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[Inanimate]

You could make it so The Hero is guided by the mysterious signs that are all over the place.

The best way to do this would be for you to be able to "suggest" where to go, and you make the dungeons and side-quests as "practice" for The Hero, before he fights The Evil. Every once in a while, The Evil could cause some major bad stuff to happen, and The Hero would have to tackle that on his own. You'd get a 'timer' counting down to the next 'wave' that The Evil does (causing a dungeon to appear).

[baconman]

Suggestion to help with world-scaling:

World Map to travel between "Countries," and Country Maps to travel between towns/chapters.

The "Hero" will instinctively travel towards a key dungeon and plot chapter boss of a predefined level in the shortest route possible; but will detour to towns along the way to recover as needed, and will reinvest in equipment they can afford. Choosing a different Hero will change priorities a bit (Offense/Defense/Magic or Item use, etc.).

Your job is to obstruct them, to build up enough Level Ups so that they can take on said boss successfully. You can also arrange areas where the odds are tipped in favor of easy, moderate, or difficult random encounters (they each have a 20% chance of occurance, the remaining 40% being in favor of your choice). You'll also want to locate enough towns (and possible side quests) along the way so that the Hero can make gradual progress through said Country.

There's also a variety of easy/medium/hard encounters; in the forms of having increasingly bigger populations of weaker creatures, or a constant/small population of increasingly tougher ones; and part of your goal is to prepare said Heroes to encounter and overcome both types.

You'll also want the Hero to find and learn to utilize key items, as this will also be key in moving between the different countries (and prevent said Hero from simply walking on the World Map straight to the end).

Finally, you can adjust the game length simply by the number of Countries involved.

[AaronG]

In fantasy RPGs there's always plot vouchers.  Whether it's seven sages, eight gym leaders, the pieces of an ancient set of armor or otherwise The Hero always has to collect the plot vouchers up before facing off against the big bad.  The plot vouchers are hidden in terrible dungeons, locked behind tests of courage and wisdom to keep them safe from the big bad.  The Hero must brave the dungeons to retrieve the plot vouchers before the villain can find them and use them to destroy / conquer / enslave the world.

Why not have the player, in sculpting his or her Overworld, decide where to hide the plot vouchers and how to protect them?  Leave enough clues / signs / sages to lead The Hero to victory while still keeping the ultimate location of the vouchers hidden from the villain and his forces (who are also looking for the vouchers by tearing up towns and interrogating all those sages the player left sitting around).  You could even grant the player a limited number of, "Divine Revelations" that essentially speak directly to The Hero on where to go / what to do next.

It's both a complex and vague idea but I wouldn't share it if I didn't think it had some grain of potential.  Also, I'd love to see The Hero pick up party members along the way, if only for that Fantasy RPG flavor you mentioned.

Some further reading that, while not directly related to your game, may help you all the same.  If nothing else it should be good for a laugh or two:

http://news.ansible.co.uk/plotdev.html

Keep us posted, I'm very curious to see how this turns out.

[droqen]

jump: that was incredibly enjoyable.

I will consider what you have suggested here.

This response was not awfully verbose but let it be known that it is filled to bursting with feeling.

[droqen]

FISHBANE is completed.

I am going to test the credits out a little bit to see how they are taken by people who are in them, but what that means is I can get back to Overworld Overlord.

A possible alternate name is Overworld Overseer but I like the original name a bit better. Any opinions there?

~

I am going to start out by creating a single set of things but may in the future either introduce a random element to them (i.e. you might get evil guy #1 who destroys towns or evil guy #2 with lots of minions etc.) or add variety in different 'campaigns' or plots or worlds or whatever! It depends on exactly how things are going to work.

~

Now I'm going back to the very heart of the concept to see what it is that I really want to do with all of the elements.

In an RPG, you have the hero who is the focus of the player's attention. I want to draw that attention away from the hero. "He" is still important, but simply as a tool for you to guide. This hero has the most potential power in the whole game and must be kept alive -- however, there will be several means by which his life can be saved should it be lost.

Should I focus on RPG game elements alone (enemies, dungeons, items, levels?) or also on story? I am thinking I will stick to the first but be generous with them -- story is difficult to generate or make interactive.
(That's not to say I won't have any semblance of 'plot', I just won't do any deep story-weaving)

Towns are filled with people and can provide restoration, equipment, knowledge, and maybe protection.
Evil is led by a powerful entity who is, for one reason or another, leading an army in the pursuit of destroying the world or something.
Party Members may be picked up along the way?

Dungeons may be little time sinks where the world is more vulnerable than usual because the hero is busy delving and unable to assist. Then again, the hero should rarely stay in defense of a town; they are supposedly able to keep themselves defended.

Evil Leaders may be mobile entities surrounded by swarms of minions -- the hero will have to defeat leaders to reduce evil spawns, but will probably need to be a certain level and/or have a certain item.

[droqen]

I am but a mere mortal; my AGBIC projects lay abandoned before me and now there is nothing left to do but to return to the warm, inviting arms of Overworld Overlord.

My brain is working overtime.

[fraxcell]

Cool, it looks really interesting so far.

[Inanimate]

This is going to be a very fascinating game. Watching excitedly.

[ChevyRay]

Keep us posted, dude. Looking forward to seeing this evolve.

[droqen]

Thank all of you for your interest :D

Let's hope I can get it functioning and fun :x

But I believe!

[AaronG]

Glad to see you back on the case, Droqen.  Do keep us all up-to-date on where this goes!

[droqen]

Abstraction vs. RPG 'Realism'

OWOL was (at the very beginning) envisioned as a puzzle game which was to be infused with RPG and TBS elements. I wanted to keep everything incredibly simple -- a town is just a town tile. The hero might have a level, but is simply a little hero icon thing on the map somewhere. The 'evil forces' consume land and are all the same, simply spreading in some kind of semi-predictable manner.

Since then, I have come to allow my thoughts to spread. I have never made a game of any of these sorts, so how could I create all of them at the same time? I don't know -- but I will do my best!

So: What now? I am considering the line between puzzle abstraction of game entities and TBS-RPG fusion accuracy. There is also the city sim bit to work out but that might not happen; delving into the particular details of a city's inner workings might not be what I want to deal with.

The Plot will probably be an important force in the game that you can alter somehow. I don't know how! Plot twists and characters, however, all play important roles in a full RPG so they certain should play an important role in even a little mini-RPG fused with so many other things.


THE HERO must defeat THE FINAL BOSS.
There may be PLOT TOKENS that must be collected by THE HERO to emerge victorious.

On the other hand,
THE EVIL must be held back by THE NPCs.

Unexpected events will unfold, and plans will fail; new plans, new paths, new guides for THE HERO must all be put into place and IMPORTANT EVENTS whether guiding or world-changing or both will need to be set into motion.


As the Overworld Overlord, your job will be to oversee THE HERO's progress as well as the survival of THE WORLD.

THE EVIL's consumption of the world acts as a flexible, skill-indexed time limit. Take too long to guide THE HERO where he or she needs to go, and there may not be anything worth saving by the time the final confrontation (complete with plot voucher reveals and activation?) comes around.


MINI SPUR-OF-THE-MOMENT DEV THOUGHT RANT: OVER!

[Inanimate]

Perhaps city planning could be from more of an outside viewpoint, and more 'broad'; for instance, you can choose to put in an inn, an item shop, an equipment shop, etc. that will be useful for the Hero. Each could consume a sort of 'points', of which you have limited amounts. You could also make it so you'd have to accommodate the various Plot-Important Locations, such as Castles and The-Hometown, etc.

[droqen]

Some kind of 'points' would actually be really nice! I kind of forgot about that possibility completely.

I have been considering some kind of 'plot event deck', which would include such things as BIRTH OF THE HERO AND THE EVIL (would probably have to happen at the same time to keep things balanced), allowing you to create the 'hometown' out of a town that already exists while the final boss' lair appears somewhere else, at a reasonably high level and growing slowly.

[droqen]

Redesign; re-plan; redo; puzzle prevails.

Some people will be disappointed.

~ Vagueness ~


I will have a prototype coming out soon.

jeez, past droqen; you really got yourself in a mess, huh?

HUH?

well, lemme help you out there a bit. let's get this done but right