Preview: HotOHR 2018

Make games! Discuss those games here.

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Pepsi Ranger
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Preview: HotOHR 2018

Post by Pepsi Ranger »

Happy New Year! It's 2018, and that means we're on the verge of entering Heart of the OHR season again.

Here are the facts for this year's contest for those who are planning early:

-We will open the window on May 1st. It will likely stay open until the end of the year.

-Those with commercial games are encouraged to release free demos as their entries, though anyone who buys them can still vote on the complete versions if they play them. I will not automatically draft any commercial entries this year. Commercial entries must be requested by the author or have a free demo attached to be entered.

-To reflect the OHR's dynamics over the years, we will be making some technical changes to the "heart" of the contest once again. This will also likely be the last year I modify the contest from its 2010 form before hitting the reset button for 2020.

-You can suggest or offer prizes any time between now and the official contest announcement on May 1st.

-You're encouraged to start talking about your games now to get into the heart of it.

-As usual, your game must be classified as an RPG to count. It does not have to specifically be a JRPG, though. You may also submit rogue-likes, waking simulators, and 3D games, as well as any side-scroller that has a clear level-up and character progression system (like Zelda II). (Hint: These are examples of this year's technical changes to reflect the "heart" of the OHR over the years. Don't get used to it. We'll be dumping all of these fancy updated systems in 2020.) This will be clarified when the window opens. I know this will likely bug a few people. I argue that as the OHR's core system changes, so should the "heart" of the games it can make.

-I will be bringing Heart of the OHR back in 2020, but that will likely be the last one I do. (I was going to make this year's contest my last one, but I have plans for 2020 that I'd like to see through. At any rate, if you've ever wanted to join Heart of the OHR, you've got two more before I pass it on or hang it up. Spoiler alert!)

Okay, guys. Get plannin'!
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Post by marionline »

I am very happy to hear that the time frame will be open till the end of the year. :D
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Post by RMZ »

I think we were going to try to plan on a Steam public demo of this next one for Axe Cop around September with hopefully all placeholder content finalized. If that winds up happening, yeah I'll submit Axe Cop. I likely will only have it available on Steam though.
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Post by guo »

Count me in. I hope people are surprised at how far Bale has come since the last contest! Also, hearing you talk about 2020 and realizing how soon that is weirded me out slightly.
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Post by kylekrack »

Hmm, does this mean I can't start working on a game until May? I want to start playing with some mechanics before I lose the ideas I have, but I'm afraid of getting carried away and making something more substantial than planned. I forget what the specific rules are.
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Post by marionline »

I think, we can work on our games now and they only have to be released between May and New Year 2018.
At least that's what I remember from other contests.
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

kylekrack wrote:Hmm, does this mean I can't start working on a game until May? I want to start playing with some mechanics before I lose the ideas I have, but I'm afraid of getting carried away and making something more substantial than planned. I forget what the specific rules are.
marionline wrote:I think, we can work on our games now and they only have to be released between May and New Year 2018.
At least that's what I remember from other contests.
Marionline has it correct (except the end date would be New Year's Eve 2018, though it'll probably be closer to December 15th if tradition wins). Even more specifically, you can work on any game that you began (or even released previously) at any time in the OHR's 20-year history. The purpose of the contest is to give the OHR more RPGs, and to get authors closer to finishing their bigger works in the case of people like me who stick to a handful of projects over many years rather than starting new projects every other month (which is also perfectly fair!). Basically, it wants everyone to have a chance at finishing a great and memorable game.

So, don't worry about when you start. Just get it done and get it out there. Don't wait until May to start. Some people started working on their 2018 entries back in 2016.
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Post by Nathan Karr »

I think I really struck gold with No Eat a few years back, and will be taking advice I received in IRC to really go with my strengths instead of working to suppress them and try to make a "normal" game for broader audiences.

Expect NSFW furry stuff from me, contest entry or not, is what I'm getting at here.
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Post by marionline »

Shall we talk about our games in this thread or make an extra one for each game?
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

You may as well talk about them here. The thread is open, and it'll likely give the contest more momentum into May if the hype keeps this post near the top of the forum. Or, do both.
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Post by kylekrack »

Well, as long as we're posting here, I'll do my part in hyping up my thing. There isn't a lot to show off right now, partly because I haven't had a lot of time to work on it, but also because I haven't been focusing on art, which makes it hard to show what's happening. My base idea I'm working with is an RPG with 2 party members. The first is your main character, although I haven't decided on their specifications. They may be a swordfighter, someone chosen to save the world, blah blah blah. The second party member is a monster/creature/being that exists as your "partner," sort of like a Pokemon. Your partner follows your commands and generally does what you tell them to, but you can't force them to do anything. This concept will be reinforced by gameplay.

In battle, you tell your partner how they should behave, but you can't directly control them. The battle menus for the main character are familiar: you have basic attack/spells/items options. When you choose an action for the main character, they perform it immediately. Your partner, however, makes some decisions on their own. You can tell your partner to attack "Aggressively" meaning they'll target the weakest target, but you can't tell them to, say, attack the third weakest target. Along with this, you can tell your partner to attack the closest, farthest, etc. The end goal is that the main character has very weak stats compared to your partner, so they end up acting more as a support or utility character than a damage dealer. I hope to get some interesting gameplay out of this idea.
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A little preview of the battle formation
A little preview of the battle formation
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Here's what the menus actually look like so far
Here's what the menus actually look like so far
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Here's some art I did get around to
Here's some art I did get around to
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Post by robcurrie »

I'm working on a game which is very inspired by Breath of the Wild in terms of how the player can approach the game. A big map, open from the very start, and a goal that can be achieved as early as the player likes. However the map will also be full of characters to meet, quests to take on, and upgrades to make the final battle more achievable.

So far I've done most of the work on the overworld map, but not much else yet. I'll be very happy if I can complete it [s]at all[/s] by the end of the year, so that's a nice aim to have!

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Last edited by robcurrie on Mon Jan 15, 2018 11:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Ichiro »

Dark Planet is coming back this year, and it won't be a disappointment!
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Post by sheamkennedy »

kylekrack wrote:In battle, you tell your partner how they should behave, but you can't directly control them. The battle menus for the main character are familiar: you have basic attack/spells/items options. When you choose an action for the main character, they perform it immediately. Your partner, however, makes some decisions on their own. You can tell your partner to attack "Aggressively" meaning they'll target the weakest target, but you can't tell them to, say, attack the third weakest target. Along with this, you can tell your partner to attack the closest, farthest, etc. The end goal is that the main character has very weak stats compared to your partner, so they end up acting more as a support or utility character than a damage dealer. I hope to get some interesting gameplay out of this idea.
I really love this idea. It's like Pokemon but is more advanced in the sense that there is much more unpredictability. The only unpredictability in Pokemon is if the Pokemon's level is beyond your badge level and thus it may choose not to attack.

Will the main support character be targetable? Or will it be an automatic defeat if the control character dies?

I am also interested to know what the default action is for the control character? What happens if you don't issue commands to them? What is their default personality? I think this could make for a good spot to inject an easter egg feature. Maybe the default action of the control character is to do nothing. But if they get attacked for 3 turns while doing nothing and without being healed they go berserk and deal a lot of damage... or something. Obviously my berserker idea might be a little hard to balance but you get the idea, use the default to introduce an easter egg.

I also think it would be neat to see a command like split which deals small damage to all enemies rather than full damage to one enemy. This may seem useless but could be useful if you are face enemies the spawn new enemies if their partner is still alive. Or if you're facing a boss which has a bunch of minions that that boss respawns occasionally. If the minions only have 1HP then you can use a split attack to wipe them out in one turn so you can concentrate heavy attacks on the boss.
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Post by sheamkennedy »

robcurrie wrote:A big map, open from the very start, and a goal that can be achieved as early as the player likes. However the map will also be full of characters to meet, quests to take on, and upgrades to make the final battle more achievable.
Just a suggestion, I think you should enable wrap-mode for your map. It looks like it wouldn't take much effort for you to alter the edges of your map to make it wrap properly.

The benefit of having your map wrap with such a large map is that the player doesn't have to traverse the entire length of the map to get from the top-left edge to the bottom-right edge, they can instead walk north-west and arrive there immediately. This is important because if I as the player have completed all but one quest and know the final quest is on the opposite side of the map I'm going to be a little annoyed. It will also feel more whole to the player because they will understand that the world is circular and there is nothing else to explore.

Some other ways to alleviate this if you do not want a wrapping map would be to make teleporters, vehicles/horses, a fast-travel feature or some sort of upgrade which allows the hero to sprint.

Also your map looks beautiful by the way! I like how the green strip of land runs across the right side of the map, it's pretty trippy looking.
Last edited by sheamkennedy on Tue Jan 16, 2018 6:11 am, edited 2 times in total.
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