Game idea, an unique Action RPG!

I don’t have ANY Idea of a story or anything, but I HAVE developed what I think is an unique real time battle system that relies more on a players skill than how much grinding he/she has done.

I guess it would be top down view.

Control: “Q” Attack | “W” Shield | “Mouse cursor” movement | Random keys to access pause menu, inventory etc. etc.

With a simple control system like this you can add MANY layers of depth!

If you attack to often/much (look up: Button mashing) you will be dizzied and therefore immobile for a small amount of time. When you put out your shield it’s put away again after 1-2 seconds and cannot be used again for a short period of time. This will force players to not button mash and will have to learn when a foe is about to attack and when to shield for each foe, therefore this draws on a player’s skill to study the opponents attack pattern.

It’s STILL kind of simple, so I’ll borrow a game mechanic from a very unique Action RPG; the angle that you/enemy assault the opponent from can cause you/enemy to take damage from a counter attack. Example, if you attack a foe head on from the front you’ll take a lot of damage from the foe’s counter attack, but if you attack it from the sides or behind you’ll take less damage or none at all! Both you and your opponents can auto-counter-attack.

With these mechanics built into a decent Action RPG or Action MMORPG, you’d have a pretty complicated game that relies on a players skill; he/she would have to study the opponent to know when it’s safe to attack, which angles work best and perfect the timing of shielding.

Upon leveling up you’d have your normal RPG stats but you’d also have it so that the amount of times you can attack your weapon in a row before getting dizzied, the amount of time you can hold up your shield and your movement speed will also improve.

With a verity of character types, weapons and items it could be pretty sweet; you’d have a unique Action RPG that heavily relies on a characters skill and not only his/her level.

I was thinking of making something such as this and was learning how to code but I’m too exhausted and run down to go through with it, :C
It’s just an idea and I don’t really think it could be the next WoW or something if someone (Or a group/team) developed it, but it would still be pretty sweet. I can’t do anything currently with my ideas and as such I thought I’d post it here.

It’s funny; this is the Collaborations forums but I’m not looking to team up with someone; I just have an Idea and can’t do anything at all to help it along even if someone DOES want to create it. :C I hope I’ve done a good enough job explaining my ideas I know there will be probably no-one to want to use my ideas, but, what the heck I figured I’d post it here anyways. Is this even the right place to post this?

If anyone DOES make this I’ll be very happy. :D
If some-one makes an Action RPG with my ideas in it I don’t want any credit or anything; my ideas would’ve been/are useless to me anyways.

I think it’s a great concept! I’m also thinking about an action RPG these times and I liked reading your description. But before I could think of it deeper please explain how did you designed the controll of your character with the mouse. Is he/she following it constantly? Or is he/she goes to the point you clicked? Either way, I guess you could think about to order something to the left mouse button. Anyhow, please explain it more! I’m getting curious!:D

Originally posted by Garbre:

I think it’s a great concept! I’m also thinking about an action RPG these times and I liked reading your description. But before I could think of it deeper please explain how did you designed the controll of your character with the mouse. Is he/she following it constantly? Or is he/she goes to the point you clicked? Either way, I guess you could think about to order something to the left mouse button. Anyhow, please explain it more! I’m getting curious!:D

Well,I was thinking the character would follow the cursor, obviously It would have to have some sort of “Right click” cheat protection. The character would follow the mouse, but to prevent easy dodging (It would be easy to quickly move the cursor out of the way of an enemy attack very quickly), you would have to make it so that the character would lag behind if you move the cursor TOO quickly, the character would be able to move faster based on a “Speed/movement” stat.

By “Order something to the left mouse button,” do you mean map something to the left mouse button? If so I think that mapping “Attack” to the left mouse button might make the controls flow a little better. I’m not good really in the ANY of the areas such as art, audio or coding, that could be a problem if anyone wanted to make it; they’d be on their own!

To make the picture of the game in your mind a little more clear, I’d say it would be a game akin to the likes of “Gauntlet” and would have a 1 on 1 boss battle at the end of each stage. For every monster killed you’d earn exp and currency.

There would be a town to spend the gold on various thingies, I have some ideas: Gold would be spent to upgrade “Special” stats that cannot be upgraded upon level up; how much your character lags behind a fast moving cursor (Speed/movement), how many attacks before ha/she would get “Dizzied/immobilized,” and how long your shield stays out and how long you have to wait before taking it out again. Some items would include normal HP restorers, MANA restorers (More on that later), and costly items that TEMPORARILY boost “Movement/speed”, “Number of swings before dizzied”, and Attack power/Defense power boosters!

I said I’d talk about MANA right? Every time you deal damage to a foe or a foe deals damage to you the MANA bar will fill a little, for a certain amount of MANA you could do a special move. Most of the same things that affect a normal attack will affect MANA attacks. MANA attacks could include: A laser that pierces foes to hit many enemies at once for low damage, and a “Earth Shake” punch that strikes the ground to stun/dizzy all foes in a circular radius whilst dealing small damage.

There would be numerous weapons for each class/type of character including: weapons that: up certain special stats, have a chance to inflict status conditions to foes, lower foes stats. Weapons would be categorized into different types:

Staff: most raise stats and cause status conditions, small range directly in front of user, can be used a lot of times in a row before getting “Dizzied”, low attack power.

Sword: medium range horizontal swipe in front of user, can be used a moderate amount of times in a row before getting “Dizzied”, moderate damage.

Axe: Small range vertical chop in front of user, can be use a small amount of times in a row before getting “Dizzied”, high damage.

Lance: Long range straight in front of user, can strike reasonably far away foes, can be used a moderate amount of times before getting "Dizzied, small amount of damage.

Bow: Long range straight in front of user, can strike very far away foes, can be used a high amount of times before getting “Dizzied”, minimal damage, Bows require ammo; arrows, the bow determines attack power whist some arrows have special effects; Fire Arrow, burns foe causing a small amount of damage every certain amount of time and causes foes to ignore you until they put out the flames, Ice Arrow, Freezes foes sometimes making it impossible for them to move but you deal less damage due to the ice acting as a shield.

Gold would also purchase “Maps” to unlock new stages, levels can be replayed for gold but you’d only receive one half to one third of normal gold to prevent gold farming in easier stages.

In every stage there would be forks in the path some leading to treasure chests containing powerful artifacts which can be equipped to add bonus affects; example, Rabbits foot: boosts the rate of critical hits (Double damage hits). Phoenix Feather: revives you with 25% hp should you fall in battle, can only be use once per stage.

I have always had amazing Ideas for unique games and thus tried to learn coding, the problem is I am to fatigued too make anything (And learn more complex coding than what I already know) and thus will be posting as much info about any game ideas I have for developers to use.

EDIT 1: In case ANYONE gets the WRONG idea, I haven’t done ANYTHING yet (I can barely do simplistic coding of like, two lines xD) So I haven’t actaully made it or even a rough draft. If you’re a developer and want to use my ideas, fell free to do so, but you’d be on your own as I’m only good as an idea man. The most I’d be able to do is tell you what the game should look like, how it would work (Like I’m doing now), and come up with weapons and items.

EDIT 2: If I scrape up enough energy… the MOST I could do would be draw simplistic weapon/item designs… Yep, REAL helpful, Sarcasm, and THAT’s if I’m feeling REALLY, REALLY good that day, I never feel that way. :|

Let me sum up the parts of the game you’ve already spoken about.

- How to buy stuff!
- Weapons
- Accesories
- Potions
- Treasures
- Other Items
- The Mana System
- Leveling up

And the controls! Which I still have some questions about! First of all, how is the player going to go to places that are not on the screen. Are you imagining this as an arena shooter with swords and axes instead of guns? Or the camera will follow him? If it is the last, I don’t know how mouse could be a controller. My other question is: Will the character stops for a moment when you perform an attack or a weapon change? Because if not, it would look kind a weird that we’re attacking while the player’s draging the mouse like crazy. There wouldn’t be much difference between a shooter or a hack’n’slash game’s player movements. And the tactical essence wouldn’t be there so much. So I guess you’ve designed the player to stop. And I think you should allow players to use sheilds many times, with no restrictions.

I have to admit, you really know how to describe a game system, and what you think it would look like. I’ve seen more plans about making a game, and, they were really nothing but childish fantasies, like you could just slap on your stomach and “Uuuuuhh, I have a game idea! Let’s make it!”. I know certian games that looks really simple, but they indeed needed time and efforts to be done! And as I’m reading your lines pictures just come to my mind about the game. I’m not going to say I’m going to make this game, but it just cought my mind strong enough so I might make some images and developer screenshots from the game becouse I have this experience that after developers have seen the first screenshot or “stand up” designs they have feeling that they might need to change something, and after all it is easeir to think and speak about something that has some material. But before that, please discuss the game some more.

I’m not a programmer so I don’t really know how the screen would scroll; that’s a very good point and something I guess to think about. I know it IS possible to create a scrolling level if you make it so that your character walks where you click, I thought it would be possible to make the screen scroll with a character that follows a mouse. It may be impossible if you make it so that walking moves your character; what if you coded it so that it would scroll the ground in the opposite direction you want to walk? It wouldn’t requiter a “Camera” and would look the same and have the same effect. Example, you move your mouse up above your character and the floor/background scrolls down at a speed depending on how fast the character should walk; that should work. I’m pretty sure you can code a game so that the background scrolls like that. The only problem is the enemies wouldn’t appear to be move and as such you would have to make them move to depending on the mouse’s position compered to the characters position.

Or a MUCH easier approach would be to make the game in “Screens”; when you go off the edge of one “Screen” the screen would fade out then in as a new screen. You’d have to make every level in several pieces that link in the way that if you go off one you kind of “Warp” to the other. I’ve seen a technique like that used in one or two games (Can’t re-call which).

Since the character can move only so fast you’d still have to time the attack so that you have enough time to get away from your foe, and dragging the mouse like crazy wouldn’t be an effective strategy; that’s why the character can only move so fast. If you think it would be better for the character to stop when you attack, then so be it; the character will stop… (After all, I haven’t made anything yet so nothing is set in stone!)

For the shield… If you have no restriction the player could simply tap “Shield” endlessly (See: Button Mash) To make themselves invisible to all attacks when they themselves would not be attacking; this would lose some of the thinking needed to remember an enemies attack patterns. With a restriction you have to study the opponent to know the exact moment to hit “Shield”, there could be visual cues, if a Dragon is going to breath fire let’s say, first it will make a sound like a snort or inhaling noise (Has to inhale air deeply before breathing fire), or if it’s going to use it’s claws it will roar a split second before. Something more subtle for bosses perhaps to make the player study them more.

“They were really nothing but childish fantasies, like you could just slap on your stomach and “Uuuuuhh, I have a game idea! Let’s make it!” For me this IS a childish fantasy without a team as I cannot code anything complicated myself or do much. (And I did slap my belly) :p. I think something like this, especially since it’s a RPG* (Action) it would take ALONG time to make… I’m not talking months, probably years with one guy! (*If you want a decent amount of levels/classes/weapons/items as each individual Character Type has it’s own stat growth, each weapon has their own stats each item it’s own effect.)

It will require a team or people and I doubt I’ll be able to gather the required people; I’d need someone for art, audio and programming. If I have 2 people for art one for audio and two programmers that’s five people, It’s unlikely I’ll be able to get that and the small amount of money it makes would be split into almost nothing. I don’t think a 20/20/20/20/20 many would agree too…

The biggest problem NOW is that I’m leaving tonight (January 14th) and won’t be back for 3-5 days, we can talk ten.

I was thinking about how the scrolling should look like. So that’s what I came up with:

If the player goes beyond the dashed areas depending on which of his coordinates are increasing(X, Y) the background and everything else begin to scroll in the opposite direction. There is a way to know the last x and y of a movieclip or the mouse which is pretty much appropriate to calculate the object’s speed. In Flash, object speed = last X – new X(of course, with Y coordinates too!). But you can also take in places to the game which is just a screen of background. Like in small places, shops, small caverns,etc.

Now, about the mouse control. I thought the player could roll if the cursor goes far away. Now, that would NOT be enough to catch up with the mouse, but would look really cool. Also, I think if the cursor is on the player it could become invisible and when it goes off of the player it could become visible again. By the way, I don’t know if you know about the game called Death VS Monstars, but it has a very similar mouse control and if you don’t know it you better try it out and see how it looks like when your player follows the mouse. I also thought about the left mouse button, and when I only tried out (for fun)how it would feel to click so many time while I was dragging the mouse I found it very tiring.

So the description of the control system and the game concept is almost finnished like this(more things can emerge later:D) :
- How to buy stuff!
- Weapons
- Accesories
- Potions
- Treasures
- Other Items
- The Mana System
- Leveling up
- Sheild usage
- Weapon usage
- Movement controls
- Scrolling

When I said you look like you know what you are talking about I was getting at the way you planned out game. You look like the kind of game developer who is planning the game concept on a more experienced level. You don’t put everything in the game that comes to your mind, you think about things that are common but most people use to forget about(button mash, gold farming you mentioned) even if those things are the basics of playing a game. I don’t know how many game concepts you have planned out but you look experienced for me. So that’s why I said that and (partly) why I’m helping. By the way, I’m trying out myself in drawing and animating characters viewed above, so I’m trying to draw a top-down RPG. If I have a full screenshot(or more) I’ll post it. I’m just curious what can I do!:D I ‘ve never drawn something like this! By the way, again, we still didn’t speak about some things. Are we going to become invincible for time we use healing potions or others during battle? If we get hit will the enemies be able to hit us again draining our energy out in a second? Will it be possible to stand at the exact coordinates as the enemy is standing or we will just push it away? So, as I said planning out a game concept and system isn’t as easy as making it, it might be harder. But I use to see people who thinks the other way.:/ Even if it is just a Flash game! Sad.

I read this since I was interested about the concept,
and I thaught that maybe the mouse movement could be that the character stays in the middle(camera follows)and when your mouse is to the left the player moves left and when mouse is at the right player goes right and etc…

I am not hijacking this thrwad just that when I saw “the player is controled with the mouse” this is what I thaught about

Awesome idea Jerimo! But how will we stop? When we point with the mouse at the character? This method looks almost mine but with that little difference I think yours is way better! The player will always see what is ahead. He/she doesn’t have to go to the screen’s border everytime he/she wants to go on. Clever! I like it! It will fasten the gameplay a bit but adds more freedome to the player. Um, do you know a game where the controls are just like that? I would like to try out and see how’s it look like!

If you want help with a story you can email me at bhooks1234@yahoo.com

I didn’t read through all of that because I
lazy :). But what as are you programming in?

Action Script 2 or 3. We’re only discussing the game idea Snoozerbear has come up with, and I think he would also want to know if anyone wants to take part in the making of this game which is a top-down action RPG. But he isn’t searching for people to make a team. As he said it in the first post he just wants to tell his game idea.

If you’re looking for a designer I’ll help :)

I’d be willing to help out however I can. I don’t need payment, but I do need the practice. Just tell me what you want me to do.

Originally posted by Garbre:

Awesome idea Jerimo! But how will we stop? When we point with the mouse at the character? This method looks almost mine but with that little difference I think yours is way better! The player will always see what is ahead. He/she doesn’t have to go to the screen’s border everytime he/she wants to go on. Clever! I like it! It will fasten the gameplay a bit but adds more freedome to the player. Um, do you know a game where the controls are just like that? I would like to try out and see how’s it look like!

no sorry I dont have an example

I’m back from my five day trip!

Are we going to become invincible for time we use healing potions or others during battle?

It’ll be designed so that the game pauses, you’ll press a key, maybe “D” to bring up a pause menu/inventory. There you’ll have separate spaces for Weapons, Shields, Items. Clicking on a Weapon, Shield or Item will equip or use that Weapon/Shield/Item. Rolling over a item/weapon/shield with your cursor will bring up a description and stats of that item/weapon/shield/armor (New idea: Armor). Also, that would be on the right side of the screen, on the left would be your stats; with and without weapons and shields equipped; It would be like this:

Attack: 26 + 12
Defense: 12 + 23
Speed: 8 + 4
Movement: 2 + 1

The numbers to the left of the + are your base stats and the numbers to the right are the stats of your weapons; a lot like Sacred Seasons.

For a rough idea of layout; take a piece of paper, draw a vertical line down the middle. Draw a box on the left hand side, split this into a small rectangle on the top and a bigger rectangle on the lower spaces.

If we get hit will the enemies be able to hit us again draining our energy out in a second?

I hate games that allow you to get your HP drained in a second. Making your self invincible would bring up numerous exploits and as result a better method might be this; a monster has a Rate of Attack; it can’t attack endlessly it has to wait before it can attack again. Different monsters and attacks will have higher or lower RoAs. Example: A Dragon would take a longer pause between breaths of fire than it would using it’s claws to attack a foe. A smaller enemy might be weaker in attack power but have a faster RoA making a hit and run strategy effective since it wouldn’t have time to “Drain” your HP bar. The only problem is if you get stuck or cornered; a enemy with a faster RoA might defeat you quickly… Since it’s a game akin to the likes of “Gauntlet” or, a more recent game “Pokemon Rumble” thee will be a lot of weaker foes instead of a small amount of strong ones. This will help as if a strong foe corners you then your dead pretty fast but maybe with smaller ones this affect would be lessened.

Will it be possible to stand at the exact coordinates as the enemy is standing or we will just push it away?

It will do neither really; you won’t be able to move on top of a foe at all. If it “Pushes you away” then if you kept moving towards an enemy right in front of you you’d get a “Stuttering” effect, in other words a flicking animation as the character moves a couple pixels on top of the foe then a couple of pixels away in a loop.

Ah, for ME the system of planning a concept is easier; this may be because I cannot code though. :D

Thanks for calling me experienced! I’m actaully NOT in the way of developing but I have played so many games (More so than a reviewer) I know what might be fun, I’ve seen mistakes people make in making a game and know the importance therefore of the basics; so many time a developer will have a good idea but it bombs simply because not enough time was spent on the simple basics. A lot of times this is the controls, or a basic game mechanic such as how the camera would follow the player. I simply learn by watching; a good analogy would be a writer learning to write; what does the person do? He/she reads what others have written; I play what others have created and read others descriptions.

I’m not experienced really in this field, I know a very limited amount of scripting;

If (Key.isDown(key.UP) )

{
_y = _y + (Insert (Name of Var) )
}

xD that’s about 1/4 of my knowledge.

I’m also new to conveying my ideas on forums… or anywhere for that matter!

_y += (name of var) would be better.

So, should we get started on the story? First, it would probably be a good idea to pick a theme. Here are some suggestions:
- Alien
- Futuristic Cybercombat
- Medieval Fantasy
- Caveman
- Zombie Virus
- Science Lab
- Magic

You could even combine some of these ideas. Once we pick a theme, we can not only make the story, but we can also start the art.

I’m aslo thinking we could incorporate the classic Legend of Zelda light world/dark world idea.

I also know AS2. If you don’t get a better programmer, I can do it.

Well, we were only discussing the gameplay. But Snoozerbear said the game is more similar to Gauntlet which means probably the best theme for the game is a medievil fantasy world.

I don’t know how far we can strech this conversation about a game concept, but I would still read about it. So, there’s still a lot of things we didn’t mention and it would be ridiculous to ask everything at once.

First, why is it neccesery to have more playable character types? Are they different only in their statistics? Or are there any restrictions in what class can use each weapon? Or you just wanted to implement a multiplayer mode? I don’t know if you have heard but Flash games can be played by two or more people, and I’m talking about offline games. With keyboard emulation it is possible to play it with joysticks. Look up for it on YouTube! The most popular program is called XPadder. Anyway if there is a selection of classes there need to be a little difference in their abilities which makes the whole game interesting enough to play it over again.

Apart from gaining more health, mana and base stats, are there any moves we can learn by leveling up? Or anything else? You already said that we will become faster. If so, I would recommend you to design it to be hidden from the player what moves he’s going to learn, because if there are no more moves he would still want to level up believing that he will still get a new one(Basic game mechanic: pleasure of discovery). The option of adding skill points to learn and improve abilities is not common in action rpgs(at least in not those which I’ve played:D) but it can be invested. But an action rpg can be still exciting to play without a few extra moves. Of course the fact you have advanced to a new level has to be shown on the screen, and the required exp could be shown also as a bar or numbers and texts. By leveling up we should automaticly restore our health because what’s the point of getting more maximum hp if we are low on it at the moment. The mana could be the same or different!

I would like to suggest 3 things to add to the controls.
JUMP – I know it sounds a bit nonsense to put jump in a top-down rpg but it would enrich the gameplay. Imagine you are heading somewhere in a cave and you come to a huge gap where platforms stands above. You should jump, right! Well, in this case(as it is a top-down action rpg) I think jump could be automatic! If you reach the edge of the land and still wants to go through(by pointing the cursor outside of the ground) you’ll end up jumping.
SWIMMING – I don’t think I should explain this why. But we should be able to attack in the water too!
SOMERSAULT – This would come handy in a tight situation and can be used to get behind enemies who turn around slowly but can be harmed on their back. It coulde be performed by a button or a definite distance between the cursor and the player.

More questions later! It’s tiring to type so much! Nice script by the way!XD You know, virtually developing a game concept and coding it, is different. But in whole, they are the same!

I started on the code. So far I have the basic walking and the scrolling. He walks faster if the mouse is farther away, but only until he reaches the maxSpeed variable, which we could add upgrades to later. If the mouse touches near the edge of the screen, it will scroll in that direction like Garbre said. How would I code the collisions effectively?

If I were you I’d not make it like all the games out there but make it awsome and different I.E…….

Originally posted by SnoozerBear:

I don’t have ANY Idea of a story or anything, but I HAVE developed what I think is an unique real time battle system that relies more on a players skill than how much grinding he/she has done.

I guess it would be top down view.

Control: “Q” Attack | “W” Shield | “Mouse cursor” movement | Random keys to access pause menu, inventory etc. etc.

With a simple control system like this you can add MANY layers of depth!

If you attack to often/much (look up: Button mashing) you will be dizzied and therefore immobile for a small amount of time. When you put out your shield it’s put away again after 1-2 seconds and cannot be used again for a short period of time. This will force players to not button mash and will have to learn when a foe is about to attack and when to shield for each foe, therefore this draws on a player’s skill to study the opponents attack pattern.

It’s STILL kind of simple, so I’ll borrow a game mechanic from a very unique Action RPG; the angle that you/enemy assault the opponent from can cause you/enemy to take damage from a counter attack. Example, if you attack a foe head on from the front you’ll take a lot of damage from the foe’s counter attack, but if you attack it from the sides or behind you’ll take less damage or none at all! Both you and your opponents can auto-counter-attack.

With these mechanics built into a decent Action RPG or Action MMORPG, you’d have a pretty complicated game that relies on a players skill; he/she would have to study the opponent to know when it’s safe to attack, which angles work best and perfect the timing of shielding.

Upon leveling up you’d have your normal RPG stats but you’d also have it so that the amount of times you can attack your weapon in a row before getting dizzied, the amount of time you can hold up your shield and your movement speed will also improve.

With a verity of character types, weapons and items it could be pretty sweet; you’d have a unique Action RPG that heavily relies on a characters skill and not only his/her level.

I was thinking of making something such as this and was learning how to code but I’m too exhausted and run down to go through with it, :C

It’s just an idea and I don’t really think it could be the next WoW or something if someone (Or a group/team) developed it, but it would still be pretty sweet. I can’t do anything currently with my ideas and as such I thought I’d post it here.

It’s funny; this is the Collaborations forums but I’m not looking to team up with someone; I just have an Idea and can’t do anything at all to help it along even if someone DOES want to create it. :C I hope I’ve done a good enough job explaining my ideas I know there will be probably no-one to want to use my ideas, but, what the heck I figured I’d post it here anyways. Is this even the right place to post this?

If anyone DOES make this I’ll be very happy. :D

If some-one makes an Action RPG with my ideas in it I don’t want any credit or anything; my ideas would’ve been/are useless to me anyways.

Alot of it is very the same to many games so make it different:)

bgbgbg@ I’ve never seen a top-down rpg. To tell you the truth, I’ve never heard of or seen a flash action rpg game where the realtime battling system is based on tactics and timing, where an impatient action can couse more damage to you. IVe never seen the effect of getting immobilized by our attacks, or cousing more damage by hitting the opponent’s back in flash games. Other things like leveling up are common I agree, but after all, this concept really is presenting a unique gameplay, which makes me remember of Zelda games. It’s not a bestseller, but sure worth describing it here. But if you know games that are very similar to this idea I would gladly try them out. The only thing I would change ,by the way :D, is the number of playable characters. I would decrease that to 1!:D Why? Becouse it is hard and time-consuming to make more then one. Each character needs story, background, and other stuffs. I think the best choice would be a one player action rpg with an awesome storyline, a little linearity in the list of stages(mixed up with some crossroads to raise re-playability) and, huh, some other things… But in all, at first sight I’ve had the same feeling too!

amoebadan@"How would I code the code the collisions effectively?" I pretty think Snoozerbear meant that we can go OVER the enemies, but I might missunderstood him. I think just do the regular method. If we “crash” in to an enemy it blocks the way so we can’t go through the enemy just around it.

Hello, I’ve read through the thread and I had a couple of suggestions. I’m no programmer though, I’ve only just began to read “Essential Action-script 3.0” by Colin Moock.

I think that SnoozerBear’s idea of paying gold for upgrading the Movement Speed, Number of Attacks, and Shield Block Duration is a good idea. Anyways, I was thinking that you could have trainer’s in the players current town. This would allow you to restrict the maximum of these based on the town that the player is currently in, because the trainer would only have a certain amount of expertise. I also think that these stats shouldn’t be purely based off of what you can purchase… Because it wouldn’t make sense if you couldn’t swing your weapon more now, even if you have a higher STRENGTH stat. Or similarly, if you had a higher AGILITY stat and your Movement Speed was the same. You could also add an encumbrance variable to the equation for the Movement Speed, so with more gear, you moved slower.

Also, I was thinking that with your problem about coding the collisions effectively, you could have as part of the monsters AI to do a trip attack, as to knock you back. I realize this wouldn’t work for the back, so if your were to get behind it and then run into it, depending on size, the character could automatically bounce back(If the monster was bigger), The monster could fall over(If you were bigger), or you would both be dazed for a second(If you were the same size). I’m not entirely sure if this is what you were talking about. So address what the other thing I think you may be saying, I think that if you collide with an enemy, you cannot any move towards him, and he cannot move towards you, creating a sort of dead lock.

EDIT Instead of the dead lock, You could add a grappling system. But i think that the graphics of the characters and the monsters shouldn’t ever overlap. END EDIT

I like the idea of Jumping, Swimming, and Somersaulting (rolling right?) in a top-down 2D RPG, but is jumping across a 10 foot gap really realistic in full-plate mail? Not to put anything against you Garbre, But I think that the stages would have to have more than just a few branches as you were talking about. It would need a couple branches that would allow differently augmented players to maneuver throughout the level. Each branch would be unique to the Characters main class/professions. It would also be more tuned to supplying gear/equipment for the respective class.

I.E. – For a more acrobatically inclined character, such as the classic rouge class, you could create an area were he would be able to jump across, that a warrior or mage based class couldn’t. Or an area which he may have to sneak through because the odd’s would be overwhelming.

All of these branches would eventually lead to the same area, the boss’s lair. They also could reconnect to the “Main Route” that could be followed by all the players. The detriment to following the main trail would be not being able to accomplish class based side-quests, get class specific equipment, and having a much longer way to go. That way, people would be inclined to replay each level, first to go through the main route, as to get the maximum amount of gold the first time through, then through their class specific route so that they may get good gear, and get more exp from side quests. You could of coarse have smaller branches that you would have to backtrack out of for the phoenix feathers, rabbit boots, or just other general treasure.

First, why is it neccesery to have more playable character types? Are they different only in their statistics? Or are there any restrictions in what class can use each weapon? Or you just wanted to implement a multiplayer mode?

I don’t know if you have heard but Flash games can be played by two or more people, and I’m talking about offline games. With keyboard emulation it is possible to play it with joysticks. Look up for it on YouTube! The most popular program is called XPadder. Anyway if there is a selection of classes there need to be a little difference in their abilities which makes the whole game interesting enough to play it over again.

I agree with you in that we need more than one class to make this game more re-playable. I had an idea for my own game a while ago, and I think the story idea I had might work with this game, but I’ll talk about that latter. The class system i had in mind was going to be something like this:

Main Class would split into Strength, Agility, and Magic Each of which would go to two different specializations.

The player starts out as Main Class, a sort of novice class. The story is kind of part of this bit, so if you read ahead, then come back it might make more sense. But, you should start out as a child. Upon starting the game, the first thing that comes up is lets say, your 16 birthday. Your father recognizes you as old enough to be trainable in his art: The Art of Killing. He then teaches you your first skills in the first few minutes of the game based on a quiz we could have the players take upon loading the game. With questions as blunt as: What would you prefer? A) Brutally killing your enemies with steel B) Stealthily picking off enemies C) or, Skillfully destroy them with magic. Or questions that give the player senarios and let them choose which they like best. Anyways, I can talk about the quiz later, He teaches you basic skills: Basic Weapon Mastery (This would include Swords (Strength Class’s Starting Weapon) Staves (Magic Class’s Staring Weapon) Bows (Agility Class’s Starting Weapon) and Daggers.), and others we could think of.

Main Class: Defines the characters base stats and skills. (Learned as child)

Skills: Basic Weapon Master ⁵<—(Designates the amount of skill points that can be put into skill.)
Ect..

Strength: Defines skills based on strength specialization.

Skills: ?

And so on.. I think this would add alot of diversity to the game, allowing players to enjoy playing through it multiple times.. I’m not going to discuss all my idea’s for the story because it seems of subject, because we don’t even know if this is going to happen.. Anyways, I hope my imput was usefull, and i’m looking forward to seeing your responses.

cashughes@ You’re absolutly right! Stages do need alternative routes to complete in case we put more than one playable characters in to the game. I also like the idea how you differentiate all the characters, it’s very simple and logical. And, yeah, of course it wouldn’t be realistic to jump across huge gaps in full armor. A heavy armored knight could not do such things. Let’s write it down how the main gameplay would look like as if we are playing for the first time! So, we enter the level from the central place that can change as we go deeper into the world of the game, we start out at the stage’s entrance and head through as our class determines. Throughout the stage we come across some other paths that we cannot go even if we try hard, and we find out that maybe we should come back later or with another character(We may not make a mistake if we put a sign there telling the player that he needs different character, but we can let him find out by himself as well!). We go on and find the first enemy that might be the stage’s boss(Numerous traces could tell the player that it is! Talks with some inhabitants in the central place for example.). You beat it, and a door open up which takes you back to the central land. Now, what is the first thing that people will suggest if the game has become released? MAKE IT ONLINE! I agree, it would be sweet! Somehow I feel that this is gonna happenXD! But this is just the concept, nothing at all! So, there’s no multiplayer campaign. Temporarily… And I think it should remain this way!

The collision’s concept you adviced I think is great! Yeah I meant that way! Enemies could just simply block our way but your idea is better and supports Snoozerbear’s imagination about counter-attacking.

Nice ideas but I think the story should not drag up the character’s past or tells about their childhood and relatives.

“a door opens up and brings you back to the central land”. So I take it this will be set up like Zelda and many other games with the process of traveling through the overworld, reaching a dungeon, clearing the dungeon, beating the boss, and going back to the overworld.
Multiple characters seems like a great idea. We could even have multiple characters follow you(up to a group of three), and you press a key to switch between them. This seems really hard to program though. You would need really good AIs.
“nice script by the way!”. Is someone else working on the code already? I’ve been writing the script. I added a basic attack and opening a pause menu. If someone else is coding, that’s cool.

There isn’t anyone else who codes except you. Just Snoozerbear has shown some of his knowledge.:D But don’t forget that this is only the concept, we aren’t here to team up.