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[vinheim3]

(updated as people reply)

Hey peeps!

It's my last year of uni before I get my degree and as per usual of last year ComSci students (I think?), we have to come up with a project. The project is supposed to be something completely new to us, but something we can learn in less than a month, and I chose to make a game. I've only really made 2 games and they were simple; the rest of my coding is in solving other people's algorithms or programming modules as part of a bigger project, so in a sense, making a game would be new to me.

I wanted to make a 2D Isometric SRPG, however, since there is a research aspect to the project, I can't just make a game because "I want to make a game", there has to be a better reason/question that making this project can answer. So I was suggested instead to make an editor for this genre of games, sort of like RPGMaker. It doesn't seem too complicated considering I was going to do this anyways for my own game, but now I have to consider the different things other people might want to do in their game as it can't all just be an edited copy of my game. So in this thread, I want to ask 2 things:

1) What 2D Isometric SRPG's do you know? (3D like Disgaea is ok too, and I guess it doesn't have to be Isometric, it can even be orthogonal grid-based, and maybe not even grid-based? There was a Nippon Ichi game where movement range was a circle... so I guess any SRPG, but main focus on 2D Isometric ones).

I've got:
Final Fantasy: Tactics series
Disgaea series
Fire Emblem series
Phantom Brave

2) What kind of editors would I need for a simple 2D Iso SRPG? I've got (along with decisions you can make):

World Map
- Will it be nodal movement or can you move around freely?
- Will it be controlled with mouse/keyboard/joystick/a combination of the 3?
- Will there be random encounters?
- Will nodes or important areas be marked by circles/or will the designed need to load his/her own sprites for them?
- Will the map itself be grid-based?
- What image will you pick for the world map? (later editions may allow for Procedurally-generated maps)

Battlefields
- Will the field be comprised of full and half blocks or just half blocks? (If the field has full blocks, their sides can be used as areas to walk or climb on with the ability to do that)
- Where will units be placed?
- Where can your own units be placed?
- Are there guest units that help you and where can they be placed?
- What sprites will you want to load for each block of the battlefield? (this won't be slow, I've got it down)

Classes
- What kind of abilities do they have?
- What kind of equipment can they equip?
- Do they start with any class bonuses?
- Are they only usable by unlocking through a certain condition (like in FF:T series)
- What are their sprites?
- Do they have different limits for learning skills?
- How does the experience system work?

Units (mostly for special units)
- What kind of class are they?
- Do they have other unique abilities not other units of that class have or do they follow the strict template?
- What are their sprites?
- What equipment do they have?
- How much of the skills do they have knowledge in?
- How does the experience system work/differ?
- What A.I. do they follow and do they follow multiple A.I. patterns/a more complicated one

Cutscenes
- Will it be played by either making a video, or will the cutscene use the world map or battlefield areas?
- When and where do you want to flash text during the cutscene?
- Is there a choice in the cutscene that can be made and what variables are changed as a result of that choice?

Skills
- What are the requirements for a unit to learn a skill?
- How is experience for skills calculated and is there an experience table or is the next experience part of a formula?
- What is the range of that skill, and the Area of Effect of that skill?
- What properties does the skill have?
- What is the cost for using that skill?
- Does the skill have an animation?

Professions (think World of Warcraft professions)
- What is the level limit for that profession?
- What items can you make at what level of that profession (or what things can you do?)
- What are the material requirements for that profession?
- How many professions can you choose from? (if there are multiple groups of professions, how many in each group are you allowed to choose?)
- How does the profession rise in level?

Inventory items
- What is the kind of items?
- What are the details of that item?
- Is the items stockable and is there a limit to that stock?
- Is the inventory a global thing or does each unit have an inventory?

Leveling system (here you define the leveling system and experience-gain system of every aspect of the game that uses them)

Variables (there won't be any coding in the game, but setting variables and making if-checks on them during cutscenes, battlefield-objects/units can be done)

Graphical effects (things like how text flashes around or pictures flashes around, can be used in cutscenes or in specific moments in battle like: BATTLE START, YOUR TURN, etc, this is a resource)

Quests
- What is the name of the quest?
- What are the stages of the quest?
- What are the requirements for beating each stage?
- Who do I talk to to get the quest and what are the requirements before I am allowed to take it?
- What is the reward for finishing the quest/stages of it?
- Do I get an item along with the quest to help me beat it/as a requirement to use it somewhere?


I know this sounds like an ambitious project, but I've got all the algorithms down in separate game maker files and it's all a matter of:
1) Implementation
2) Graphics for UI, and example game
3) Example game

and considering I've got 7 months with only 16 hours of school a week, 20 hours part-time job, I'm definitely going to get this done way before the 7 months finishes.

So yeah, your input/suggestions?

[Moczan]

Nice project, I'm fan of sRPGs and I would like to make one myself in the future, so post your progress.

One important thing to consider are battlefield-altering abilities, like geopanels in Disgaea or even more sophisticated features, that may require some clever design, but as a CS student you probably won't have any troubles with that.

[vinheim3]

Thanks for the input, definitely something I'm going to add to the editor, and possibly items or misc units or skills that can even destroy tiles (and other ways to affect the battlefield like covering part with oil or flames).

I've actually designed units to be allowed for categorization (units can have "tags" or categorizations that only affect those units, like if I created a number of misc units similar to Disgaea's geo panels, they would be categorized or "tagged" with "geopanels" so that you can make all of that group have a unique ability. In this case, it would be affecting the battlefield with a list of different effects).

Btw guys, there is an editor for "Quests", forgot to mention that.

[dustin]

phantom brave is the one with the circles for movement and while it was clever I have to say I don't think it's as good as a grid.  Its just hard to tell distances with no grid so you end up moving the character then checking if your withen attack range, finding out your not so moving a bit closer, etc.

As for what sRPGs I know fire emblem series is easily my favorite.  My favorite being...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_Emblem:_Seisen_no_Keifu
it has two halves and in the second half the parents pass their skills onto their children but you get to choose who pairs up with who based on how you play the game.  Very cool.


Also a word of warning, just because you have lots of time doesn't mean it will be easy to finish a big project like this so when crunch time comes don't be afraid to cut features drastically instead of giving up.

[vinheim3]

Yeah, Phantom Brave is the one, although if someone wants to implement that, I could make it easier by allowing them to show lines that show the distance from their enemy wherever they put their cursor to move. Never played Fire Emblem, but I've heard how popular it is. I might dl and play it. I'll definitely allow users to make their game orthogonal-based (I think that's the term?)

Also, I've got most of these editors down in separate files and the features in each one is a matter of setting variables, and I've practiced a lot with level editors. What's going to take me a lot of time is making my example game. I'm going to have to balance things like units, enemies, professions, skills, classes, leveling systems and be creative with things like battlefields, sprites, world map, story, etc, but I'll probably just come here for that.

Thanks for the input

[eclectocrat]

Good luck. I spent the last year working on just this and it's full of pitfalls and peril.

My sincere suggestion (after writing not one, not two, but three editors) is to make an isometric rendering engine that renders your scene, and accepts mouse input and translates it to world input (ie, tile and object selection), and keep the game aspect separate from this. Once you can render a complex scene and interact with it, you can develop any kind of rules you like. I chose to use Lua to script the render engine, but anything will do. Just remember that if you have a well defined and encapsulated component with a clear interface, you can do a lot of good things and avoid a lot of bugs. Trust me, learn from my mistakes.

Blatant self promotion time, see my game at www.mysteriouscastle.com, it seems to be exactly the kind of game you want to write (with crappy graphics).

Again, good luck.

[vinheim3]

Cool, looking at your game, I might allow for your own sprites for path lines, lighting, field of vision, alternative ways of showing healthbars/other stats, etc.

Also, I know I seem like a newb, but I really have all the hard bits down. The isometric rendering is done with all depth issues solved, pathfinding and AI done, I've done lots of work on a lot of editors and saving/loading from text files so the level editor thing will be a breeze. There's just integrating all the editors into one file, and after that, the real trouble is making my own game with it, and since it's an example game, it might not even be days long, it's just to demonstrate what the editors can accomplish. But thanks for the good luck anyway.

[eclectocrat]

Cool, looking at your game, I might allow for your own sprites for path lines, lighting, field of vision, alternative ways of showing healthbars/other stats, etc.

Also, I know I seem like a newb, but I really have all the hard bits down. The isometric rendering is done with all depth issues solved, pathfinding and AI done, I've done lots of work on a lot of editors and saving/loading from text files so the level editor thing will be a breeze. There's just integrating all the editors into one file, and after that, the real trouble is making my own game with it, and since it's an example game, it might not even be days long, it's just to demonstrate what the editors can accomplish. But thanks for the good luck anyway.

Cool, you've done the hard part, now it's time to do the harder part

I don't understand what you mean by integrating them all into one file. Do you mean making the editor with multiple aspects available in one suite? In that case you've got to pick a good UI library and run with how it does things. I ended up making things with Cocoa on OSX and it allowed me to have the level editor, character editor, dialog editor, lua console and various other tidbits all in one app.

I actually ended up making my game procedurally generated because I found making good levels so difficult and mind numbing. I woke up one day and realized that I was dreading playtesting my level for the thousandth time, and wanted to have fun playing my game, so I wrote a random forest generator, and haven't used my level editor since

[vinheim3]

Usually when something is a bit new to me, or I haven't done it in a long time, I program it in a different .gmk file (I'm using game maker) and test and tweak it until all the errors I can find are solved. I've done the harder editors (battlefield, world map, units, classes, etc) and the other editors are just going to be slight alterations of that. But they are still in different files. I'm starting my final product which will copy all the code from the previous editors and make the code re-usable.

I've got lots of sketches of the final UI done, but you can imagine it being like MS Office Word 2007/2010, where instead of "Home", "Insert", etc, you have the names of the editor. Underneath that, where all the magic happens, you have 2 screens, one on the left and one on the right. The left one is where the main editing is done, and the right one usually shows the final thing (world map, battlefield) which you can move around and zoom and stuff without leaving the editor. It's hard to explain, but if I find a scanner, I'll upload it.

I might include procedural generation (but not in the next 7 months) for people who want to copy sort of Disgaea's Item World or make stages like yours.

Also, what's the harder part? The example game? I'm actually planning on paying people for resources and to use my level editor to design stuff

[eclectocrat]

When I started my game I was under the impression that once I get past the technical hurdles, designing the levels would be fun and easy. It was fun for the first few days, but never easy. After a while I realized that making good levels is really, really hard, especially when you've got tons of variables and are trying to balance level progression, locked doors, cliffs, secret passages, etc...

That's just me, I hope you find it easy and relaxing!

[vinheim3]

Thanks, I'm getting new ideas for this project anyways.. locked doors and secret passages. For the purpose of the level editor, locked doors and walls that block secret passages could be misc units that die upon contact with a key item or strong weapon with no health bar or stats showing (so it looks right and I don't complicate things).

The whole variables thing won't be a bother since I'm making an editor, and since this is designed to be flexible, managing everything should be relatively easy especially with my organization OCD, and you know what? I'm just going to start it now.

[Moczan]

I think that eclectocrat mistakes separate skirmish model of FTT and Disgaea with continuous worlds. While it's hard to design the whole world, separate skirmishes are easier to design in terms of maps and enemy teams.