave me enough direction which is probably better. thanks again
>>3958259What you're asking for is learning game design. You can approach this in two ways, really:>FundamentalsYou start from the bottom up and treat it like going to school again. There's actual game design schools as a sub field of psychology. Enrolling in school is a lot, but many universities provide free material. Or you just go on youtube. Extra Credits, Design Delve, Game Maker's Toolkit, Distraction Makers, Tim Cain, there's tons of channels in this field.Either way, you'll learn abstract concepts and how humans behave that you will be able to any aspect of any game. Or if you want quicker results:>DeconstructionYou look at finished games - CRPGs in your case - and figure out how they work and why. Take a loot at the subtle little differences between two games, why the crafting system is cool in one but not the other. There's quite a few post-mortems for games you know on the internet.Important: Look at things outside your comfort zone to avoid becoming a "copy of a copy". Take the non-RPG games you enjoyed and ask why, look at popular games and figure out what sets them apart from the competition.This will get you pretty quickly to a list of things you want to do with your various systems. >SynthesisFinally, once you get to actually making your game, you will encounter tons of problems. Broken strategies, systems that don't fit together, parts that take you a lot of time to make only for the player to forget it in seconds. You'll need to trial and error a lot and throw a lot of work away, but this is where your game becomes something original.
>>3958259There's plenty of game design guides out there. My tips are make learning mechanics interesting and ensure the game is fun at all times.
>>3920498Whats the difference between this general and adgd?
>>3958370One reinvents Pong. One reinvents Final Fantasy?
>>3958370This is a thread about making games./agdg/ is parasocial drama about people you've never heard of.The /v/ flips between the two depending on which shitposters show up.
>>3958372make final fantasy again
>>3952778I keep resisting the urge simply because the volume of STUFF is just to fucking high. Rigging, Models, Zones, all integral to not make the games feel sloggy and that's before you get to the actual bread and butter of the combat
>>3958339>Extra Credits, Design Delve, Game Maker's Toolkit, Distraction Makers, Tim CainAll shit btw
>>3958543tim cain, although a gayfaggot, is an actually accomplished game maker and doesn't deserve to be lumped in with the rest FACT
>>3958547He is, no doubt. His content is lame. Little to be learned by an expert gamer, like people with 20+ years.>>3958339I deconstruct games since the age of 4, so I think others are doing this, too.
>>3958416I've got enemy database files for final fantasy. Recreating The Legend of Zelda is more satisfying.
>>3946416I’ve mulled over this a bit about giving the player a journal they can write in themselves if you expect them to write down and memorise info on their own but not be too hand-holdy. If you expect the player to grab a slip of paper and write things down you may as well give them a way to do that diagetically instead of making them feel like “I’m overdoing it because I’m going out of my way to utilise external materials” which isn’t necessarily bad but turns away normies . As others have pointed out, you can even remove the ability to type in notes and just give the player a stylus and an infinite number of pages to scribble and draw on, and the jank can play into your barbarians tardism
>>3958553>his content is lameYou're lame. He's a genius.
>>3959205A modern day Pythagorus
>>3959205Kek, very funny. I for one tried a system that he described and I can say to you it's idiotic and certified anti fun. I'm sure you knew without creating it. Pretty obvious for anyone interested in game mechanics. Picrel just shows that he's bad with numbers and that he's not the savant he thinks he is.
>>3959330nah he lowkey right though this is why Skyrim was so successful
>>3959344Try write the system down he advocates there. It's idiotic.>skyrimHas shit to do with Mr Pythagoras. You want to actively avoid what he advocates. If anything many modern systems are too basic. You need complexity, at least to a certain degree.
>>3959374yeah but character creation isn't it
>>3959409Can't find the vid, what is he saying about the cc that you are referring to?
>>3959454His presentation was actually a bit retarded but he's not wrong that there's many RPGs that are too front-loaded in regards to your character. Most people just want to play the strong guy or the fast guy and then maybe have some fiddly bits extra to "perfect" your build
>>3959559>front loadedPretty obvious>buildChoosing from 2 options isn't build
Stylized characters over a realistic set might not be it. It doesn't help that the first dungeon is an investigation into some catacombs.I'm gonna lean into it for now and just hope something clicks.There's only so much I can do superfast when I'm messing with PS2 Gouraud shading.
How easy is GB Studio to use? can you make cooler mechanics with just the events?
>>3960018Specify
I'm making a business game. You basically start multiple businesses to compete with other AI businesses. The businesses have multiple attributes you set. Like cost, quality, etc, and you're limited by money, so you can't just make everything perfect all the time. Is this game I'm describing an RPG? You'd defeat enemy businesses by putting them out of business.
>>3961272Could be. As who(m) do you roleplay? There's a lawyer rpg, check this out.
>>3961959You'd play the role of someone leaving their job to be a business owner. You yourself don't have stats, just your businesses, in some sense like pokemon or something. On the surface it doesn't feel like an RPG, but when I think of it, it's almost a table top rpg. I only ask because I was wondering if posting progress here would make sense. I might as well just post when I have something. People can scold me if they disagree with it.
>>3961972I play myself in pokemon and use frag grenades and gatling gun to decimate the enemy pokemon.>postingSure, why not? You'll get fun and feedback.... The occasional hate post, but that's that.
So, the balance sheet is too large to show in a single screen shot. But the pic is an example of it. Financial docs aren't really needed but I thought it could be cool to include them. Just something basic to give people an introduction to basic accounting. I've been working on generating these, and having them populate correctly at the end of the turn and from loading a saved game.
I'm currently working on the first multi-room puzzle of the game, is it clear what to investigate here?
>>3962184the workbench?
>>3962275Yes that's great thanks
some pew pewing
>>3963735I like how her hair looks dyed with all that blood :)
Has anyone seen the pines? It's solo and imho the best looking and feeling solo trailer I ever saw. Horror rpg, too.
>>3963989Link?
>>3963991By studio abboitoir. Everywhere on yt now. I love it already, curious about canon's opinion.
>>3963735cute
I had dream last night about some fighting game characters (I think it was DOA) but they made a game that was more like either a brawler or dark souls or what have you and it was a lot more successful. There was a bit of a dating game subgame too.
>friend tells me there's a new claude setup that simulates a whole game studio with 70 agents that do everything for you>"bro you gotta try this, you'll finish your game in no time. It even makes sprites, SFX and everything".>it's all slop as one could imagine.>tell him I doubt that's gonna beat actual work and thought put into a game>"well brah, AI devs will steal all the good ideas and make stuff in a fraction of the time it takes you to make your game">he has completed literally 0 projects with AI and it's all some kind of tutorial or prototype every time which he proceeds to drop afterwardsIn all seriousness, he has a point, slop is gonna flood steam like the deluge unless gabe does anything substantial against it.
>And that's a good thing.
>>3965568Those are the saddest particle effects I've ever seen
>>3966285maybe you'd prefer something with more oomph
Hello guys. I have been slowly making my crpg in java, no engine. I got very basic prototype going with turns, shooting enemy (enemy ai writen by claude ofc does not works), skills, perks, special affecting accuracy and action points, tarkov style grid inventory (also made by claude somewhat works after week of fixes), map objects like cover/walls stoping bullets. Right now I completly broken my protype trying to refactor my combat system and implement event bus per claude instructions. Anyways do you have any good ways to learn code architecture for turn based rpgs? I tried to read source code of fallout 2 and open xcom (since i want similar cover based combat ) but havent gotten far.
>>3966420I think the best thing to do would be to learn Java architecture. Just grab a well-recommended book on that subject and apply it to your game.
>>3966410beautiful
>>3965935I'm not particularly worried. If you think about the greatest RPGs of all time, they're interesting and unique concepts above all else. AI can do a lot of the heavy lifting in development, but it can only make based on what already exists. Hence why a lot of AI RPGs are generic fantasy slop that nobody is really interested in.
>>3966998It's not that they could compete with actual studios. It's the fact it will flood the store and wishlist boting is becoming rampant at the same time. And it's not even subtle you can see in steamdb some slop studios have 100 games and all their games have the same amount of followers from day to night. That worries me, that actual games will be buried below the slop. Also its possible that if steam doesn't do anything against slop it will be dethroned by a platform that does.
>>3967018It's a double edged sword. Smaller games won't survive but the good games will shine in comparison. As cruel as it is to say, just make good games and you'll be fine.
>>3967197>make good games and you'll be fineThis is cruel how?
>>3968031It can be hard when the game you're making is not one that people want to play. I hate seeing passion go toward nothing.
I have some technical questions from a design perspective I was hoping I could get some unfiltered opinions on (yes even the dogshit ones)>What game do you feel handles the [fantasy] aspect of gathering/crafting enjoyably? (ie: collecting ore in skyrim/runescape and smithing it) Not as the main mechanic, but a tertiary one or skill.>What were the best designed dungeons that you enjoy for 'dungeon crawling?' Not procedurally generated slop, actual design and trap elements that had you excited. (ie: OoT water temple mechanic, Morrowind tombs with levitation-hidden secrets, etc...)>The RPG side of the game, how necessary would you say speech is opposed to just text or "talk babble" like animal crossing? (I ask because of filesize for audio). Without starting an argument, I feel this might be needed since a lot of younger players can't read, but open to opinions.
>>3968456>What game do you feel handles the [fantasy] aspect of gathering/crafting enjoyably? (ie: collecting ore in skyrim/runescape and smithing it) Not as the main mechanic, but a tertiary one or skill.I like the one in Dragon's Dogma and that's what I've implemented in my game: you select an item, pick "combine" and a new window shows up showing you the possible combinations with that item. It's simple, and it makes you wonder what those missing components and the results of their combinations might be. But what I like the most is how simple and fast it is, and that you can access it at any time so it doesn't interrupt whatever you are doing: for example you can combine stuff in the middle of a dungeon while not having to think "oh no now I have to backtrack for 20 minutes until I find that alchemist bench" or whatever.>What were the best designed dungeons that you enjoy for 'dungeon crawling?' Not procedurally generated slop, actual design and trap elements that had you excited. (ie: OoT water temple mechanic, Morrowind tombs with levitation-hidden secrets, etc...)I like the ones in OoT the most. But when it comes to level design you could look at Quake as well: I believe the loop of "explore to find buttons and keys while killing monsters and finding secrets" can work quite well in a dungeon crawling game. I also really like the world in Dark Souls because of how interconnected it is, which makes unlocking shortcuts something that really tickles my brain in a nice way.>The RPG side of the game, how necessary would you say speech is opposed to just text or "talk babble" like animal crossing? (I ask because of filesize for audio). Without starting an argument, I feel this might be needed since a lot of younger players can't read, but open to opinions.Don't know, I guess it depends on the person. I'm fine with having to read but you are right that it might not fly with younger audiences.
The idea of even starting a project is daunting, but I truly feel like my ideas would be pretty neat.
>>3968621I'm literally mentally deficient due to mold and migranes... haven't had a creative thought in months. sad
>>3968456>What game do you feel handles the [fantasy] aspect of gathering/crafting enjoyably?Risen. You see veins long before you find a prospector NPC that teaches you that skill, you even find a jeweler that teases you about crafting jewelry/weapory. Crafing these can net you some neat lower-level weaponry, as well as couple of uniques, and the jewelry even gives you some really fantastic items. Even after it outlives its usefullness, it can still be used as an effective way to earn extra cash, but only if you paid attention and calculated cost/benefit of productions. The only game where I think it manages the balance between making the skill too overpowered or completely useless.>What were the best designed dungeons that you enjoy for 'dungeon crawling?'I really don't remember any dungeon that made me excited to exlpore it because of its intricacy/design - they all blur together. For me what makes the dungeon memorable is how well it fits thematically - it's not about how it's made, it's what overcoming it signifies and what entering it means for the story. For example:- Arcanum's Thanatos Island. It's nothing special design-wise, but it's a turning point for the main plot - it's where you're guided to finally find out about your role in the story, the true plot of what's going on and what must be done. It's teased as an ultimate answer, so, naturally, you're excited to go through it.- Sorcerer Kindom's Blood Island. The endpoint, the place where you were trying to get into from somewhere around the midgame. It's the place that claimed your father, a place so dangerous that it cannot be traversed withought the king taking his entire force with him. Combined with the epic track played during this dungeon, it really makes you hyped up for what's to come.[1/2]
>>3968456>>3968650- Waxwork's London "dungeon". You're dropped in with your ass hunted not by demons, not by monsters but by regular people thinking you're the legendary Jack the Ripper. Throughout the whole chapter, you're forced to sneak around, mingle with the lower society and simply trying to make sense of things and of what to do next. It's a huge contrast when compared to other parts of the game, but works really well because of how it flips the table and forces you think rather than slash. Also, music is straight up nerve-wracking there.>The RPG side of the game, how necessary would you say speech is opposed to just text or "talk babble" like animal crossing?It's something that works only when sufficiently invested into. In other words, it's only good if you pay big cash for it. Plain text relies heavily on the skill of the writer, but is always a go to option since it doesn't require additional investment (besides correction and proof-reading, that is). "Talk babble" works only if it conveys emotions and intonations of the written information - monotonous beeping is extremely irritating, but something like Silksong's fake speech (that one's voice acted, but simular feel can be achieved with artificial sound templates) or Labyrinth of Demon King's surreal booming voices work. All of them have conditions to work, but they all also must never overload players with information - lore dumps, repeating exposition and inner monologues ALMOST NEVER make things better.
How many minutes of 3d animation do I need? When looking at competitors like tormented souls or alisa? Wanted to outsource it, even found a westerners working for relatively little money, but 15 minutes of animations are still 5 digits. He said 1 second needs at least one hour work. That accurate?
>>3968456>What were the best designed dungeons that you enjoy for 'dungeon crawling?'I have an unconventional choice, but I really like Moonside from Earthbound, it's weirdly ethereal and sticks in my mind. The visuals and audio are unlike anything else in the game, and the atmopshere is great. I like how you have to learn the backwards way the people speak to get through the area, it fits the theme and makes the player think about the dialogue they hear.>The RPG side of the game, how necessary would you say speech is opposed to just textI don't think it's necessary at all. My favourite RPGs have no voice acting. It's a very fragile topic to go about, bad voice acting can break a player's immersion.
>>3968456Better to skip 95% of the dialogue. Use va only for important parts.
>>3968795Dino crisis, how many minutes of animations does it have? 10-15 minutes?
>>3969042This is an option too. Have voiced cutscenes for story beats, plain text for interacting with objects and the like. You could even spin the non-voiced dialogue as the protagonist's inner voice.
Final interior map for the first town. I've been working on a memo system - some of my testers forgot key pieces of dialogue so now there's a way to view what I consider important at any time.
>>3969050you are comfy kino
>>3969045>spin the non-voiced dialogue as the protagonist's inner voice.Good idea
Is there an ai or llm that can analyze music? Gemini, chat and grok suck at it. I want to analyze certain tracks to learn which sounds induce emotions and why. I read some papers, the 'knowledge' from the studies doesn't make me better at producing vidya music, does it?
>>3969357hey cris
>>3969357If you know how to make music the studies should help you exploit it cris
>>3969382>>3969438Cris?>>3969438I don't. I know how to listen to music and read about music theory. Are you suggesting I should just start making music? I reckon I'm looking for info Doctrine of the Affects or a monography of said field. Ideally there's an ai where I put music in and it tells me how most people would feel. If it isn't free, it's fine.
>>3969645Why are you trying to get an AI to tell you how human emotions work? If you really can't tell emotion from just listening to a song, read the comments people have made about it and go from there. Basic music theory can go a long way too, there's guides for that online.
>>3969645>Are you suggesting I should just start making music?Possibly yes that would help, but there's more info online about how harmony affects feeling, look into how different modes feel. Lidian, ionian, mixolidian sound happy/positive while dorian, eolian, phyrigian sound negative or tense. Early pokemon battle themes are written in phyrigian as an example. A lot of adventure feeling songs are written in mixolidian.
>>3969686>Why are you trying to get an AI to tell you how human emotions work?Maybe I'm stupid. That's not what I'm looking for, I'm not a robot. I'm looking for a translation tune x invokes emotion y. Tunes Z evoke feelings X. I tried talking to musicians, but I don't understand what they are saying, at least not all of it. One woman I talked to explained or rather cliamed that genre having specific sounds. I showed her the deus ex 1 ost and she immediately knew the themes of the game she never heard of, like goverment conspiracy, mystery, detective story aso. That lead me to believe that there is a bidirectional relation between evoked emotions and music.>If you really can't tell emotion from just listening to a songI mean, not like reading a book. Sure I get some feelings or emotions, but that doesn't mean that I canproduce music just by listening to it.I'll give you an example. I'm looking for melancholic songs. Easy enough to find. By listening to them I might feel melancholic, but this doesn't enable me to produce music that invokes melancholy in others.>Basic music theoryI obviously need much more training. Problem with music is it can't be communicated well. In text form unlike a tutorial for hello world.>guides onlineDoctrine of affects and music theory. There's also mathematical music theory and music informatics, but it's not like these things are easy to learn or grasp.
>>3920498What's the salt and sanctuary look called? There's also vapor world and vigil longest night. Bloomy flash? Idk.
>>3969690I don't think there's a tool that can do that for you. Current AIs are prone to making mistakes and will just agree with whatever you ask it, even if it's wrong. Unfortunately music is something that can take a long time to study, I think your best bet would be to listen to soundtracks from games that people consider "happy", "melancholic", "scary" etc. and try and pick up on common themes within the tracks.
>>3969713>and try and pick up and use the exact same tracks for your videogameThat's a great life hack, thanks.
>>3969759Themes as in concepts, not motifs
>>3968192>I hate seeing passion go toward nothingThat's is true alright. Very seldom. Truth is that success in vidya strongly correlates with production value.
>>3969688Penisdinobaby
What's your novel idea to make MP recovery interesting? No "rest at the inn", no "infinite MP for cheap" items at the store, no "recover MP every turn with this busted accessory" shit.
>>3969984Link it to character's mental health - doing things like speaking to NPCs, helping out with side quests and other beneficial things can increase or overheal MP
>>3969984>turn-based gameMP recovers to full outside of combat but spells are fairly expensive. A "Meditate" action restores MP but leaves you especially vulnerable (double damage taken or whatever) while it's being executed so party members need to guard you. alternatively, MP functions like Hearthstone - you start at 1, refill to full every turn, and gain 1 max MP at the start of each turn up to 10. Powerful spells and effects lower your max MP, which then starts increasing back to 10. Spellcasters are powerful late in a battle but weak at the beginning.
>>3920498What's the less difficult way of making my first rpg in term of graphics? Isometric like the infinity engine games, 2D nes-like, or 3D like Gothic? I just want to try
>>3970342Pixel art will always be the easiest and quickest.
>>3970765But it takes more effort to make it look good and unique
>>3970772That's any art medium
>>3969984mp is tied to the amount of hp you lose and vice versa. the reason being is that people look for miracles when they're at low health>>3969690musical scales, chord progressions, and modes determine the mood of a songminor scale songs are sad, major songs are happy. horror has notes that are dissonant or out of scale, pleasant songs have notes that consonant or are in scale
How do you write the script/dialog to a game and "load" it into the game?I feel like saving all the script as string inside the code can get messy plus it'll add a barrier of entry to the writers.Saving the script into an external document for the ease of the writer and have the game's code read from said document seems logical but I feel it'll bring a lot of problems of its own.What do professional devs do?
>>3971536>What do professional devs do?IDK>How do you write the script/dialog to a game and "load" it into the game?As an external script. Inside it, segment the script into a dictionary variable with obvious text labels ("Dialogue between Gunga and Munga", for example) that are assigned an array (a list) containing the dialogue sections (formatted as separate entries for formatting and speaking actor separation).For example:var PlotToTheGame = { "Game-Start-Intro": ["The night is coming...", "Soon, the world will change forever.", "Goonia has fallen, Cumbria is about to, Moronia is as ignorant as ever and my Hornia is too weak to do anything about it.", "Yet...", "There is still hope.", "%V-INTRO-CINEMATIC%"] "First-Dialogue": ["Wake up, Anon!", "...", "WAKE THE FUCK UP SAMURAI!", "%P-ACTOR_BITCH_LOVE_INTEREST% We've got a poor plot to act through!"] }Where:"%V-INTRO-CINEMATIC%" - is a string flag that triggers the method to play the video specified in the flag ("INTRO-CINEMATIC")"%P-ACTOR_BITCH_LOVE_INTEREST%" is a string flag that is erased from actual text but is used to display the portrait and stylised text corresponding to settings defined to "ACTOR_BITCH_LOVE_INTEREST". Voicelines are called separately by comparing the current dictionary antry and the array's voiceline ID.
>playing game>random flash of inspiration hits>"it would be insanely cool if the game did _____">think back to it 2-5 minutes later>it doesn't sound that cool anymore>feel like you can't remember what was so cool or inspiring about the idea>move onDoes this happen to anyone else?
>>3971585You mean playing your own game or someone else's?
>he plays other people games instead of just playing their ownNgmi
>>3971647If you're involved in it's development, you can claim partial ownership.Maybe that's why nobody posts here.
>>3971764"Collaboration" is interpreted differently around the world. Someone tried to run a collaboration project on /vrpg/ once, but the only thing they wanted to do was approve and reject ideas. It was like, if you picked up free assets online somewhere - that creator was dubbed a "collaborator" without any communication. Meanwhile, someone could have direct correspondence, have their ideas rejected, and not be a collaborator. And apparently, in the Philippines, a "team" can collude with each other and cut someone out of the "final product" - like that's the only thing that matters.
>>3971775>Someone tried to run a collaboration project on /vrpg/ once, but the only thing they wanted to do was approve and reject ideas.That sounds like something /vrpg/ would do
>>3971536>What do professional devs do?We don't implement content like dialog as a full script/compiled code. You create a dedicated layer for that content with far more restricted functionality than whatever your main code is written in. Two reasons for that: Your content writers will be non-technical so you want to idiot-proof the system, and you want better ergonomics for writing(and translating/formatting) text, which will be different than the ergonomics for programming.So practically you have an external file in a dedicated file format that your display logic reads that file for instructions what to display. That file can be plain text written in any editor or come with a specialized editor that helps with stuff like branching. You're not writing strings in your main language but a Domain Specific Language for writing.At runtime your game grabs the content file from the disk and then the implementation can be anything. Chances are you have some pre-run phase where you fetch the required data(e.g. player name), inject settings like font size, or you combine the file on the fly so mods can modify scenes. There's a variety of implementations floating around the web, with the proper AAA stuff usually being paid and just for Unreal/Unity. Personally I've used Articy Draft as an editor and wrote a custom adapter for their XML exports. Very, very nice workflow in my engine at the time, but dropped it due to moving engines and operating systems(it's windows-only).
>>3971610Other people's games.There's this pattern where I stay away from projects for days or weeks at a time, and finally come back with a huge burst of inspiration, but after only 3-4 days of work that inspiration has dried up and I just look at my game with no interest. And even if I forced myself to add new shit, I can tell it wouldn't be that good. I think as a game dev you can't be passive with your inspirations. You have to actively pursue getting inspired. When I'm locked in on developing, I can feel myself slowly become a less creative and open-minded person, until finally it makes me unable to work on the game. The only solution seems to be some kind of balance. Maybe just picking out some weird niche game and playing for 5 hours every other day.
>>3971830>We don't implement content like dialog as a full script/compiled codeI've seen people in agdg do that lol
>>3971559I'll have to read on creating dictionary variables.>>3971830this is all stuff I had thought about but yeah not having an open standardized tool seems like the biggest issue.I'll read on about this and see how to fit it to my project.
>>3920498Why don't we analyze indie and solo games? What went wrong, what worked out?>dead of darknessBad>cheap ai art>barely serviceable pixel art>atrocious animations>wonky combat that is unfun>2 guns and 1 melee option>disgusting ui elements >girl boss and blacks scientist indicate goverment gibs Good/very good>story and worldbuilding>voice talent>writing>story beats>ng+Now, all in all I'd say dod is a good game. Has very good on steam and afaik all reviews praise it. Not expensive and imo worth a full price buy. Has like 200 reviews on steam, aka he sold around 10-15 k on pc and consoles. Imo he could've done much better with limited or even guerilla marketing and qol features that are missing I'd wager he could sell double what he did, if some qol features were implemented. The negative reviews all mention the lack of qol. Thoughts?
>>3921555How often did you switch back and forth? Engine and 2d/3d? Hope you remember I always preferred and suggested 2d.
>>3971585Can't you just write it down?>>3970953That's what I was looking for, thx! Is there anything like narrative music composing?
>>3973137Dude just study music theory. Why are you trying to search for some esoteric bullshit. If you're filtered by music theory just say so.
>>3973230>music theory Har! Perfect. Others solved all the questions I had! It has narrative music as subfield. How come most music is shit if the math is there?
>>3958339>>3958313>>3958273 and othersthanks anons, I've been enrolled in a writing course for two weeks now and it's been a good change. this helped
>>3973137>Is there anything like narrative music composing?yes, it's called program or programmatic music. it was all the rage in romanticist times
>>3973337I wouldn't've found that, goes for the others above, too.Unfortunately an ai can't really spit out a finished song, unlike propaganda vids. Guess it'll get better with time. In the meantime I'll check out some paperwork. Thx.>programmatic musicHave you by chance produced anything?All in all it's hard to avoid classical training on music, eh?
>>3973349>Have you by chance produced anything?i've done some dungeon synth before, nothing very serious but at least I won't have to use stock music> All in all it's hard to avoid classical training on music, eh?I'd say just the basics are enough, knowing like what a chord, scale and progression is. you can figure out the rest by just playing a lot with it. i never really figured out the theory part of music theory, but a lot of cool shit was just figured out by experimenting historically like jazz or rock or metal, lots of musicians who can barely read sheet music but are otherwise excellent players
>>3973369>dungeon synthPretty decent. The genre is undervalued imo. It's great for what it is.>I'd say just the basics are enoughThankfully.>jazzI still don't understand how this genre came into existence. It's unique imo. Sure, every genre is, but jazz is certainly an emotional journey, at least if done right.
Last month or so channels on yt popped up that mix two songs, like donkey Kong and final fantasy. Needless to say the result is sheer cancer.
>>3973234>>3973349Music theory isn't necessary. It's a framework through which we understand how music works, but to your own detriment should you consider it an instruction manual.When I've written songs, I've used theory to understand what key a melody is in, or to get help with adding a chord to a song. It can get you unstuck but the creation process always starts with me playing what's in my soul, as cliche as that sounds.
>>3973447>>3973234>>3973349Does anyone know what an opera ost like dark souls 3? Not that I could that afford, nor would it fit, but I'm genuinely curious.
>>3968456imo crafting materials are best when they come from the main adventuring loop of the game. So rather than equipping a pickaxe to go play some faggy little minigame to hit rocks, you kill goblin miners and take their ore, or loot rare silks from treasure chests, etc.
>>3973841you can probably do something of appreciable quality with free and "free" vsts. theres a lot of good quality operatic sample libraries for kontakt if you know where to look
>>3973879This can be done digitally or artificially? I thought singing is impossible to create with a computer?
>>3973873Imo rpg or games in general need a functioning economy. Looting rats for magical greats words is always wonky, esp3if they constantly respawn. Money and goods are scarce.
>>3973895yes, digitally, see https://youtu.be/YR6TLBhWKrw?t=171 for an example> I thought singing is impossible to create with a computer?technically i'd say this is true. sample libraries work by sampling singers (i.e. recording controlled sound snippets) and composing them into audio stuff. it's not a synthetic voice, it's real singers, but the way it's arranged into music is digital. it's really cool. i don't make vocal music, but i use a lot of kontakt libraries for various ethnic instrumentskontakt is a vst (audio plugin) that acts as a very fancy (and expensive) sample player. you can get a copy over on like rutracker or audiostorrent, alongside a bunch of kontakt libraries
>>3921115Speaking from a Blender to Unreal pipeline, using simplified skeletons and rigging.It's pretty straightforward. Make your base skeleton and rig, then use the same skeleton with the bones and joints moved around for whatever you need on the next model. As long as it has the same bones with the same names, you can retarget animations quite easily after making a simple IK rig. I used mixamo animations for the simpler stuff to get started. You can also get away with stuff like adding tails and wings if you like, as long as those bones aren't animated. If they are, you're going to have to start using additive animations and stuff, and that's a nightmare.
>>3973902>kontakt librariesAh, I get it now. You can mix and match parts. How many seconds can I steal (lol) from actual ost? Way I see it, as much as I'd like, it's just not allowed to be (instantly) recognisable.
>>3973902>kontakt librariesStarting from 500 bucks, not bad. Some are 2k.
>>3973910there were cases about this. usually very little, iirc any part of a song is copyrightable, it's just up to the rightsholders to pursue or not pursue the case. music copyright is much more strict than writing or art copyright mostly because music publishers are very thickly consolidated and powerful>>3973911thats for the high end stuff, yeah. a lot of good ones are in the 50-100 range. it doesn't matter though there's torrents around
>>3973918Music is an international Jewish cartel, yes, Sony, too. Nothing else is true. Some guys once scored national #1 hit and got stalked by thugs, harassed by radio hosts aso. In the end they had to meet studio bosses and explain that they didn't cheat their way to the top of the charts. Rigged industry, but which one isn't nowadays?>it doesn't matter though there's torrents aroundHar.>copyrightOne could even shamelessly steal something and provoke a law suit. Free marketing.
>>3973924>One could even shamelessly steal something and provoke a law suit. Free marketing.careful there icarus
>>3973925DMCA Takedown Notice, this could backfire with unseen levels of sales loss.
>>3920498Cool mini game ideas for a 2d game, like jade cocoon or legend of dragoon?
>>3969357>>3969645>>3969690>>3973137Dude maybe what you're missing is playing an instrument so you can internalize the theory.
>>3974004Played piano when I was young. Neither cash nor space for one. Isn't keyboard or some newer key~instrument great for training?
>>3974077Your computer keyboard can double as a musical keyboard, most music production software will recognize (computer) keyboard inputs as (musical) keyboard inputs.
>>3973970a roguelike metroidvania soulslike deckbuilder
>>3974417>>3974077Electronic keyboard, like e-piano for poor people.>most music production software will recognize (computer) keyboard inputs as (musical) keyboard inputs.Really? I'll check it out right away.
>>3974516most DAWs an dsimilar softwares do, although as somebody who played keyboards in a band for a few years I find it very uncomfortable.
Is it true that tuba and badly fluted versions are copyright free?
4 niggas in a row or 5 niggas in a row
>>39745874 niggas in a row, 5 niggas top down rtwp
>>3974589Should be the new standard.
>>3973925How come, say, how come Drake gets a pass with 6 god that he blatantly stole if the arguably best ost of all time, namely donkey Kong country 2, haunted chase?
>>3974587>>39745896 niggas in two rows
>>3974599
>>3974599I only know of suikoden
>>3974587If you have to ask, you need to keep it simple stupid and only have 3 niggas
>>3974662>>3974589>4 niggas in a row>5 niggas are down >>3974599>6 niggas in two cars hop out and fuckin' unload their pumpies
>>3920498What's the midi channel analogon in actual music? Layers, stems, streams, tracks? Are they all the same? If so, how many of layers do actual tracks have, 32 upward?
>>3974758Is this a dev thread or baby's first music thread.Anyways, DAWs (digital audio workstations) separate projects into "tracks". There can be as many as you can imagine.
>>3974931>baby's first music threadIn many ways, yes.>as many as you likeMidi is comfortable as it sets the limit to 8.Doesn't matter I started yesterday with music when I saw how people make decent music with used tampons and an old TV remote. Should've started earlier, making music can be fun.>dawThat's the way to go then.
>>3920498How is RPG Architect? Anyone have a DDL?
>>3975218AFAIK they are all samey. If you are a n00b, define your game in few sentences and then look for the engine that might suit best. I made the mistake and looked up engines for months, what for? Start doing something in an arbitrary choose engine and if you encounter problems, you can still switch it. There won't be a scenario where you are nearly finished and have to start over again due to the engine being shitty.
>>3973349duolingo has free music theory lessons that are fun and gamified, there's always an easy and fun way to learn the old stuff. you just have to look for it>>3973841They use a live orchestra, but it is sketched out digitally. Use musescore to start out, making music with kontakt is a pain if you don't have a huge amount of ram and hdd space.>>3974758In practice, musicians treat them as musical sections (violins, cellos, french horns, etc). You'd have one midi playing multiple violin instruments at oncealso if you have any vsts or DAWs downloaded, read the manual
>>3975503>don't have a huge amount of ram and hdd space.Like what, 32gb and 500gb free space?
>>397554932gb of ram is decent, high end libraries are 60-120gb each
>>3975557Since yesterday I'm constantly making music, either whistling, beat boxing or random objects in addition to digital production. It's really fun and I should've started earlier. It's much simpler than I thought, much more iterative, too. I was under the impression if I have enough theoretical knowledge, I can simply write new music down withing half a minute. I doubt anyone can do that.
Does steam allow homophobia in the context of a character calling another character a faggot?
>>3975573it is actually possible in fl studio, you can convert your hums to music noteshttps://youtu.be/5bOhBinT7fo?t=2m46svst versionhttps://vochlea.com/products/dubler2you can also do it manually by training yourself to recognize notes and chords by earhttps://tonedear.com/
>>3975634I didn't really intent to ask anything in the post you quoted. The links are lit. Exactly what I didn't know I needed. We should make a music thread, as I feel the music makes games magic. Secret of mana would be shit no one bats an eye on, if not for the outer worldly ost.
>>3975606If you can earnestly make the argument that it is for the story and not out of personal belief you should be fine. If the game is just made for hate though, people will see right through it.
>>3975606Most psychological diagnoses have cultural exemptions. For example, you could make them Russian. Then their fear of being gay, seen as gay, or associating with gay people has legitimate legal and life threatening consequences. But at that point it's only homophobia in spirit.
>>3976242It wasn’t rape, it was a “sexual emergency”. Please understand.
I'm tired of sharing my game with people. Most feedback is awful
>>3976243Kek>musicWhat a scam. Most songs, like even #1 hits are based on the same few snippets and stock music. They are, by definition, asset flips. I thought these producers, singers and the like are legends, while, in fact, they are charlatans, at best.
Where did you learn how to make games, code, etc. and how long did it take? Seems like I can't find anything not behind a paywall
>>3976369Music is an industry so you get industrial processes. The average burger is some mcdonals crap, but that doesn't mean that restaurants don't exist. Get away from mainstream stuff and look at niche genres and then at the old masters/pioneers of those genres, that should drastically improve quality.>>3976452I'm a professional developer so the coding was rather quick, had prototype versions of all systems in ~4 months at maybe ~30 min work per day. Then I spent the last two years learning how to draw/model/compose which is really the big time sink because moderation is for cowards.But it really depends on what you want to make. A simple tic-tac-toe or four score is made by our interns in week 1 and then time scales up with complexity and new skills you need to acquire.What I think is most important for a start is that you are making a program. If you are not familiar with that, start with the absolute basics: make a file, open a command line and run it. Then open a window and draw stuff into it, then make a very simple loop that keeps printing stuff to the screen.After that you learn how to use other people's code: libraries and frameworks, different languages have different methods of handing this. When you are comfortable with that you can start learning any of dedicated game engines. Make a small minigame with placeholder assets in the engine you want to use(if any).After that it's time to tackle your project: Break down what needs to be done for your game and start learning any skills you are missing. Unknown and difficult things first.Expect to throw away a lot of what you make here because you will improve so much that your early work becomes insulting.
>>3976369M.O.O.N, composer of HM, used Fl studio's FLEX>>3976452for intermediate games, learning about state machines will make it easier
>>3976708State machines? Bah, just code your game in MATLAB and use an infinite amount of if() and while() loops nested recursively
>>3976452>not behind a paywallNot worth a dime. There's some academic work, but it's worth the time input. Iterative execution trumps theorycrafting.>Where did you learn how to make games, codeStarted a s a kid.
>>3976479>niche genre Already ahead of you.>chart crap I like some songs *hums la isla bonita*>style for my horror gameTrying to fuse French jazz Rap with another genre I haven't decided on, yet. Doesn't get more niche then French jazz Rap, as there are like 2 songs. >>3976785Or Julia, lol. Matlab is so 80s.>>3976708>hotline miamiThat certainly is popular around here>chart music I dissected into tracksPlenty of cheap stock or 2000 usd snippets. Bep using la isla bonita and scoring a hit is imho fraudulent market manipulation.
>>3976452It takes practice to make a well programmed game but ultimately, all that matters is that it works. Undertale is imfamous for its poorly written code but that didn't hinder its success. >>3976708 is right though, learn about state machines.Take a week or so to create some basic tutorial games and then go off on your own way. You'll learn as you go.
>>3929636I like itI imagine it would work well in a game like disco elysium, where dialogue options and certain actions could be categorized as being goal/personality related, and then the flaw having a chance of coming in and fucking up your conversation or make you fail an action in a spectacular way
>>3968595I haven't played dogma in a while, but I remember despising the crafting system and I'm pretty sure it was in large part because it wasn't results-based. I never liked interacting with it, sucks because I like the items in that game. I played with two buds around the same time and none of us enjoyed crafting, if that indirect feedback matters much for what you're doing
>>3977313Crafting is rarely, if ever, fun.
>>3920498New version of my demo is here. Now it is mostly playable, and I think I got rid of the worst bugs.https://manusc.itch.io/bainok>Now you can learn new moves in the gym>Equipment system that adds stat boosts (Only 1 item so far, but the system is there)>New art for most major characters>New animations for combat>Wandering NPCs so the city seems less empty than it is>Far more NPC gossip>Transparent level transitions make it less uncertain where a level ends, or where a door is.>New dialogue system makes branching dialogue much less of a pain to make>Tilemap-based collision also makes level building a bit less of a pain.>1 new quest (making 5 in total)Would appreciate if someone gave it a whirl, and tell me their impressions.
>>3977665I played it for around 45 minutes, I like the atmosphere and the dialogue. The community felt run down, but tight knit which hopefully was the intention. I did feel a little lost at times, I couldn't tell if some missions were part of the main story or just side quests, but I think I cleared the story ones 'cause they had combat. Speaking of, I really like the combat! I haven't seen a system like yours before, but that made it feel fresh. My favourite part is ducking under enemy attacks because it makes me LOL. The only major part I disliked was the amount of text. There's quite a lot. I think a combination of cutting down some of the dialogue and making it so dialogue that would normally happen when you enter a new area rather happens when talking to an NPC (That dialogue tree that happens when you enter the bay area could start when you interact with the guy you talk with, instead of halting you abruptly when I just want to explore)Generally though, I enjoyed the little city you've got going on, and I'm interested to see more.I did encounter a couple bugs too, but nothing that can't be fixed:>First three rooms in the intro have broken transitions, spawing me in the top corner of the screen (Although the intro might just be unfinished)>Charles didn't give me a quest to add in my journal after speaking to him>Leon says "Good morning big buy">Smaller house in the bay area has no collision>"Go to work" option crashes the game (Guessing it is unfinished)Keep it up!!
