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[CaptainKraft]

The nostalgia is strong with this one.

The art and the gameplay mechanics make me smile because this is a lot like the stuff I loved to play growing up. I always like to see people bringing back classic styles.

Well done.

[SolarLune]

Cool start. I think I encountered a bug where after I used the Ice skill on a fire slime, a normal slime appeared with 1 HP. After defeating him and walking around a little more, I encountered what I assume is the first fire slime, with 1 HP remaining. It's solid so far.

[JasonPickering]

Yeah the slides were not resetting properly. Should be fixed in the next build.

So I had an idea but not sure if its a good one. Basically changing from turn based combat to something more akin to fruit ninja. Where you are given a group of enemies and they appear on the battlefield and you must click them to strike, if they stay to long they attack, then there are also ones who have shields and can only be hit at certain times. So a combo of fruit ninja and infinity blade maybe, or punch out. It's just a thought. I will probably stick with the turn based one for this but that could be a fun idea for an RPG in the future.

[JasonPickering]

Took a break from combat to make some new Tilesets and add in the NPCs and talking to them. I also worked on the sprites. Combat is Halted for the time being as I try and figure out how to code it all in. Lots of small prototyping for the moment. I am also trying to figure out if what info the player will need. I am wondering if I can get away with all attacks being 1 damage, and then just changing up their elements, and possibly effects, although with such small Health bars, most status effects would mean certain doom, like poison or sleep.

and here is the new Soothsayer. He will work similar to a hint system and also move the plot along. He tells the player about the Amulet needed to free the king and queen.

[JasonPickering]

More combat design. Trying to figure out strategy in this incredibly small system. I am thinking of doing something along the lines of Rock Paper Scissors.

currently worried about finishing on time, so This might be turning into a Zelda like game if I get low on time.

[JasonPickering]

new build with NPCs to talk to. I color coded the font to the character. what do you think?

[JasonPickering]

So big change. The main reason I was making this sort of Zelda like was because I really wanted to also add in the puzzles you had to face in Zelda games all while battling. So I was talking to friends and it seemed I mostly cared about the puzzles and not the combat. So I decided to remove the combat altogether. I know it kind of seems silly but the main thing I have been enjoying are the puzzle creation and trying to force some type of puzzle into combat. By dropping the combat it allows me to focus alley on the environmental puzzles the player must face. So I have written outy small plan of what the character needs to do to collect the items and the areas that are effected by those items.

[beetleking22]

Why these kind of games have so much of charm?? It really have some kinda of magic..

[JasonPickering]

go you mean zelda games or JRPGs?

[SolarLune]

Yo, how far did this go? Did you ever get to implement the Zelda-like mechanics?

[JasonPickering]

so back to working on this after launching Relic Rush. I am not going the zelda route as I have figured out a turn based combat system that works really well and still feels like an old JRPG. I will explain it better when I have a system up and working but I have been thinking about story.

I have been thinking about building an episodic game and I wonder if it would be possible to create an episodic RPG, but the problem as I see it is I wouldn't want the player to get stronger and stronger each episode. I would want them to adventure out, get stronger and then be done with the game at the end. But the next "Episode" I would want them right back to that base period (Think of the show Merlin). Similar to the structure of Half Minute Hero. Not sure how that would make the player feel.

[nickgravelyn]

You could make each episode feature a different character in the same world. That would give you a logical explanation for why you're "starting from scratch" each game. Also would give you a mechanism to tell a large story from different perspectives.

[JasonPickering]

that could be a good idea. Almost the way Final Fantasys are. the games are always different but are sometimes in the same land, or have certain things always similar.

[matwek]

You could make each episodes main character be the son/daughter of the previous hero. That way you get to tell individual stories but have a larger story that progresses throughout.

[DustyDrake]

You could make each episodes main character be the son/daughter of the previous hero. That way you get to tell individual stories but have a larger story that progresses throughout.

if you do this, it'd be neat if the game saves a file somewhere, that the other games read that alters the story in little bits.
Like if you start to restore an old temple or something, the later generations can improve on it, until at the last game, that generation can get some cool item from it.

[JasonPickering]

One of the things I worry about is tying the stories together so much that I can't really change the landscape. I was also thinking of using one item to tie the stories together. Similar to the stone from heavy metal.

[JasonPickering]

still working on the battle system to get it exciting. I have been looking at a lot of the outsider RPGs like Half Minute Hero, Paper Mario, Penny Arcade, and the Mario and Luigi series.

I am just messing around now trying to get something thats fun, and also not to overwhelming.

I also wont be having Random Encounters. Monsters will be on the screen in the players path and they can walk into them to battle.

[JasonPickering]

Moving ahead with the battle system. I like what I have so far. Going to try doing enemies in a line and their placement determines who you can attack.