My new project. Seeking advice.

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pjbebi
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My new project. Seeking advice.

Post by pjbebi »

I have no idea what to name my new game project.

The premise:
In the future, the outside world is occupied mainly by robots. Humans spend their lives in preservation pods until they meet someone special (through the friend network) whom they want to spend the rest of their lives with, in the flesh. So Rei, our hero, sets out to join their love interest, Hana, in a distant pod. To do so, Rei needs a team of robots to fight alongside them on the treacherous journey.

The mechanics:
With a maximum party of nine robots, you can fight with three at a time. Battles are turn-based and super fast, because your bots are programmed outside of battle. Order and frequency of turns are determined by speed stats. Also, bots can be swapped in and out of your party whenever it's Rei's turn. Instead of receiving experience, each enemy bot leaves behind a certain amount of scrap, depending on how you fight them. Hacking an enemy bot will destroy their computational power, leaving behind more working parts (scrap) as opposed to straight-up busting them, which uses less energy. Scrap is then used at a terminal to purchase blank bots or upgrade the bots in your party. Resource management and strategic upgrading is key. Instead of taking temporary, physical damage, your bots receive permanent damage to their computers whenever you're attacked in battle. High defensive stats can slow the deterioration of your bots, but can't stop the inevitable.

Battles are random, but each level of fight becomes less frequent with each victory, and even less frequent after an unavoidable boss fight. This should cut down on the annoyance of back tracking while also discouraging players from spending hours fighting level one enemies instead of pressing on. Compulsive grinding shouldn't be a substitute for smart playing, as it is in many rpgs.

Some houses have a scrap depository, which you can assign a home defender bot to, passively collecting scrap while you're out fighting. In this linear game, exploration is key if you want to build bots powerful enough to make it through to the end. Most of these rare depositories can only be used after finding the terminals in these (smallish) dungeon-like houses.

As your bots become more powerful, they are also able to learn different programs. Rei can also buy personal upgrades and items like batteries, healing drinks, emp grenades, and flash cards (for when your bots get frozen in battle, or need to be reprogrammed immediately).

Where I'm at:
I wanted to make my own battle system, and this idea seemed like a good place to start, with only one character in direct control, but still more complicated than the first dragon warrior. I also wanted to make an atmospheric cyber punk game with a cute love story. While you control Rei, Hana is on the screen for much of the game, encouraging you and talking you through things via communicator. (Much like a Navi). Hana also has friends scattered throughout the town, which are marked on a gps. Most of them leave gifts, tips, and have a useable terminal. All of the features and mechanics mentioned above are generally working. Graphics are barely there, but we all know you can't rush a good aesthetic.

But I don't have a name for the project, and I'm not totally sure what else it will need. I don't think the game should be too long, since it would be cool to unlock a hard mode, as well as some other areas after the player has beaten the game.

So, wise game designers: Do you have any suggestions? I don't want to finish the game and find the gameplay so flawed that I need to start over. So I'm trying not to rush things, writing down ideas as they come to me and adding them in when I can. As of now it feels like a great, exciting, fresh idea. But I might be kidding myself.
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Re: My new project. Seeking advice.

Post by Bob the Hamster »

This sounds like a great concept overall :D

I like the idea of the robots being pre-programmed, so it sounds like picking which set of robots is active would be the main player action in battle. Will Rei have the ability to swap robots mid-battle?

I think the toughest part will be planning out all the player's bots and making sure they are unique and well balanced. You probably want to avoid the situation where the player only has to figure out the 1 or 2 most OP bots and then plows through the rest of the game with them without any further strategy

Anyway, this idea sounds cool, and thank you for sharing.
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pjbebi
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Re: My new project. Seeking advice.

Post by pjbebi »

thanks! The robots CAN be swapped in and out mid-battle. Also, two robots alone wouldn't get you from point A to point B, because their internal batteries wouldn't last through all that action. External batteries can be bought, but they're best saved for emergencies, growing more expensive as you deplete the supply.
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Re: My new project. Seeking advice.

Post by Gizmog »

I think the game sounds fantastic. I can imagine getting into a battle, seeing the robots pre-programmed actions doing nothing, and feeling like a moron until the programmers turn comes around and I can make things better. There was a Super Nintendo game that used just a smidge of this concept, that had a lot of fun ideas you could steal (And stealing ideas is never wrong, unless you're Eli Roth, but that's a whole different thing), called "Robotrek". In the game, you spent scrap to build up to 3 robots, and could convert items you didn't want into scrap, or combine them into stronger/different items. You could also find books throughout the game for different "Inventions" (which they level-locked, IE: "Inventor's Friend Issue 47" could only unlock a recipe at Level 47 or greater) that you could build with scrap, some of them would be like... Level 3 Boots, or Level 4 Axe. It was an interesting way to encourage experimentation and exploration, and keep the game feeling inventive and adventurous, rather than a trip to Radio Shack with mom's credit cards.

Try not to psyche yourself out on the gameplay. This sounds like a really nice story, and every good RPG is essentially a really nice story with some slimy battles to keep us from eating it all in one bite.

As for what you actually asked, the name, I think the best way to go would be to emphasize the contrast between human connection and the dependence on technology. Something like "Rei <3 Hana, Hana <3 Rei" in a metallic typeface up top and a cutesy one down below. There's a lot of Indie Games that use entire sentences as their title, and I don't really like it, but it seems to work. "Hey Robot! We're Looking For Love!" comes to mind in that category, or "Hang On Hana, The Robots Are Fighting Again". You could also go with "Love-Love Robots", because doubling up a word is never wrong.
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Re: My new project. Seeking advice.

Post by kylekrack »

I would focus on making a vertical slice first. One very linear area with a couple of encounters, a terminal, etc. Make an environment where you can test how everything feels before making a huge commitment to the story and progression. With that, it's much easier to tweak things, debug specific things, etc. For example, if you just want to play around with out-of-battle systems and see if they feel good, you can comment out the battle system and just give the player rewards automatically.

You want to avoid one system blocking the development of another. I find it really hard to get around the thought process where one thing needs to get done before I can work on the next. You don't need a custom battle system to be complete and functional before you can start working on party customization systems. If it helps, use the built in battle system as a placeholder. Have it include baseline mechanics and give rewards. You can swap out built-in battles with your custom battle system when it's ready.

As an example, in fishing 2, I first programmed the net minigame that occurs after you reel in a fish. You couldn't even reel in fish yet. But it was the most straightforward part to program. Once it was done, I moved onto making the hook move around in water, making fish swim, etc. Although players encounter the states of play in fishing 2 very linearly (title screen > menu > reeling > net > menu), they didn't have to be made in that order. Building them independently and then stitching them together after the fact was suuuper helpful, because I could get feedback from Gaplan et al on all the different parts while they were still in a prototype phase and easily changeable.

Sorry this got a bit rambly. My point is, try to get to a place where you can get feedback before you start polishing things. And avoid the trap of "I'll make that part after I'm happy with the battle system." The dopamine rush of finishing one part of your game can be really undermined by having to start another part from square one.
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pjbebi
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Re: My new project. Seeking advice.

Post by pjbebi »

kylekrack wrote: Thu Aug 12, 2021 9:14 pm I would focus on making a vertical slice first. One very linear area with a couple of encounters, a terminal, etc. Make an environment where you can test how everything feels before making a huge commitment to the story and progression.
I agree entirely. With Tough Girl Gina, I got everything working. But once I got halfway through designing my dungeons, I was like, "slime. This part's monotonous. I should have thought of another game mechanic." That being said, every mentioned aspect of this WIP is working. I'm just not sure if it needs more before I get deep into filling out the world.
Gizmog wrote: Wed Aug 11, 2021 8:34 pm Try not to psyche yourself out on the gameplay. This sounds like a really nice story, and every good RPG is essentially a really nice story with some slimy battles to keep us from eating it all in one bite.
Thanks. This might be what I need to think about. I also like how in Pokemon, the game has you doing a very normal thing, so to make a sequel, all they had to do was add a couple new features and change the map. But still, every love story is different. Rei and Hana have never been together in real life. Maybe I should add some discoverable clues to the backstory, like they did with the notes in Resident Evil. I just want to avoid the final fantasy style of completely disrupting the gameplay for mandatory displays of character personality, just so you can go back to fighting and looting.
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Re: My new project. Seeking advice.

Post by kylekrack »

Oh that's awesome! I didn't realize the mechanics were working already.

Then it sounds like you should make a demo! One level of gameplay to put in front of people. Maybe a select, private audience, depending on how public you want to be with it.

It sounds like the game is compelling, story and mechanics-wise. My only suggestion on that is that it seems like you don't want random battles. You talk about "cutting down annoyance," which makes it sound like you're trying to compromise with a mechanic that isn't working for you. Why not make the encounters visible while walking around? Eg. Earthbound, Chrono Trigger.
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Re: My new project. Seeking advice.

Post by polkakitty »

pjbebi wrote: Wed Aug 11, 2021 7:30 amI have no idea what to name my new game project.
I think these are some good angles you can use to think of a name for a game:

- A concept that's a central theme of the plot, possibly one that can be interpreted in multiple ways ("Calamitous World" could refer both to the danger Rei faces when venturing into the outside world and to whatever past disaster made the world so dangerous, "Shared Memory" is normally hardware design terminology, but it could refer to Rei and Hana reminiscing about when they first met online and fell in love, "Interface" could refer both to the relationship between Rei and Hana and to the system you use to program the robots' behaviour.  Or terminally dirty-minded people like me could choose to pronounce it as "Into Their Face" instead.)

- Some sort of pivotal plot device that you encounter in the game (e. g. Mass Effect, Chrono Trigger, Xenogears, Sword of Jade)

- One naming convention that a lot of OHRRPGCE games seem to use is to combine the name of a character, or a group of characters, with the thing that's supposed to be interesting about them (e. g. Vikings of Midgard, Graffiti Goose, Tim-Tim the Mighty Gnome, Samanthuel's Lovely Home, Tough Girl Gina)

- The last two of these only work if the game is being played for humor, but: A verbose, but accurate, description of the core worldbuilding elements of your game (e. g. An Airport For Aliens Currently Run By Dogs)

- Something intentionally ridiculous and misleading that's still technically an accurate description of an important feature of the game (Hot Robot Threesomes Looking For Love In Your Area!)

(One idea I thought of for a future contest was to announce that I was making a game called "Bubsy III", and to post a screenshot showing that title, written in the same font used on the title screens for the SNES Bubsy games.  Then, when I completed my entry, people who played it would see that, instead of being a sequel to the SNES Bubsy games like I wanted them to think it was, it's actually a game where you're the grandson of legendary choreographer Bubsy Berkeley, and it has action puzzle game mechanics along the lines of Puzzle Bobble, but with objects accumulating at the center of the board instead of hanging from the top, where more and more dancers keep arriving on a movie set, and you need to arrange them in geometric formations.  (Consequently, the title is not meant to be read as "Bubsy Three", but rather "Bubsy the Third".)  But sadly, I then found out that the famous choreographer's name isn't actually spelled "Bubsy Berkeley" like I thought it was, it's spelled "Busby Berkeley".  So once again, my beautifully evil plan has been foiled by my own foolishness, unless I can find some way to salvage it, like hiding subliminal memetic triggers in this post to make everyone who reads it develop whatever kind of dyslexia I have where all words that start wash the same letter and hive the same number of leonard look the slum.)
pjbebi wrote: Thu Aug 12, 2021 11:35 pmBut still, every love story is different. Rei and Hana have never been together in real life. Maybe I should add some discoverable clues to the backstory, like they did with the notes in Resident Evil. I just want to avoid the final fantasy style of completely disrupting the gameplay for mandatory displays of character personality, just so you can go back to fighting and looting.
Since you already mentioned the idea of Hana acting as a "Navi" type of character, I think that's a perfect device to help develop the relationship between them and Rei, and to make it feel like you're playing the same character in both battles and story sequences.  Hana could have dialogue, both in and out of battles, that conveys necessary information about the backstory and gameplay, but is also written in character in such a way that it conveys the characters' developing feelings for each other.  (Hana should probably have dialogue that's programmed to appear only after you've reached a certain point in the game, or only in specific battles with named characters, both so that their dialogue seems consistent with the ongoing state of the relationship and the plot, and so that, if you stay in one area of the game for a long time, Hana can't run out of things to say and then just check out for the rest of the game.)

Giving Hana dialogue during battles could also help with explaining any unusual features of the battle system to the player.  For instance, the game could watch for the first time your robot party members are badly damaged (whenever Rei's turn comes up, it could check whether the current HP of all 3 robots put together is less than half of the maximum HP of all 3 robots put together,) and then Hana could explain how to switch in different robots from your reserve.  Or, if you have an enemy that uses some odd gimmick in combat, like if there's an enemy that generates a forcefield around other enemies that halves any damage to them until it's destroyed, then the first time you encounter the forcefield-generating enemy, Hana could explain what it does.

The failure mode for this type of system that a lot of games fall into is that characters repeat the exact same line of dialogue over and over in every battle, with terrible voice acting, and it becomes very annoying.  However, since you're already making a custom battle system, you should be able to avoid that problem easily by having a tag that's set for each line of dialogue Hana says in battle to make sure they only say it once in each playthrough of the game, or by having a random chance for Hana to react to certain events, like in Final Fantasy Tactics where, every time a character casts a spell, they have about a 10% chance of saying some silly incantation.
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That's where the fin tried to drag me in
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Close your eyes, see what I see, Canajoharie..."
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Re: My new project. Seeking advice.

Post by pjbebi »

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Update: I have a title. For most of the game, you're on your way from one terminal to another (terminals are where you buy items, upgrade your bots, and charge their batteries). A lot of times, you have to decide whether or not to explore that dungeon or go back to the terminal. Actually, the urge to go to a terminal is pretty constant, since almost every battle affords some level of upgrade.

polkakitty wrote: Fri Aug 13, 2021 10:36 pm The failure mode for this type of system that a lot of games fall into is that characters repeat the exact same line of dialogue over and over in every battle, with terrible voice acting, and it becomes very annoying. However, since you're already making a custom battle system, you should be able to avoid that problem easily by having a tag that's set for each line of dialogue Hana says in battle to make sure they only say it once in each playthrough of the game, or by having a random chance for Hana to react to certain events, like in Final Fantasy Tactics where, every time a character casts a spell, they have about a 10% chance of saying some silly incantation.
I think that's a great idea. I wasn't originally going to have Hana talk during battle, but I think it makes more sense for them to "read out" the damage to Rei, who's busy fighting.
kylekrack wrote: Fri Aug 13, 2021 10:14 pm Then it sounds like you should make a demo! One level of gameplay to put in front of people. Maybe a select, private audience, depending on how public you want to be with it.
Yes, that would be ideal. Being public would probably help a lot in generating interest. So hopefully a few people will be interested in trying it out. Maybe I'll make a more definite dev-thread, once I'm ready to let a few people try it. I let my girlfriend try it, but she was confused about where the enemies were coming from.
kylekrack wrote: Fri Aug 13, 2021 10:14 pm Why not make the encounters visible while walking around? Eg. Earthbound, Chrono Trigger.
The big why not for me is that I want a very "vibe" heavy experience, exploring a bleak world with no other living things to interact with. Like the entire thing is a big dungeon. There are robotic bugs and snakes around, but all of the people are in preservation pods. Though, some other person should probably be unlocked, somewhere.
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