I can guarantee that all of you have created/played more RPGs than myself
I wanted to know if you had any comments or suggestions on an idea that I'd had so that I knew what issues I mgith have to address before I began.
I've been thinking about making an RPG as a work of art, and that the playing of the game would in some way be an artistic practice rather than purely a recreational one.
All I know so far is the setting, which is London, the syle, which is my own handdrawn pixels and a loose plot
What I want to know is if it possible to build an RPG which doesn't fall into the linear fight monsters, take their gold, get slightly better magic and items etc etc etc format using RPG makers.
Can I place the emphasis more on developing relationships between characters, learning skills from encountering others and a combat system in which the outcome isn't either victory or defeat.
Are these things possible? Obviously I want to start at the bottom and build my way up but It would be nice to visualise and end point
any comments appreciated
Hi Wormulus, and welcome to the boards!
I do know what you mean, and I suppose really it's the same thing as wanting to be a genre novelist, sticking to tried and tested material, or aspiring to something greater, to be assessed on its own merits.
I think really, graphic limitations aside, the sky's your limit. Conventional RPGs do tend to follow the 'hero gets stronger and levels up and learns more magic power and fights bosses', but there's no written law saying you have to do the same. It's just a case of playing with what tools you have, and thinking of ways to get around the maker to achieve the desired effect. With RPG Maker XP this is even easier I suppose: if you get the hang of the Ruby coding language you can pretty much do what you like and construct all systems in your game from the ground up! Not that I'd do that myself because I'm utterly useless at anything involving logic, but the possibilities are open.
I think it's pretty much a case of deciding on specifics, and working out how to achieve them. It's entirely possible to have battles in which no one wins, but it would need an outcome of some sort just so you could return to the main game. I suppose characterisation is of the utmost importance anyway, be it fantasy or not.
To try and stop myself from wittering on I'll try and reach some sort of conclusion. Definitely go for a more idiosyncratic approach to gamemaking. Certainly the games that tend to get noticed are the ones that refuse to be conventional, and so in merely that respect I'm sure your project would create interest. You could make a meta-RPG if you liked XD. I think that's one of the great things about the RPG Maker program: the fact that the actual mechanics aren't stupidly complicated, yet if you put your mid to it you can achieve so much with it, working around what you have or indeed just making new stuff.
One important thing to remember though is that it does have to keep the player entertained. Obviously I mean entertained loosely, as to mean keeping them...well...playing (can't say Thomas Hardy novels 'entertained' me in the traditional sense but I love them nonetheless) but I suppose one of the things about a game that is crucial to keep in your mind is that it is an interactive media. It can't be a heap of long cutscenes where you press enter every two seconds to further the dialogue, otherwise it would get horribly tedious to trudge through. Good luck with whatever you come up with, anyway?
Have you played 'Ico' for the PS2? This is the only game that I've played that I would say is a piece of art. And I'm not just saying that because I love the game, I mean that it is very...conscious of itself as something more than a convetional smackathon, as it were.