16 replies to this topic

[Conan87]

Hey everyone Conan87 here; I am currently developing a game idea I call 'Project Zion' (it is not a WIP) on paper. I got the game idea off of inspiration of my nephew of the same name and the bible inspired this game idea as well. So lets get to the basics. I am looking for feed back for any of my ideas to enhance it and to better help me develop my idea into a working fun game. Both positive and negative criticism is welcome.

Game Concept: My over all idea is for this game to be a RPG adventure style game, comparable to Elderscrolls titles and Zelda, but in this case it is a 2d side scrolling adventure game. The player would play as this young man who is growing into becoming a great warrior and explores his faith, the player would have access to various weapons of ancient time weapons such as swords and long bows. Also the player will have various 'skills' which they must practice to become skilled in such as weapon use and Smithing. And a open ended world for the player to explore with regard to their own means. Also giving the player objectives to do so that they can progress though a story line and other side objectives that can help benefit. Also the game would have 4 modes based on my current ideas, Campaign (story mode), Adventure (free roam), Combat (2 player combat), and Gladiator (survival mode). I will give more details on my concepts for those things later in this post. So to sum it up the game is a world exploring RPG were players control their one character and then develop their skills to meet any challenges they face.

Zion: The Story:
The game Zion takes place after the completion of the Old Testament (Tura), and involves a fictional exile not based on biblical or secular records.
The nation of Israel has been exiled and the many tribes have been separated in mass across the world (exception to the hybrid tribes).
As time passes much of the world begins to forget about the God of Israel and wickedness and evil begins to plaque across the world along with a wicked nation who is bent on concurring all nations under their false man-god Sutan a demon possessed man. But the Lord sees this and devices a plan to stop the evil around the world & this wicked nation deceived by Satan.
The Lord then chooses a young man by the name of Zion who was named after his refuge tribe of Israeli tribes men during the exile who are a mixture of the 12 tribes of Israel this tribe calls themselves the Zionites.
Zion is a rebellious young man who lives among the house hold of his old uncle. His uncle one day is given a vision by God about the plans He has for Zion, and immediately tells his young nephew of God’s plan for him. Zion not being a strong believer in his peoples faith rejects his uncle and they begin to argue. After receiving a harsh rebuke from his uncle, Zion then runs away from home into the wilderness nearby his tribes camp, but later that night he is greeted by demons, who try to kill him but then he is saved by a mighty angel of the Lord.
The angel then tells Zion what is uncle said is true and that he should go to his uncle and reconcile with him. Zion inspired with this incounter with the angel of the Lord goes to his uncle and asks for forgiveness and they reconcile with each other and begin to further discuss the matter. Here it is then that Zion’s uncle reveals that he once was a great warrior for Israel in his younger years. And then he begins to train his nephew Zion, and later after the training Zion rests to wake early in the morning to leave home as directed by the angel of the Lord. But while asleep Zion is given a dream where he is told of his nation of Israel, and it is then revealed to him what tribe he came from (here the player will choose their tribe). But then after waking he is greeted by his uncle for a last meal and is given a choice of 3 weapons, a sword, a staff, and a club, once he takes a weapon of his choice he heads out to catch a ship to a far off nation. I will be developing the story as I go.

Game Ideas: Here I will list out my ideas so far for some parts of the game play. (Not the Christian views)

-Weapons: The player will have use of 20 different weapons 10 melee weapons and 10 range weapons each having their separate skill to master except 4. The weapons will be classified as Primary (melee) and Secondary (range) with the dagger as a exception to being a secondary if chosen. All weapons cause a type of damage: Cut, Blunt & Pierce.

>Sword/Saber: These are the one handed swords available to the players, the sword being the more durable of the two and the saber being the more damaging. Cutting damage.
> Claymore: This is the two handed sword that is more powerful than the one handed swords but can not use a shield at the same time. Cutting Damage.
>Axes: These weapons are one handed and shorter than swords but pack a greater punch at a slight cost of speed. Cutting damage.
>Staffs: These blunt two handed weapons have a greater reach than clay-mores but are shorter than spears and causes, Blunt damage.
>Spears: These long pointed weapons are made to pierce enemies and are the longest melee weapons. Piercing damage.
>Dagger: These weapons are the shortest available to the player but allow for quick attacks and can be used as a secondary weapon. Piercing damage.
>Whip: The whip is a weapon that has stunning effect on its opponents and causes both Cutting and Blunt damage.
>Club: This is a one handed weapon that has the length of the axe but instead causes blunt damage.
>Hammer: These weapons are two handed blunt weapons which cause blunt damage, a shield can't be used with these.

Range Weapons-These kinds of weapons are used to attack enemies from a distance.
>Long/Short Bow: These weapons fire a variety of arrow types, the long bow is more powerful but is slower to draw than the short bow, both do Piecing damage along with the arrow that they use Normal, Poison, and Fire arrows.
>Sling Shot: This is a two handed weapon that fires stones onto a target. Blunt Damage.
>Sling: This is the mans version of the sling shot and is more lethal although a lot slower, it too causes blunt damage.
>Boomerang: This one handed weapon is thrown and then caught after it returns, it causes blunt damage.
>Dart: This one handed weapon is made to be thrown and picked up, it causes piercing damage.
>Star of David: This is an unique weapon in the shape of the Star of David, it is thrown and sticks to any surface it comes into contact with, it causes both cutting and piercing damage.
>Hand Cannon: These are hand held cannons, they use two types of munition cannon balls and sugar powder to use, they cause lethal blunt damage, and are slow to reload.
>Bomb: the classic black bomb with a fuse is a one handed weapon which is thrown and then explodes. Causing blunt damage, and limited flying debris.
>Javelin: Is a specially designed small 'spear' meant for throwing, it causes piercing damage.

Each weapon is effected by a series of effects based on perks, material, and general variables.
-Condition: This is how effective a weapon is and whether or not it is broken yet.
-Skill: Each weapon has a separate skill. The skill of the type of weapon effects repetition (melee), and charge (range), as well as how efficient the weapon is used reducing damage that they take upon use.
-Value: Each weapon will have a value based on the item its self.
-Base Damage: The base damage of the weapon itself.
-Range: The reach or range of the weapon.
-Perks: These are effects that sit on a weapon;
-Ammo: This is the munitions required to use the weapon.

• Cut/Blunt/Peirce Damage (can't be changed)
• Sharpen/Harden/Tune (these effects increase the damage of weapons, and range in the case of tune)
• Damage (this perk reduces the edurance of said item as well as its damage)
• Fancy (this perk increases the value of the said item)
• Blessed (this perk gives the item a spiritual ability)
• Strengthen (this perk gives said item a greater endurance)
• Poison (this perk gives a item temparary poison damage)
• Cursed (this makes the weapon uneffective on demons, and even attracts them)
• Heavy/Light (these perks cause the weapons to cause more or less fatigue on use respectively)

Weapon also will be made of different materials as listed:

• Wood
• Thorn
• Shell
• Ectoskeleton
• Amber
• Stone
• Leaf
• Bone
• Amerite
• Nutshell
• Tin
• Israeli

Each of which for every weapon will give it a set endurance, base damage, heavy or light perk, and value. This is much like with iron armor vs deadric in Skyrim.

Along with weapons the player would be able to use both shields and armor, made of various materials with different stats. Both shield and armor will use two separate skills.
>Shields: These are used to completely protect from damage at the cost of damaging the shield and further reducing its protection. While using a shield the player can only hold a one handed weapon or have there two handed weapon 'sheefed'. The Block skill is used to determine the effectiveness of the shields use, every time the shield is struck it will cause the player to flinch potentially making them vulnerable to another attack, as the player's block skill raises they will flinch for shorter and shorter periods of time, weapons with a heavy perk cause a increases flinch, also the block skill effects how fast the shield can be raised when it is not in use (in other words how fast the shield is raised to protect from a incoming attack).

>Armor: The use of armor is to reduce or fully take away damage at the cost of the condition of the armor, each kind of armor is made of a material, each material has a special effect that gives it either a resistance or weakness to a kind of damage (e.g. amber armor having a blunt resistance, while leaf armor has a weakness to cut), and also if a armor has a heavy perk it will cause fatigue every time the user is hit. The armor skill effects the usefulness of armor, as this skill raises the degree of protection given by armor is raised, also armor is less damaged over time by attacks.

SKILLS AND ATTRIBUTES:
The player will have a number of skills and attributes which will effect various game play aspects. The following are ideas I came up with so far.
>Weapon Skill (every kind of weapon has a separate skill e.g. sword and bow skill): this skill effects the repetition of swings and the speed of charging shots for ranged weapons, as well as how much the weapon is damaged per use. (use of weapons, and dummies)
>Block Skill: As mentioned before effects efficiency with shields. (use of shields)
>Armor Skill: As mention before effects efficiency with armor. (use of armor)
>Smith Skill: The player will be able to repair and perk their weapons, shields, and armor dependent on there skill, perks include fancy, damage upgrades, durability upgrades, and restoration of damaged weapons. As the player is more and more skilled they can more effectively repair items and fail less at perking weapons, shields, and armor. Which if failed can cause damage to these items or perk them with the damaged perk. This also allows for creating said items as well with proper materials.
>Cooking Skill: The player will be able to cook up brews and foods to keep the player alive and well and to make food items more effective, as well as how often the player will effectively not damage food in the cooking process and what kinds of foods and brews they can make. (reading, watching, and practice raise this)
>Alchemy: The players ability to concoct potions and medicines for desired effects such as a poison perk for weapons. Also how effective they can make a potion or whatever to not be a effect-less or dangerous substance. (reading, watching, and practice raise this)
>Athletics: The player will be able to run and swim, as they become more and more athletic they will become less fatigued by various actions such as those along with attacking and wearing armor. (running and swimming raise this)
>Acrobatics: The player will be able to climb ladders and ropes, jump over things and do barrel rolls to avoid attacks. (practicing the use of these skills raises it)
>Faith: This effects the player spiritual abilities, and ability to fight off demons. (prayer, sacrifices, blessed items, defeating demons raises this), also the player will be able to bless items after awhile, prayer and placing of the hands can bring the player to greater well being,
> Lock Skill: The player will be able to lock pick various locked doors and containers and chest, locks will have different levels like grey and gold which give the player a set chance to open the lock if their skill is high enough also effects their ability to effectively lock a door. (picking raises this)
>Charm/Speech: This effects how effective the player is at getting things for cheaper as well as the ability to make a conversation go their way. (talking and reading raise this)
>Strength: This effects the players ability to move and resist movement by some things. The higher the skill the stronger the player, after awhile the heavy perk will not effect the player any longer. Also this can give a boost to attack damage. (moving and resisting objects, and working out raise this)

Attributes: These are effects of the player that are not necessarily trainable but can be raised every level.
>Health: Self explanatory, can be raised with every level.
>Stamina: this effects everything you do, lower stamina reduces performance, but can be raised every level.
>Attack: This effects damage bonus, can be raised with every level.
>Defense: This effects defense bonus, can be raised with every level.

Leveling Up: The player will have a level that they will be at this level is increased every time the player raises a set number of skills, each level requires more and more skill increases to cause a level up, until a certain number. Once all skills are maxed out the player can continue to level up (MAYBE?)

As you can all see I have extensive ideas for this game and really need some criticism on my ideas for game play aspects and even the story line.

OK, so now onto some other things, player interaction and world game play.
I have quite a few ideas as to give to this game idea.
-Stores: I would like to allow the player to both buy and sell using a in game currency.
-Inventory: I would like the player to have a inventory which is based off a weight system, were based on the players strength they can hold a amount of items by weight. Not sure how I would organize the players inventory.
-Day/Night Cycles: I feel it would be cool to have in game so that the player can be more immersed in the world. Also my idea for demonic attacks would feed off the night time very well.
-Spiritual Warfare: The player will have to fight demons and cast out demons, and venture into spiritual realms at times. This is were faith is important.
-Mounting: The player should be able to mount rolly pollies for transport.
-Transportation: the player will be able to ride on millipedes, seed boats, and butterflies to transport to parts of the world quickly for a price.
-Services: Food, training, entertainment, Smithing, information, blessings and more.
-Inns: With use of the night and day, the player can sleep for a set time, and save their game,
-Game Saves: The player should be able to save at alters and inns, as well as there houses.
-Buying houses: The player should be able to buy a house for a steep price in multiple locations.

Game Modes: I have a few ideas for game modes as follows,
>Story Mode-Here the player plays in the world while exploring the story of the game.
>Adventure Mode-Here the player explores the world without the main story line.
>Combat Mode-Here 2 players come together to customize their characters to battle it out (or use there Story or Adventure characters)
>Gladiator Mode-Here 1 or 2 players can come together to defeat waves of enemies and score points.

Tribe (Class):Early I revealed in the story that the player will choose what tribe they are from, from all 12 tribes of Israel, this will essentially be the class of the player and will give them skill bonuses like say if you choose Judah, your sword skill will be +1 skill level than normal.

Combat Concepts: This is were I need some help.

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Please take into consideration anything I placed in this post, please provide criticism and suggestions to this game idea, I am still developing it on paper and will continue to update my post if need be. Thank you all and God bless.

What other suggestions would be good in a bible teaching based rpg adventure game were you play as an ant?

Edited by Conan87, 07 June 2012 - 10:33 PM.

[Spyro Conspiracy Theorist]

I am a Christian believer and have faith in God and His Son Jesus, who also by the bible inspired this game idea.

First, be very careful how you handle this. I'm a Christian, even, and my immediate reaction to this was to roll my eyes. Giving a straightforwardly evangelical message to a game changes the demographic, tone, and connotations of a game on a level most developers don't recognize. If you don't want it to sound preachy, you're going to have to make it good, because you're trying to convey a message that will have a very strong reaction in every single player to encounter your game, both positive and negative.

I want to do all this while incorporating a important feature, teaching Christian morals and ideals as well as knowledge of the bible.

Like, this; this is going to be unbearably preachy. If you are going to do this, you are taking a "moral highground" stance to try and spread what sound like Sunday School messages. First of all, as the writer of your story, you have to EARN your moral highground. "I'm a Christian, so you should listen to these blatant moral principles" is NOT earning a moral highground. If you're going to use something that sparks this great a reaction, it has to give the player a reason to agree with your point of view. And I don't just mean, "Jesus died for you, so you should do these things." That will not work.

The player would play as this ant (people are insects in this game) who is growing into becoming a great warrior and a mighty man of God

Okay, see, the problem here is that NO ONE is going to enticed by the gameplay goal of becoming "a mighty man of God." A great warrior, sure. But unless the player is a strongly evangelical Christian capable of projecting human empathy towards digital bugs, your avatar becoming more religious is not an enticement in any way, shape, or form. It just adds to the preachy, "this is your goal, because should be your goal in real life!" preachiness.

Zion: The Story:
The game Zion takes place after the completion of the Old Testament (Tura),

Wait, so it teaches Christian stories about the Bible, but before Christ? Isn't that sort of an unnecessary limitation on yourself?

and involves a fictional exile not based on biblical or secular records.
The nation of Israel has been exiled and the many tribes have been separated in mass across the world.

Okay, that sounds pretty good for an overtly religious game... I like the idea of straying from just reinacting Bible stories (especially considering you're excluding many of the ones most relevant to the message you're trying to convey)...

As time passes much of the world begins to forget about the Lord
and wickedness begins to arise across the world along with a wicked nation who is bent on concurring all nations under their false god Sutan a demon possessed bug. But the Lord sees this and devices a glorious plan to stop this nation and to crush the wicked effects of Sutan among the world.

Most people in the real world are already either Christian or get too much of Christians, so this isn't something relevant to the player. I realize this "fall from the principles, descent into self-destruction, intervention of God, revival" idea is repeated throughout the Bible, but it's not the groundwork for a story that the player will be able to draw parallels to in real life (which will thus render the incredibly overt moral lessons meaningless).
Please, please, please don't try to change one letter of the word "satan." It doesn't reduce the overtness of your message, it just feels like that's what you're TRYING to do, which means the player will feel like he's being spoken down to. Either that, or it feels like admission that your game isn't really a good source for learning moral values, since you don't want to use the actual names; like it's a Biblical knock-off. Which destroys the idea of a moral-lesson-motivated game that you seem to have.

The Lord then chooses a young ant boy by the name of Zion of the Zionites tribe of Zion who are a mixture of the 12 tribes of Israel.

So, wait, the kid's name is Zion, the tribe's name is Zion, and they're somehow a single tribe that's an amalgamation of the 12 tribes that you just said split up across the world? ...Okay... But while we're at it, why is everyone ants? Is that like the 'Sutan' thing, where it seems like you're trying to make it less overt? Or do you not want to have to develop the art assets for human characters? If it's going to be an RPG along the lines of

Zion is a rebellious young ant at the age of 18 and lives among the house hold of his old uncle. His uncle one day is given a vision by God about the plans He has for Zion, and immediately tells his young nephew of God’s plan for Zion. Zion at first does not believe his uncle and begins to argue with his uncle. After receiving a harsh rebuke from his uncle Zion runs away from his uncles home into the wilderness nearby, but is one night chased down by demons who he is then saved by, by a mighty angel of the Lord.

Okay, this (whether intentional or not) has the message of "believing in an old guys prophecy of you is, if it involves God, the right thing to do." Which isn't a message people who don't already feel this way will gravitate to.

The angel then tells Zion what is uncle said is true and that he should go to his uncle and reconcile with him. Zion inspired with this incounter with the angel of the Lord goes to his uncle and asks for forgiveness and they reconcile with each other and begin to further discuss the matter. Here it is then that Zion’s uncle reveals that he once was a great warrior for Israel in his younger years. And then he begins to train his nephew Zion, and later after the training Zion rests to wake early in the morning to leave home as directed by the angel of the Lord. But while asleep Zion is given a dream where he is told of his nation of Israel, and it is then revealed to him what tribe he came from (here the player will choose their tribe). But then after waking he is greeted by his uncle for a last meal and is given a choice of 3 weapons, a sword, a staff, and a club, once he takes a weapon of his choice he heads out to catch a ship to a far off nation. I will be developing the story as I go.

So, wait, is this all a cutscene at the beginning of the game??

• Israeli

??

Okay, reading through the gameplay ideas, it doesn't sound like you implement any of your religious messages except as a window dressing. And even then, for the player, the only time "faith" or "blessed" are relevant is in Spiritual Warfare--which revolves around beating up/casting out demons. Which doesn't tie into any of the fundamental Christian messages you're trying to convey.

So all this leads us to the question... Why is this a religious game? It doesn't greatly change the gameplay (there are plenty of non-religious rpg equivalents to demons and exorcism, as well as stats and powers that assist in doing so). None of the main themes of Christianity are carried through, unless you take "battling satan" to its most overliteral definition.

On a smaller note, I have trouble seeing myself getting emotionally invested in the plight of ants. If it's going to be an adventure-rpg like Elder Scrolls or Legend of Zelda, and have story elements that trigger an incredibly strong reaction in ALL PLAYERS, it needs a good story. Which means it needs relatable characters. And I just don't see myself relating to insects; I'm not quite that scrawny!


(Just an FYI, unrelated to your game but purely to the topic, I'm pretty sure discussing religion like this is generally frowned upon, since it sparks flame-wars so easily, especially with a topic like "how can I better spread Christian values in my game?")

Edited by Spyro Conspiracy Theorist, 07 June 2012 - 08:36 AM.

[Yal]

I think the first thing you should do, Conan, should be to play one of the Disgaea games. Basically, they're not-entirely-serious RPG games featuring anime angels and demons, and it's good to keep in mind that while they're not entirely correctly depicted, they're based of the average joe's images about how an angel (or demon) would look. (Remember, originally angels were horrifying fire creatures that actually had reason to shout "Hath No Fear!" when they appeared - after two centuries of baroque paintings of winged maidens, I assume around 96% of all christians in the world would think an angel was actually a demon if they'd get to meet one)

I'm not very deeply religious myself, but I think I am enough of a christian to be of some help. And I know I'm good enough of a game designer to help you.

- Don't use actual insects. It's easier to attach and bond to humans, so even though I like the insect themes (I've been planning to do something similar myself) I think you should make all characters humans, but design their armor and stuff like insects. Also you could let some types of units ride oversized insects, for instance the Knights could ride ants and the Sky Knights would ride wasps. Also healers could ride butterflies.
- Gameplay-wise, you should use a world with loads of really big plants. They could work as platforms, they could work as houses, they could work as obstacles to go around and they could work as cover to hide behind when enemies fire projectiles at you.
- The plot, too, could do with some finish. The main idea is: hide your preachery so that (a) people won't notice it and ( it's easier to take in the message you're trying to convey. If you subconsciously feed people with it, the chances are higher that they'll respond positievly.

- As for the plot, I'd go like this:
You're born into the barren desert country of Zeyhoun as a young boy (whose name you select yourself, but the default name is Sora, which is the japanese word for Sky, Heaven). One day your village is raided by an evil army, and everyone is killed or taken as prisoner, except you (who were in the forest collecting stuff) and the village elder. You get really angry and wants to avenge everyone, but the elder says something like "Revenge leads nowhere! I'm sure they will get what they deserve one day or another." You end up going away into the outer world with a sword and some supplies. After meeting up with a nice-guy assassin who becomes your sidekick/party member, you storm a fortress of the evil army and kill everyone inside, except possibly a few people who begs for mercy (the player gets the choice of sparing them). The thing is, when you leave the fortress you get assaulted by a large number of lesser demons (flying imps-style). It turns out that the level boss, the unholy-priest-dark-magician-apprentice-dude you fought, was gonna open up a dark portal using some innocent people's blood, but when you fought him he intentionally positioned himself so that his blood would activate the portal magic circle when you killed him.
- You madly escape the woods with lots of imps attacking you and your sidekick. He eventually abandons you and escapes, leaving you alone. Not a really good buddy, right?
- You're chased into a dead end and think something like "Rats! Game over!" but suddenly a blast of white magic hits the front row of the imps, instantly killing them and sending off lots of loot flying. As you wonder "Now WTF was that?" a winged girl appears and says something like "Need a hand? Thought so."

- She explains that the entire kingdom of Zeyhoun is in civil war because the samurai/warlord Rushifell (a clever play on "Lucifer", where we replace Rs and Ls japonesquely) is trying to take over the kingdom using his evil magic to create portals to the Disgaya, the Netherworld. Everyone opposing him so far has gotten killed.
- She scolds you for madly attacking the fortress, with some extra scolding if you killed people begging for mercy with some words like "You're not any better than they are!" and ends up with saying "It's a wonder you survived".
- You start to travel towards the capital city of Rapadagna. During the journey you notice that the girl has no reflection as you pass a bridge over a river.
- You get to the city and hear rumors about the war and some old legend about a hero that's gonna pull a legendary sword out of a stone at the top of a mountain and use it to save the world. A lot of other people plan to go there because they believe anyone can be the hero, it's just a question about who goes there first.
- You go there and manage to pull the sword out after an immense boss battle against a demon that's there to stop you.
- The angel (the winged girl you met before, and who's been following you around since) explains some stuff about you're of a special lineage, so you're the only one who can use that sword, the Sheplyon.
- Then you go to a bunch of enemy cities and kill loads of evil soldiers, following two or three minor sub-plots that's mainly there as filler and to keep you from instantly going to the final boss lair. Save a princess/prince, destroy an enemy battleship, befriend a Robin Hood-style pirate and save him from execution, that kind of things. You also get the ability to transform into a sheep (enemies won't notice you, but you can't attack) and a lion (scares minor enemies, plus you get loads of kung fu skills and can eat enemy corpses to refill your HP) halfway through the game, too. In the end you've collected the Ten Commanders, ten magical stones given to the most difficult bosses in the evil army, and can use them to break the seal on Rushifell's Castle and actually enter it. You fight him, he pulls off a One-Winged Angel (aka, he transforms to a gigantic, non-humanoid form just as you thought you've beat him) and transforms into a gigantic demon, you beat him up, happy end.

[Conan87]

Spyro Conspiracy Theorist and Yal I would like to thank both of you for your input, I definitely am considering the idea of using people instead of bugs, I would like to say too that the game was inspired by the bible and my nephew Zion of the same name, the idea of Sutan was not to replace Satan as it was my plan to use Satan as a separate character and Sutan was to be more of an anti-Christ, the whole thing about the story being settled in the Old Testament age was to build on my idea of creating a story that lead up to the birth of Christ, in a way that was not directly related to the age of Christ as my idea was of a man of God becoming a man of God from being lost in the world but finding that the God of Israel was real and a worthy God, the point of the game is not to bash scripture and religion on the player but for them to explore a different theme that rested on Christian faith.
To most of these things I wrote only considered the combat and game play side of things outside of story lines, so none of it really expresses ideas about faith and Christianity, though I will admit to a degree the Faith stat will effect a player demon slaying capability but I have plans to implement it for greater uses within the game both in story and game play.
I will keep my theme of faith in the game but I will not honestly throw it down the players' throats.

And as for the first part of the story (basically the general idea of the story), I will be implementing it in game play rather than cut scenes except certain parts like the dreams and visions.
I would like to get more feed back from you two, I greatly appreciate it and will be revising my story idea, and considering everything noteworthy. Thank you both, God bless.
But I would like to ask what are your ideas on the game play ideas I placed down?
I would like to get some feed back on the game mechanics.

Edited by Conan87, 07 June 2012 - 10:43 PM.

[Yal]

Hmm... I don't see any gameplay elements, just a bunch of gimmicks. But based on your weapon descriptions, I will hereby assume that you're making a Metroivania-style (Zelda II-style) platform exploration game with action and exploration elements. OK, good! You'll only need one sprite per character (since you can use image_xscale to flip the image left/right) so you save work and thus valuable progress-per-time - it's easy to get tired of a project if you don't see visible progress at regular intervals so you should keep your engine easy to work in.

This would also make the sidekick characters easy to implement, since if during the first dungeon you only visit flat ground, the guy that abandons you won't need to have any jump code, just move left/right and attack. And the angel will fly around, so she doesn't need to have any wall collision code (will ignore walls completely).



As for the faith idea, you could take this approach:

Reguarily give the player the choice to either to something Good, or something Bad. Kinda like in for instance Knights Of The Old Republic. So basically you tell the player that this is a game where you can "play out your own story" and be either the hero or the archvillain. The thing is, the player doesn't really have a free choice: both evil and good quests give some sort of reward (items, cash, XP, etc) but the evil quests will ALWAYS give less valuable rewards. This should be done quite subtly so the player won't notice it at first, but the thing is the player should be penalized for being evil. Also, near the end of the game you offer less and less opportunities to be evil so that it's technically impossible for the player to fill up his evil karma bar completely, so that it's impossible for him to choose to abandon his mission and turn evil because it's impossible to get enough Evil Points. So the player can do some evil deeds, but not enough to truly be evil. If done correctly (there's a delicate balance here) this will make the player consider stopping being evil because it's just too dang hard.

[Conan87]

Yal, I did consider the idea of free will choosing on whether the player will be able to just do their own will and get no where, and if they choose to do as they are sent to do then they would reap the benefits, also a 'karma' type of system was in the works, but I still wanted to figure how I would implement them, I thought to effect the players Faith stat and a hidden stat of blessing which acts as a karma meter in a sense, so definitely giving the player a clear option is a great idea

[Spyro Conspiracy Theorist]

:s ...So, the statement your game is making about freewill is that "it exists, but is bad"? How will you implement "punishing players for doing their own thing" in what sounds like a metroidvania-style game; a genre more or less built around the idea of "doing your own thing motoring progress"? Not trying to sound overcritical, this is just what it sounds like to me, and since you're very much trying to say something meaningful, you need to be very aware of any unintended subtext a mechanic intended to further your message might have.

[Meganinja]

Get ready for a lot of reading...

Well, I'd like to start by saying that I believe religion is generally just a clever tool to keep people busy and behaving. But that aside, this idea sounds like it has promise to it even by someone like me. If you are trying to teach Christian values, then the best way you can do it is through character development, and not through in-game lectures. It sounds like you are already on your way to doing that with the introduction where your main character starts off being "rebellious" and later learns the truth (of the game). BE CAREFUL how you do this part however. Do not make the main character out to be a bad person just because of his rebelliousness. And do not make his uncle out to be a good person just because of his faith. Obviously God saw something in this boy or he wouldn't have sent an angel to visit him and he wouldn't have rested the fate of the world on his hands. That is not to say that the main character should not have flaws and that is not to say the character cannot be a bad person at the beginning. But make there be more to it than just rebelliousness versus faith. The main character is logical, because he changes his belief when the angels save him from the demons. That logic could also have been what led him to challenge the existence of God to begin with. Use these kinds of things to your advantage within the story. Make us love the characters and see them grow and become better people. But always have good reasoning within the game world for every decision, or it will start to feel like the game is preaching to us. I'm sure I am not speaking for everyone, but I'm not interested in being preached to. I am interested, however, in well developed characters and challenges of morality in story-lines. I'm telling you all this, not because I think that your idea is not good, but because I think it is very good and has an extreme amount of potential. Also, it may be good to use characters like his uncle to your advantage in your story. It is easy to put a character like that in the beginning and to just kill him off or have him sit in his house with the same line of text for the entirety of the rest of the game (thinking about Link's uncle or the princess in a Link to the Past), but this does little to develop the story or characters. Just as an example, you could show how the uncle starts off hating his nephew and other non-believers because of their lack of faith and how he decides later on that his nephew was doing what seemed like the truth to him. Through his nephew he overcomes and acknowledges his hatred towards non-believers and learns that what really matters is that someone is doing what they truly believe is right. Maybe he even goes on a journey of his own and meets his nephew again down the road, or maybe he journeys with his nephew. Be creative and give us people we really want to see again, people who learn, live, hate, and love like real people. Then actually let us see them again. This gives a true sense of progression that games like the Elder Scrolls games generally fail to deliver. Also, show both believers and non-believers becoming better people so that players of all religious backgrounds can appreciate the story.

Enough about the religious and story aspects. I think it's time to talk about the game-play. I do not like opening my inventory all the time so that I don't die by my weakness. There are so many weaknesses in this game idea that it either has to be handled very carefully or there should be fewer weaknesses. The difference between melee and ranged should definitely represent weaknesses, since some enemies will otherwise be very difficult or impossible to hit if you use the wrong weapon. Normally, the bow should probably be weaker than melee, but against some enemies it should be necessary for victory (flying demons perhaps?). Already we have this combination of a main and secondary attack, which has a lot of potential for creative and fun battles. Having ranged weapons with all these different attack types seems overdone and would be painful and VERY time-consuming to program and balance. You should consider making only one or two types of ranged weapons which may play differently but have the same kind of damage types. Then there is melee weapons with the difference between piercing and cutting and blunt. Personally I think it would be fine to lower this to only two types (like cutting/blunt or piercing/blunt only). Either way, you have two possibilities here that could both work pretty well.
-You could make it where you can toggle between weapon types with a button on the keyboard. This would make it easy to switch weapons during battle without dealing with an inventory every time, which would make exploiting enemies weaknesses much easier and a lot more fun.
-You could make it where all three types of weapons represent different playing styles and attack ranges, but either one can get you through the game fine. For instance, cutting weapons could only hit a single enemy at a time, dealing high damage at a close range, while blunt weapons hit all enemies in it's range with slightly less damage. A spear could work as a weaker cutting weapon with more range. This would make it so you don't need to switch weapons all the time, but it would also simplify game-play (which could be a good or bad thing).

The other weaknesses involve what armor you are wearing. Making a key switch between armors is a little bit too much, I think. It would still be better than opening up an inventory every single time, but my point is that switching armors and weapons ALL the time is a little bit tedious and before long you will get really sick of it. You should consider removing or revising the armor weaknesses. Keep in mind that the player already has to worry about the condition of the armor. Plus, if you keep with your inventory weight system, carrying around two or more sets of armor and weapons in order to avoid weaknesses will probably take it's toll on your ability to hold more items. If you don't want to scrap this armor weakness system (which is understandable) there might still be some ways to make it work. One idea is that you could make the weaknesses of the armors minor, like percentages around or less than 20%. By doing this, the player can get by while carrying only one kind of armor and trying to dodge attacks that the armor is weak to. Then the player might not feel obligated to switch armor all the time and it could encourage some careful character control which might actually make the game more fun.

You have four main stats, but what about spiritual energy? In Elder Scrolls, they use magicka. Will attack effect the power of spiritual abilities and exorcisms too? Will there be a limit on how much spiritual energy you can use (i.e. a magic bar)? Or maybe faith is the only way to increase this? As it is there seems to be no stat point that helps with spiritual attacks. Also, if enemies have demon attacks (reverse of your spirit attacks) would defense help against this as well, or would you rather have a different stat you can raise for it? I think it is fine either way, but I am curious.

Other than that, the game just feels a lot like a 2d Elder Scrolls. Maybe a little too much. Stats like acrobatics and athletics sound like nearly complete ripoffs from Elder Scrolls right now. Also, training stats like athletics in order to level up your character tends to be tedious and boring (at least to me). Maybe you could combine acrobatics and athletics into one skill and keep them as the name athletics. That would make it less tedious, a little more unique, and would still make perfect sense. Another possibility is that you could have a traditional level up system, where you level up from experience gained from monsters, but still have skills which train on their own which would increase your battle effectiveness further. Personally, I never did find the level up system on the Elder Scrolls games to be very fun, so I might just be biased against this system. I'm sure some people like it, but remember that this is your game and you should do what you think would be the most fun in this adventure, whether that is the skill based leveling up from Elder Scrolls or the traditional style. My main problem with the Elder Scrolls games I have played (I can't include Skyrim because I haven't played it) is that many of the skills you learn, such as alchemy, athletics, and acrobatics, serve very little purpose within the game itself except to level you up. The ultimate goal for training a skill should ALWAYS be the direct effect the skill has on your character, not for increasing your character's level. So for instance, if you can make potions with alchemy, there had better be a valuable use for them (and preferably more than just for selling). Otherwise the game just feels like one big and pointless grindfest. If you level up athletics, it had better have a valuable effect on your ability to get around and probably even to battle enemies (getting away faster, or maybe attacking slightly faster). Leveling up athletics on Oblivion or Morrowind goes something like this: "Walk around for 24 hours. Congratulations, you now move 7% faster! Oh yeah, you got three random level ups too." This is poor design if you ask me.

The final thing I would like to talk about is the fatigue system (also taken from Elder Scrolls!!). Ask yourself first, does this game really need a fatigue system, or are you just putting it in because people like Elder Scrolls and it has a fatigue system. Elder Scrolls games generally have a very basic combat system, which is why the fatigue system works pretty well. With a more complicated system (such as what is present in your game idea) people will probably be too focused on the battle itself to keep careful watch on a fatigue bar. So when something fails because their fatigue is low, they will probably get irritated that the game is expecting them to watch so many different things. My suggestion is to not add fatigue. You should probably first make a decent amount of the game without a fatigue bar, and then think about how different it would be if you added it in then. If you still think it might be a good idea, add it into the game and see how it plays. If you like it better, than keep it. But I don't recommend adding it in until you really know that it could work well in the game.

PHEW. I think that's about all I have to say about the story and game-play right now. I hope you realize that you are probably trying to combine too much into one game with what you have in your original post. Simplifying the attack types and deciding whether fatigue is really necessary are the two big things to think about right now. After that it's worth thinking a little deeper about the skill system and deciding if you want to level up by increasing skills and how useful you want skills to be in the first place (not including their ability to level you up). I think if you take all my advice you are capable of creating a game that I would enjoy more than the Elder Scrolls games (can't say it would be a better game, just that I would probably enjoy it more). But even if you start making this game with my suggestions, realize it's gonna be a big project and it will probably take many hundreds of hours for you to make to it's potential, as making this full engine will be very challenging and keeping the story interesting will also be very challenging. Currently I'm working on an RPG engine with a platforming battle system and I have probably already spent a good 200+ hours on it (although it is finally close to being finished, and that time includes a lot of graphics too). It is good that you are coming up with all the ideas first because that will save you tons of time reworking things in the future. Just be sure to realize your limits and think about what will truly make your game enjoyable to play. Sometimes the most simple game can be much more fun than the most complicated game, so don't feel obligated to throw every single one of your ideas into your game. Before adding any feature, always ask yourself why the game needs this feature. If you can't come up with a good enough reason to add it, then don't.

I don't know how your experience is with Game Maker, but this will take a lot of skill to make. I hope you find at least a person or two to help you out with things like graphics, sound, and maybe even programming before you get too deep into making this game.

Good luck, and may your God bless you if he is real (because this game idea is very exciting, even to a non-believer like me).
And yes, I have read the Bible. All the way through. Most "Christians" haven't. Sad. Although to be fair I did used to be a Christian at the time when I read the Bible.

And @Yal, no offense but this is his game. You sound like you are trying to get him to make YOUR game idea, not help him with his. You may be a good designer, but the point is, unless a person is attached to the idea or story of the game they are making, they aren't going to be compelled to finish it. Don't try to get someone to make a different game and pretend like you are helping them with their idea. There is a big difference. Although I totally agree that Conan should use people and not ants...I don't agree that he should simplify the game (i.e flat landscapes, yawn) for the purpose of adding party members. Either don't add party members, or teach them to interact with the environment that you want. Not to mention your story sounds like a bunch of random ideas thrown around in a random story generator and (moral) Christian heroes turning into lions and eating the corpses of their enemies sounds, at best, insane. Also, as a player, I would be very angry to be fooled into thinking I had a real choice in a game, and then I am penalized (secretly or not) for taking the choice. Yes, there should be different rewards if you play evil instead of good. But no, the game should not fool you into thinking you can beat the game being evil and then kick you in groin when you are close to filling up your karma bar with evil, while slowly making the game harder for you without your knowledge. That will make a LOT of players mad and can destroy an otherwise awesome game. Either have a karma system where it is clear that one way is wrong, or have a karma system where both sides reap rewards and have some kind of variant ending (it wouldn't have to be a happy ending, for example, God see's that his hero has turned the entire world against him so he ends all life on Earth with another flood). Otherwise, you probably shouldn't be using a karma system at all. Feel free to criticize my ideas too if you think there is anything wrong with them.

Edited by Meganinja, 11 June 2012 - 02:14 AM.

[Yal]

I don't agree that he should simplify the game (i.e flat landscapes, yawn) for the purpose of adding party members.

It would only be temporarily, and since the beginning of the game takes place in a desert landscape it would be completely justifiable.

[Meganinja]

I don't agree that he should simplify the game (i.e flat landscapes, yawn) for the purpose of adding party members.

It would only be temporarily, and since the beginning of the game takes place in a desert landscape it would be completely justifiable.

It still depends on what his idea of a dungeon would be and whether there should be damaging environments within the sand that might need to be jumped over. Although I do see your point, and that could work if done well. I just don't really like it when you have the option to jump but there is no reason to use it to get through the environment, although I guess this could be made up for on other levels following first dungeon. He only really needs to think about this though if he decides to make only the first dungeon have a ground-bound follower. Otherwise he should probably just focus on making the environment enjoyable for the player, and not necessarily about whether it is flat (although this could still be the case).

[Yal]

I can see it very possible to fit in jumping as part of the battles, for instance the monsters you encounter in the desert could fire fireballs or other projectiles at your feet so that you'd have to jump over them. Another thing could be having quicksand or damage sand that the player would need to jump over, but his party member would ride a horse/camel so he'd be immune to it because of his animal being a born sandwalker. You could also have platforms and stuff as long as there's only one level of vertical stuff, because then there's no way the sidekick can "get lost" by e.g. falling down two levels and then be unable to get up: if there's no concept of multiple vertical layers you can use a very simple left/right/jump AI with no worries. This is what is referred to as "topologically flat terrain", aka there's no junctions or roadforks using the vertical plane. (Doorways in the background would of course be fine)

[Conan87]

Meganinja I would like to thank you for your thoughts, I fount them very useful and feel that I will definitely consider them as I feel they can be beneficial to my game idea.

Upon thinking things through I have under gone these ideas for my skills and attributes and the leveling system:

SKILLS & Attributes:
-Armor Skill: effects armor protection effectiveness e.g. damage absorption, and armor endurance, practicing it by wearing armor in combat and training (C&T)
-Block Skill: effects shield use effectiveness e.g. flinch times, shield readying, and shield endurance, practicing it by using shields in combat and training (C&T)
-Melee Skills: Still dependent on the 11 melee weapon classes (swords, hammers, staffs, clubs, axes, spears, etc.), effects melee repetition, and weapon endurance. (C&T)
-Range Skills: Depends on the 11 range class weapons (I really like the idea of weapon variety), effects repetition or charge speed (like for bows) and weapon endurance. (C&T)
-Athletics Skills: (I took your advice) this allows for players to sprint, roll, jump over obstacles, climb and swim (I had the thought of using fatigue exclusively for this skill), so basically as the player levels up this skill they will be allowed new perks like being able to sprint, do rolls to avoid attacks and such, jump over things, climb and swim faster, you know things like that, while using up the fatigue bar. Practiced by using these abilities and training.
-Speech Skill: effects players buying and selling, effectiveness during conversations to get things their way either bad or good. Practiced by talking, selling, and buying in ways to get a desired outcome, and reading and training.
-Smith Skill: effects the players ability to repair weapons, armor, and shields more effectively and without causing damage to the items, also effectiveness of adding perks, and the ability to craft items at smith houses.
-Lock Skill: This effects the player's ability to open key locks of different levels e.g. grey, bronze, silver, gold, ruby etc. and ability to lock key locks as well and to disarm traps on doors, and locks.
>Strength: This effects the players carrying weight, ability to move objects, and block skill (reduce chance of flinch). Blocking, moving objects, and using heavy weapons and armor as well as training raise this ability.
>Faith: This effects the player's spiritual warfare effectiveness, and the player's ability to get prayers answered, gives blessings, and also the player's ability to bless items and people. This is raised by defeating demons, offering sacrifices, praying, completing certain tasks, fasting, and using blessed items and reading the bible. (I'm still developing this idea).
>Fatigue: This just effects the player's athletic abilities so as to limit their use. This is raised through use of athletic abilities, and walking and swimming as well as training. And can be restored using food items, sleeping, and being less active.

>Health: This is obvious, it keeps the player alive. Restored by eating, time, sleeping, and getting medical attention. (each way of healing is dependent on factors)
>Attack: This just gives bonus damage for melee and range weapons.
>Defense: This just gives bonus protection for armor and shield.
>Blessing: This effects the game like a karma meter, it effects demonic encounters, and effectiveness of spiritual abilities. (basically players need to do right to use spiritual powers and for prayers and sacrifices to be received)

LEVELING UP: I took your suggestion of using XP instead of skill use, I feel this will allow players to bolster themselves more effectively into the NEXT LEVEL!!
-Defeating enemies will effect players XP, as well as completing task and leveling up skills (this effects XP to a extent). Also some items will effect XP gaining as well.
-Blessing will effect XP as it will have a slight roll in XP gains, so high Blessing gives greater XP while lower blessing not as much, per XP event.
-This is to encourage good behavior but not necessarily require it to strengthen their player.
-Every time the player gets enough XP to level up they will be given 2 points to add to either: Health, Attack, or Defense abilities. Meaning the player could choose for example to raise Health and Defense, or give 2 point to just Health.
-As the player levels up they will require increasingly more XP to level up further.

COMBAT: These are my ideas on combat, the player will be able to equip a primary (melee) and secondary (range or dagger) weapon, a shield, and armor.
The player will have the ability to use the shield actively with a one handed weapon, or while sheathing a two handed weapon, but while a two handed weapon is being used the shield is not available to the user. The player will need to toggle between the secondary and primary weapons to use either or and must equip them from the inventory or through weapon toggling (which will give a delay to balance out quick switching). Combat will work like any other game, if you make contact with a enemy you do damage, unless they are immune or use a shield or block some how. This also goes for the player if they get hit they take damage relative to their armor and armor skill, as well if they use a shield they can block.
Weapons are damage if they make contact with a enemy or shield, also hitting some objects will cause damage to ones weapon. If the players breaks a weapon then they can no longer use it, same goes for shields, armor will just give no more protection.

Weapon Damage: Will be effected by Attack, Base Weapon Damage, Condition, and Perks, and weaknesses and resistances offered by armor and shields.

Armor & Shields: Based on what the armor or shield is made of they will have resistance or weakness to a kind of damage (cut, pierce, blunt), these weaknesses and resistances are not very significant but do make a difference in general. For instance Amber armor is resistant to blunt damage this means the blunt damage will be reduced by a % of its Base Damage, also in the other case for say Leaf armor it has a weakness to cut so it gives a damage boost to the Base Damage, this damage effects the armor's condition meaning it will become more or less damaged by the weapons attack, not the player directly, same goes for shields this effects the shield's condition.

Armor Protection: Base protection, Defense, condition, and perks (weakness and resistance effect the armor's condition). Same goes for shields.

Their is a reason I desire Damage Types, I feel that they add a new game-play aspect which will help develop a player's way of playing and adapting to new environment conditions, if they find they want to live they will desire to use armor, but will find they can't completely feel invulnerable to enemies, they must adapt to combat situations that require them to make conscious decisions on how they play the game, so lets say they find they are dealing with enemies who primarily use swords (cutting damage right?) so now the player has to adapt sense now their armor gives less protection so they need more protection. I feel it gives a new challenge that doesn't really destroy the player experience but enhances it and helps them be more challenged with various enemies instead of engaging them all the same way.

I am glad you gave your opinion on the fatigue as I was unsure on this idea let me know how you feel on the idea of using it to govern the player's athletic abilities (sprinting, rolling, jumping).

I also am thinking about how to implement the saves system, that I would use safe houses like inns, and homes the player buys, and temples. I now I showed this idea out already on my original post I just feel I want to point it out more. I don't like the idea of saving when ever as I feel it takes away from the challenge of game play.

As for the enemies that the player would encounter, well I think simply people, wild animals, demons of many kinds, special beast (think giant bugs and what not).


STORY DEVELOPMENT: I initially want the game to develop both the player and the characters the player interacts with, lets say for example, you go to a shop for the first time the trader is kinda just like what ever to you, "New guy looking to but stuff" but as the player continually interacts with that seller, they gain favor or disfavor with them, and this changes interactions with them, both with Speech Skill and the players general interaction like constantly going to this particular seller for items, say like if you went to this seller many times doing a lot of business selling really rare items, the seller will be like "Hey Zion, how you doing!? I bet you got something interesting for me today!" or if you are a cheap scrape, "What kinda junk are you trying to sell me?" so with this they may reject things the player sells after awhile or even refuse business for a little while.
Not only would the player develop relationships with store keepers but people in the world in general, making them like you or not so much, based off your actions, and your interaction with them, lets say you go to a pagan village and burn down their shrines, the people their may hate you and want to kill you or be in complete fear of you.
Also obeying laws around the game world will effect players. Lets say you keep your sword out in a city, the guards keep telling you to put it away, but you don't listen so you are arrested and thrown into jail (they take a store all your stuff), and then you must interact with your jail mates and what not in real game time, sleeping your sentence or living it all out taking advantage of what ever is offered like say strength training.
I do have ideas to further develop the relationship with Zion's uncle as I feel I want him to be very close to the player, but not so much that you will always tag him along, for the first part I want Zion to go out on his own for awhile and later on further his development with his uncle, which I feel I need to figure out ways to develop his interaction with his uncle.

Who is Zion?: Zion is the main character which the player plays as, he is of a player selected tribe (the tribe they pick gives certain skill perks), he is a young man who lives with his uncle in the tribe of Zionite, a refuge mixed tribe of Israel, he is not very interested in the faith in his people and constantly causes mischief in his tribe. It is later that he is inspired to rethink his faith after being saved and spoken to by an angel of the Lord of his people, this inspiration causes him to go out into a part of the world to fulfill what he is commanded by God to do in order to save the land and his people. Throughout his quest his faith is tested to points of giving up, but as he presses on he becomes more and more faithful to what he is sent out to do and continues onto his quest to reunite his people and allying nations to protect from a new demonic evil that threatens the world they live in. It is through Zion that the people are inspired to fight this unknown nation of wicked people and the demonic principalities that come with them. He also manages to change the lives of many people and even by their interaction he is also changed into a mighty warrior and man of God (assuming they take the narrow path).

Now if the player so to speak takes the broad road, they will not progress into the story's main idea of uniting the people, but they will be able to develop other events based on player interactions with characters and side quest that they would endeavor in. But the initial main story line would not be available to the player if they don't follow the angel's directions. I feel this is necessarily as in the Christian faith it is not possible to develop events on ones own desires to fulfill God's directed plan for them, so I want to implement this in the game without hindering the player's free will to roam the world and develop their character in another light.

[gmx0]

As I am a Christian, too, upon reading the story, the first thing that came into my mind was that it sounds something from the Apocrypha(as in the books not part of the Biblical canon), and the tribe splitting thing sounds like the "Lost 10 Tribes of Israel" junk.

Gameplay wse, it sounds like every other RPG. What sets it apart? (Unless I missed it)

[Conan87]

As I am a Christian, too, upon reading the story, the first thing that came into my mind was that it sounds something from the Apocrypha(as in the books not part of the Biblical canon), and the tribe splitting thing sounds like the "Lost 10 Tribes of Israel" junk.

Gameplay wse, it sounds like every other RPG. What sets it apart? (Unless I missed it)

So what can be done to set it apart from other RPG's? Something to take look at.

[Meganinja]

I'm glad you found my ideas useful! I am particularly glad you liked the experience based level up system. I don't see any issues with leveling up skills giving you experience, by the way.

Your new idea of fatigue sounds like it could work pretty well. I am imagining where abilities like dash and an improved jump can make an overall big impact in travel or in battle but use rather large amounts of fatigue. Ordinary attacks and normal jumping (maybe) and walking would probably not affect the fatigue bar in my idea (because asking the player to stand still to restore fatigue would kind of destroy dashing as a means of travel). Fatigue would probably regenerate relatively quickly though, depending on how useful the athletics skills are in the game (slower regeneration if the skills are better).

When you were talking about armor weaknesses and strengths, did you mean that armor weaknesses only affect armor condition? Or does it affect the damage your player receives too? If the former is the case, a flash, sound effect, or something else subtle could indicate to the player that their armor is losing extra condition to an attack. Otherwise they may find themselves confused as to how their condition is going down so fast. Also, I'm assuming that this was your idea, but just checking: armor and weapons that have lost their condition can be used again once repaired, right? One final thing I'd like to mention about equipment is that condition should probably not have too much of an effect on the item you are using. for instance, if a weapon does 1% of damage at 1% condition, this would be strange. Instead the equipment should probably not go below 50% effectiveness before it breaks and goes to 0%.

On the topic of story, you mentioned the possibility of burning pagan village's shrines. This is probably already your idea, but an option which could be more encouraged in the game (although not necessarily required) could be performing miracles and doing town quests to convert the towns to the real God. And speaking of original ideas, part of the gameplay could be converting other towns which could work pretty well if carefully done. The interactive merchants sound pretty cool, but also challenging to make. It certainly adds a level of realism to the game if you can implement it well.

The way it sounds, some skills might be required to beat the game, while others may be optional or only required for side-quests. You could make a distinction by calling required skills primary (athletics, strength, faith?) and the others secondary. Or maybe primary, battle (block, melee, ranged, armor), and secondary. By the way, what do you mean by (C&T) at the end of the battling skills? Also, be careful about increasing skills by doing something like reading the Bible (since theoretically, can't you just do this over and over again to exploit the game?). You could make the player unable to read until they have waited a certain amount of time between each reading, but this would be unrealistic, and could create tedium for those who put the reading off until they really need the skill. By the way, melee and range skills causes you to attack faster and your condition to fall slower, but it doesn't increase damage? This is fine, since you will still be doing more damage overall by attacking faster, but it is a little bit unusual.

For saving the game, It should be okay to simply have a temple in every town that you can save the game at. This could be a problem when visiting Pagan towns though. It might be overkill to not allow the player to save their game without returning to the previous town. Maybe you could make checkpoints so the player can return to the previous town quicker once they reach their destination? Also, I think that when you die you should return to the temple but generally keep whatever experience or items you found before you died. There could be some kind of repercussion, like a temporary drop in faith, a drop in experience or something (since I don't think God wants your money for bringing you back to the world). I guess it would be okay to do it the old fashioned way as well, where if you die everything is reset to what it was when you last saved. But if this can be avoided without creating some exploit for the player than I think it probably should be. An exploit would be created for instance if you made it where there is no way to quick move from place to place but dying can take you back to the last place you saved without hassle.

[Conan87]

Meganinja, your input is always appreciated.

The whole idea for the armor weakness is to only effect the armor condition, so if the armor has a weakness then it will take bonus damage say maybe 10% more damage than it already is taking and 10% less damage if its resistant, but if by chance it has a weakness and resistance for say the whip which does blunt and cutting damage it will nullify the damage bonus. Also the idea of giving some kind of visual and/or sound indication of the extra damage or protection, would be a cool idea.
And it is also the case that I made it apart of my ideas to convert people to the faith in both the main quest and side quest. I feel it gives more variety for the player than just busting up no believers, though in some case I want to put this for people who are especially evil. Though this is a rpg type game I'm making ideas for I do not want to go from the fact the point of the game is to encourage Christian morals, and be based off the bible and that the main quest has the main character become a man of God along side a great warrior. I do still wanna give the player freedom to free roam and do side quest or make up their own adventures but I don't want to promote doing evil.
Also I feel the save idea I came up with: saving in inns, temples, your houses, guess rooms, and at alters and shrines. is the most by able option cause I feel its good to limit the player to a point were they can't feel they can just dilly dally around the place and not get destroyed because they are unprepared, I want the player to have a steady means to save but limit it to a point that they can't just run around the wilderness and save whenever.

To respond to your questions about the weapon skills only making the player attack quicker and damage their weapons less; the reason I wanted to do it like this is cause I didn't want to over power the player, I instead decided to use the Attack stat to increase attack damage, cause I feel the player should have to work at hitting harder, as for Defense its just really to give a boost to the over-all protection, sense armor skill will increase protection and reduce armor damage, I use the Defense to increase protection further without effecting armor protection and making the shield more enduring.

Also I want to hear anyone's ideas about my Smith Skill idea, Meganinja you made a remark about if repairing a item that has been made useless can be reused? Originally I thought to just say it would be impossible, but then I came with the idea that at a certain Smith Skill level the player could repair completely broken items w/ out a Grand Smith's services (these are high class smiths who can repair, perk, restore, and forge items for a steep cost, compared to normal smiths who only can repair and forge items at lower prices), so for a more thoughtful out look on my smithing skill idea, all are dependent on player skill:

• Player will have a % chance of repairing a usable item, failed attempts can cause more damage to the item or no effect.
• The player can perk a item with a % chance, if failed the item can become damaged and given the Old Perk aka defective perk or no effect
• The player has a % chance of restoring a defective item, if fails it may become damaged (condition wise) or no effect
• Players with the right materials can have a % chance to forge a item, if failed the item can come out defective or completely destroyed
• At higher skills the player will be able to repair unusable items with a % chance, if failed no effect

I feel that all the skills in the game will be essential in some way to completing the main quest I want to implement the skills so that they will aide in the player's quest.

I came up with a dilemma, sense now I will not be using bugs as the characters, I am not sure how to make the graphic style for the characters, I was thinking along the lines of old Final Fantasy games but not such a stubby look, I would like some input from anyone on that.

Edited by Conan87, 16 June 2012 - 05:13 AM.

[Meganinja]

Regarding the broken items ordeal, I think about the game Dark Cloud. I had a couple bad experiences with my weapon breaking on that game (when it breaks, it is gone forever) where I then had to reset the game because I lost my best weapon, which took many hours to make. If you haven't saved in a while this can be a really serious thing. Since you are talking about a lot of weaknesses and different item types, it may not be easy for the player to keep an eye on the condition of all their equipment and something might accidentally break. In Dark Cloud 2, they changed the system so that the weapon would become almost unusable when it's condition reached zero, but could still be repaired the old fashioned way. I don't know if you feel the same way but I preferred the second game's system a lot more. That's why I brought up the point about items being broken forever. Any time your player feels like they are best off loading their game and losing progress because of a simple mistake the game has probably done something wrong, the way I see it.

Regarding the save system, I wasn't trying to say the player should be able to save anywhere. I was saying that you could make it so the player can return to checkpoints (towns, dungeouns, etc) that they have already been to at any time. If they are on the way to a new checkpoint but must stop and have to return, they will have to start over from the last checkpoint again. But at least this way, they can get around a little easier and if something comes up and they have to turn the game off, they can keep items and experience they've found since they started heading for the next checkpoint. Although if you do decide to implement this, you will probably want to make it where you also don't lose all your items and experience since the last save when you die (otherwise people will try to rush to harder battles to save time in case of failure, which will break the illusion of the game world).

I don't recommend the old Final Fantasy graphic style for a side-scrolling adventure game. The characters are square and made for an overhead viewpoint which contrasts to the viewpoint of a platforming game (although looking at in-battle monster sprites from Final Fantasy could be a good idea, since they are a little more detailed). I was thinking of games like Metroid and Zelda 2 when thinking about how your game's graphical style would be in my head. For the most part, just look at other 2d platforming (adventure or not) games and see which ones fit your idea the best.