Rules - Ideas That Don’t Deserve Their Own Thread

@Lemonrice I'd say let them stay till the end of the battle. Often it can be hard to retreat without support so staying to win the last battle is a good move even for a mercenary.

I’d say at the end of the battle, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for someone to straight up leave mid fight. Not only is that bad self preservation, but when you’re fight a “giant robot dinosaur” or whatever I don’t think anyone’s gonna think “ Jee I know I have a knife in my chest, but that guy hasn’t payed me in a while, I’m gonna leave.
You get what I’m saying? Maybe someone who’s a coward would leave mid fight while braver people finish the job before parting ways. This just is my opinion, the decision is ultimately yours, but I hope this helps.

If I was playing, I would prefer option B, because there is a certain catharsis to be drawn from feeling like you're outsmarting the game to get an advantage, even if you aren't. Option A seems like you'd be trading time and effort for a way to make the game less enjoyable for the player.

Nobody wants that, and it's important to remember that you are, to a certain degree, making this game for the player, not for yourself.

The bigger question is whether you want the game to be more enjoyable if less punishing, or a harder overall experience, but more rewarding when you finally climb that mountain of suffering. Are we thinking Legend of Zelda, or are we thinking Dark Souls?

Thank you, I think this is a good way to approach a battle - not to let the Person who hired you leave to die. After all, you might be a returning customer.


Yeah, that was my concern, too. That it just seems like a real duckmove. (Yes, ducks are evil) Actually, the members in your Party are not humans with the regular Morals but they have still agreed to help you on your quest so they should not leave you to die.


Oh I really like the thought of feeling like you have outsmarted the game, that is definitely a new view. I do not want the game to be too punishing, so we are thinking more Zelda. Or let's say skyrim. Not in Terms of scope of course, more in terms of play however you want to play.

The basic idea is, that you only have one character that is accompaniet by different creatures that have agreed to help him in exchange for [offerings]. Wether your fights are melee heavy or you're more into magic, or you prefer Damage over time, okay rather active or passive it all comes down to the creatures you chose to take with you. So i think the Player is going to invest quite some time in making the most of his favourite Setup, I think I don't want to annoy bin with having to go through fights over and over again just because his hirelings leave him mid battle.

Is there a way to have a party character sprite change it's look when the player eqips an item? Also is it possible to do so in say an event with a dresser? I saw it done years ago in VX ACE but I can't find a tutorial for MV

Hey, I'm planning to base my game on the concept of Ordinal Scale from the Sword Art Online movie, but add my own twist of course and monetise it.

Plot:
The main character's name is Shu and he lives a lonely sedentary life, but he wants to meet new people, be more active and explore the world or at least his hometown. With the release of an AR device which allows you to fight virtual monsters and other players gives Shu an excuse to fulfil his goals.

This has been rolling around in my head for some time now, and this is the first time I'm writing down anything related to this. Totally a skeleton draft of a plot at best and nothing is set in stone yet.

So, a pretty straightforward run-of-the-mill RPG tale of good vs evil in a medieval-ish fantasy world setting with MAYBE a bit of sciencey stuff thrown in here and there (think of Chrono Trigger here). Many many years ago there was an epic natural event, witnessed by everyone throughout the world, what people interpreted as a star falling from the skies and landing on the ground in a yet undiscovered location. This was seen as a sort of a sign by many superstituous individuals, and the event and its perceived meaning gathered a cult following that's nearing a religion status, but it's still very much a minority thing as the general culture is mostly really wordly and down-to-earth.

Everything is nice and peaceful and all, but there're increasing rumors about unrest rising in another country in a distant part of the world. People aren't sure what to make of it, and their opinions regarding the matter are divided. Some push it off, some are getting nervous about the rumors being true and the unrest spreading to their homeland as well, disrupting the peace and their simple lifestyles.

Now, even if the world is kinda secular and doesn't concern itself with spiritual matters, there exists a plane of gods/whatever higher beings who are pulling the strings to make the world go round, so to speak. These guys have very limited capabilities of projecting their power outside their realm, but they make stuff like winds and tides happen by setting smaller things in motion early on beforehand, like a series of butterfly effects that make the world function. They don't smite people with lightnings or anything, as they are incapable of such immediate, powerful actions. They just don't work that way.

The falling star event I mentioned earlier was in fact one of these guys who went rogue/insane/had a bad day and escaped from their world in order to take over and rule in the material world of humans. His/her otherworldly origin makes him/her an extremely powerful magic wielder in the human world, and he/she serves as the main antagonist for the story. Him/her causing trouble and messing around with the material world doesn't sit well with the other gods/spirit guys, as it is in their best interest to remain obscure and distant from the human population, and mass chaos and mayhem isn't something they want to happen to anyone because they're nice that way. I still need to think about some more concrete reasons why they would give a damn.

The antagonist could have a right-hand man/major henchman in the form a corrupted human of high social status and who also serves as the face for the evil forces for most of the game, until he/she is dealt with and the main antagonist enters the play. Before this he/she is either too weak still or wants to take it nice and easy spreading his/her power around and working behind the scene - instead of goin all out and leveling everything with fireballs.

The godly fellows aren't just sitting on their behinds hoping things don't turn out too bad, and instead they have sent down another one of their kind with a mission to find out how to stop the antagonist in the human world, as the gods simply cannot make a boulder fall on his/her head. I thought about this person as a side character very relevant to the plot, who makes short appearances throughout the game, and joins the party after running into them enough times to finally figure out that they're both on the same track. He/she gives a briefing to the party about what is exactly going on, ending the party's quest to find answers about the rumors and unrest, and reveals the general direction of the main plotline. If he/she also reveals all his/her cards about being essentially a god - or if this is revealed later in the story - is under consideration.

I thought about magic in general being something that's not a common skill for people to have. Each village/town could have their designated spellcaster or something who handles any needs the town might face where magic comes in handy, and who has spent years studying the profession to be able to cast even the most basic spells. The divine agent sent by the gods I mentioned above uses his/her powers to introduce magic usage to other party members in order to upgrade their strenght against the forces of the main antagonist.

What I think I need to think through:

- More solid reasons as to why stuff happens. The antagonist just simply being insane feels very cartoonish and maybe needs a shade of grey.
- Not sure about magic being such an obscure thing.
- Decent lore for the god guys, why they do what they do, why exactly hasn't one gone psycho before this.

Well, you said yourself that the people of the world aren't all that religiously inclined, so there is an argument to be made for having this rogue god go rogue due to an existential crisis.

I'm thinking that god might ask themself, if they are a god, why do they have so much limited power? Why does no-one respect them? What is their reason for being?

Do you know "maslow's hierarchy of needs"? It's sort of related to the top section of that triangle, understanding where you fit into the world and what purpose you serve, because if you don't serve any purpose, and, say, you are unable to die or something, then your existence could seem pretty hellish.

Maybe they just want to feel like they matter and went a little too far off the deep end.


It seems like you have a couple of ways that you could go with this one. The way it is, with magic being limited and hard to come by, fits together pretty nicely with how weak the gods are. It's like the more fantastical elements of the world are on the way out as technology takes their place.

For example, why would you bother to learn how to conjure fire in mid-air if you have access to, say, a lighter? They acomplish the same thing and are easier to come by.

If the world slowly out-grew magic, then maybe that in turn led the gods to become weaker and weaker, as the fewer people who prayed to them, the less power they could channel.


This one ties into my previous point about the world abandoning magic, and, by extension, the gods.

If the gods had great power once before, then maybe they wouldn't feel so useless, which ties back into my point about an exestential crisis. Maybe the power reduction of magic and the gods is what sparked the crisis in our rouge god in the first place?


Lastly, there is the potential for a happy ending here. If the heroes can reason with the rogue god, and get them to accept their new place in the world, then maybe the day could be saved non-violently. Just a thought. Anyway, good luck with the story!

So one idea I have for my horror game is Hunger.
Food isn't scarce starting out but theirs a limited supply. If you take to long. People will start dying from starvation and you will have to accept your fate or do something abborrant. thoughts?

Yes, there are multiple ways to do it, under page 3 of event commands you can find the "change actor images" button and just change it from there. If you wanted to you could have a common event set up for when you change equipment and it could change the sprite using that command.

I can see how its similar, but really there's not much I can say about the project without many details so instead here are a few questions. Why is Shu the way he is at the beginning of the story? What's the battle system going to be like? Why is the AR game specifically the thing that would get him out of the house? Does he have a family?


1. Maybe he's/she's just tired of being outside the world and wants to affect and interact with it directly but didn't understand that they layer of separation also protected him/her from the bad parts of life and wants to control things now to eliminate suffering and doesn't care who has to be killed for that goal to be reached.

2. I personally like magic to be a little obscure, if its really well understood then its basically technology.

3. It actually could just be something like none have never gotten to interact with the mundane world before, and this one happened to fall out due to the actions of mortals and went rouge after the fact.

Can you eat other people?

that is the abborant something yes.

I haven't put much thought into why Shu is like that at the beginning of the story, it's going to have an action battle system, the AR game would be the thing that gets him out of the house because he loves video games and he lives with his mum.

If it's a survival horror game then it's a neat idea! I actually can't imagine any other way to do a realistic survival game without a hunger system...? If it's actually limited it adds challenge. But it's a bit tricky. (Must not be just an illusion of challenge nor an impossible challenge) The only thing is that the player can't really "accept their fate" if it just means game over. If they want to keep playing they'll have to do "something abborrant" anyway, no? Maybe you meant that they can satisfy their needs in different ways? I'd be cool to have like an option to eat an apple but it doesn't fill their hunger much. Or look for something... bigger. Anyway, it's a good system, especially if there are only limited supplies.


As for my dilemma:
I really don't like the default menu in MV combat, starting with "Fight or Escape" (Window Party Command) then the actions (Window Battle Command) so I thought about removing it completely... I already removed the Escape option and I'm thinking about skipping it entirely to jump right into the action.

Then I had an idea: putting the Item selection in it. Instead of "Fight or Escape" having "Fight or Item". But it means you can only use one item per turn. For just one party member. I liked the idea but I don't know if it's actually good or relevant... It might just be annoying to only be able to use ONE item per turn. It adds challenge but I don't want it to be unnecessary. I'm not sure...

Oh yeah Kris, plenty of options. If someone dies, they leave behind a corpse. Which fills you to the max. You can also get bugs from the Giant Spider which was totally inspired from Witches House. Just make sure you give it something back. ;)
You can also find fruit in the conservatory, but watch out. Their are carnivorous plants thrown in as well.

I'm currently developing a game called Quest To Score, its about a guy who really doesn't care about saving the world, and only cares about getting laid. He meets a woman who ropes him into saving the world from a bunch of evil wizards.
My issues is the game is not at all politically correct. I'll give you an example: There is a side quest where dwarves are dying out because there are no women and you have to find non-dwarf women to mate with them. I just wrote in a scene where you have to talk a suicidal elf out of killing herself by offering to sleep with her because all other options will fail. She then has a new "lease on life" and goes off to be with the dwarves. I make sure to frame it that despite being offensive(the game is self-aware and constantly breaks the 4th wall) it worked and being PC was not going to work.
Yeah.
I'm terrified of releasing the game because I worry I'd be run out with pitchforks. I'm even thinking of putting a trigger warning in the beginning.
So my question is exactly how edgy should I make this game? Should I be true to my creative vision or does it have to be extremely censored?

@Mordridakon, I do not think your ideas are not politically correct, rather contain sexual contends, which you could target the only adult gamers.
Because of the sex scenes are not suitable for children according to the rating. Nothing is controversial, so keep moving with your adult game.

Well there is no actual sex in the game(it just fades to black and plays a musical event) but yeah, its an adult game. I'll put an 18+ warning.
Thanks.

@Mordridakon, if it is no actual sex scenes, you could lower to teen rating. Good Luck with your game. There are a lot of sex RPG games in Steam.

This brings up another question, there is profanity in the game(it comes with the territory), is that teen or adult rating?

@Mordridakon it depends on how strong language or words you used.
Teen (T)- Games with this rating contain content which the ESRB believes is generally suitable for teenagers (age 13 and up) and older; they can contain content such as moderate amounts of violence (including small amounts of blood), mild to moderate use of language or suggestive themes, sexual content, and crude humor.

Mature (M)-Games with this rating contain content which the ESRB believes is generally suitable for those aged 17 years and older; they can contain content with an impact higher than the "Teen" rating can accommodate, such as intense and/or realistic portrayals of violence (including blood, gore, mutilation, and depictions of death), stronger sexual themes and content, partial nudity, and more frequent use of strong language.

Adults Only (AO)-Games with this rating contain content which the ESRB believes is only suitable for those aged 18 years and older; they contain content with an impact higher than the "Mature" rating can accommodate, such as strong sexual themes and content, graphic nudity, extreme portrayals of violence, or unsimulated gambling with real currency. The majority of AO-rated titles are pornographic adult video games; the ESRB has seldom issued the AO rating solely for violence.

Here is the general guideline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entertainment_Software_Rating_Board#History