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[JasonPickering]

I am working on a small RPG for One Game a Month. I am trying to use a NES palette and keep tiles using as few colors as possible. I also want all sprites to be Black, White and one other color. (Mockup below shows Overwolrd and Combat screen)

Latest Build

Premise:
The player will run around the overworld, solving puzzles and getting into random battles. the entire overworld will be rather small. maybe 10 x 10 screens. but there will probably be some running around and back and forth, similar to a zelda game where you suddenly get something to open up a new area you previously found. The player will be able to carry one item. these will always be story or puzzle specific, Key to unlock Door, Item for Person.

The Main story is you must find this magical amulet to Free the king who was turned to stone by an evil curse.

I am also hoping I can make a series of these after the base mechanics are in. I want the stories to change but always focus on this amulet. similar to the orb in the Heavy Metal movie.

Combat:
Combat will be turn based and the player will always start each battle with full health. they will have several "Skills" and a basic attack. The skills will be the players progession system. they will earn Gems instead of XP and the player can attach these to skills. thats how many times the player can use that skill in an encounter. so you can choose to go with more heals, or more fireballs. thats up to you. Level Ups will be handed out at story beats I decide to discourage grinding. Each time a player levels up they either earn a gem or an extra heart. Gems and heart will also be hidden in side missions too.

The Player will only ever combat one enemy at a time, although they will encounter multi enemy fights where the player will kill a monster and then have to battle the next one.


Right now I need to redo the art for the main character. He was just a sprite I ripped from a zelda game but he is exactly what I want the hero to look like.

[happymonster]

Looks great! I like the idea and the art so far (including the main character, even if it is ripped).

Is this the replacement for your Microgue project?

[nickgravelyn]

I quite like this idea, especially the gems/hearts and the "simplification" of standard RPG systems. Looking forward to seeing where you take it.

[JasonPickering]

@happymonster No it not a replacment. Microgue will be my next project after I finish my current Project, Relic Rush. This will just be a small side project to finish in like a week.

@nickgravelyn yeah I wanted to do away with most of the chaff. Simplify as much as possible.

[happymonster]

Jason: Cool. For the font, I think it might look good as a lowercase version?

[JasonPickering]

yeah I went on DaFont. there are way to many pixels fonts. So i just need to pick a good one.

[egoitzOsa]

Interesting project here (game style and look).
I like the 'xpaider' font over Dafont (it has two versions), allthoug I now design my fonts from the ground.

[i-kari]

Looking lovely as always and I really like the simplicity of it all. I will be following this for inspiration. I recognize some of the assets from your previous projects.

Good luck!

[JasonPickering]

@egoitzOsa I will check that out

@i-kari are you still working on your iOS RPG? I hope so.

for now here are some people



Notes:
- couple different ladies, I think the first one(orange) looks best
- not sure about the Orc
- three different kings. two colors and the grey he has been turned to stone.
- Queen. not sure if I should do Pink and blue or if the matching orange would make them feel more like a couple and more kingly.
- Soothsayer needs some changes to his robe. and also to his beard shading. Might be to shaded.

[Mef]

Too many colors in one tile/block.
Same goes for the rocks meeting ground tiles, but not as bad.

Liking the general idea tho, nice assets as well.

[JasonPickering]

Yeah I have been thinking about it and I dont think I will adhere to the NES tile restrictions completly. I will try and use minimum colors, but I dont think it matters if I have an extra color in there. I am mostly aiming for the feel of Old NES games. my Resolution is way to small for an actual NES game anyhow.

[Hipshot]

I just adore the the small graphics with these colors.

[i-kari]

@i-kari are you still working on your iOS RPG? I hope so.

Yes sir I am.

The shadow for your character sprites is also breaking the 3-colors-per-sprite rule by the way (not saying this is wrong, just an observation).

This game is for PC, right?

[JasonPickering]

yeah I tried it with a black shadow, but felt this just looked better.

Moving forward with combat. still working on making it actually exciting. Right now I have an Attack and defense skill for the player, so it is possible for the player to dodge an attack or miss one of their attacks. not sure if I will add this or not. I like deterministic combat, but that makes the game very simple, because you know exactly how much damage you can do with each attack. Slice does 2 damage attack does 1 damage. use slice. so I am thinking about that for the moment.

[JasonPickering]

Main combat problem now is there is no choice in the combat. I was going to do deterministic combat, but that has lead to all combat being a simple caluculations. Attack A does more Damage then Attack B so Attack A is the best choice. I need to add some internal conflict to the combat that can make the player think more about what attack to use. I dont really want the game to be left to luck, but We will see what I can come up with.

[IzzyReggie]

The internal conflict is the limited usage of Slice, I thought? So just complicate that a little more. Make certain enemies take half damage from Slice, but full damage from normal attacks. Make certain enemies block Heal, but not Cure. Exploit the limited resource that is their abilities by having enemies make usage of normally optimal skills become sub-optimal.

[JasonPickering]

well I currently have 3 attacks in and working, but no limits. Slice, Flame, and Ice. all do one damage, except there are 3 enemies. normal blob, fire blob, and ice blob. Each blob has 2 HP, but attacking them with the same element cause them to take no damage. except the normal blob they take 1 damage from all attacks regardless of element.

[JasonPickering]

so here is a quick build. Its SUPER basic. It allows you to walk around and get into some simple combat.Combat only has 3 skills and they are unlimited now. just pres the 123 keys to use them (Controls are temp).

and there is no death mechanic as the moment so that needs to go in too.

Try it

[happymonster]

That's a nice start, I like the graphics and the colours. You've got more in there already then I expected.

[JasonPickering]

yeah the field is so wide open its hard to figure out what to do next. I need to get NPCS, Quest Items and a much better battle system working. I am still playing with the combat design. I am wondering if I should make all attacks a one time use and you are constantly getting more, or if each encounter should always have the same combat. Always having the skills and then just being limited on the ones you can choose seems like a good idea, but I don't know. also need to animate the main character.