GA1A02/05 Game Maker - Ten Thousand Coins - Production Log Update

Created other NPCs in Oldlyn. Ran into a problem where the dialog screens of different NPCs just keep overlapping with each other and numerous bugs appeared. Decided to change all NPC interaction to be handled by a controller instead of individual NPC objects.

Prototype presentation

Prototype presented.
Game name will be called Ten Thousand Coins.

GA1A02/05 Game Maker - Update 2

 Game Progress So Far

The current prototype consists of:

• 2 Rooms = Oldlyn and Lynroad (3rd only just started). Oldlyn is the starting town, and Lynroad is the first wilderness.
• Player stats = HP, EXP, Hunger, min and max Attack.
• Other stats = Time.
• Inventory system = Consists of the master inventory list, player's inventory, and each NPC shop keeper's inventory (currently only 1). All inventories are created using 2D Arrays. All items are non-stack-able except coins. This is to give the game a bit more of a survival aspect as the player can't just load up on a massive amount of a single items for health/hunger/other gains.
• Buy and sell system. Items are bought and sold depending on their value.
• Currency = Coins.
• NPC = 1 blacksmith at Oldlyn, sells a few items, buys any the player sells to her. Mousing over an NPC displays a green outline. There is also a simple conversation system by selecting a speech option on the displayed texts.
• Item usage = Depends on item type. Consumables are one use with their effects cast immediately.
• Equipment = Weapons are equip-able, increasing min and max Attack of the player.
• Combat System = The combat works as follows: Click on an enemy to do damage based on your Attack stat, then the enemies do their damage on you based on their Attack stat. The player may equip weapons to increase Attack, but can only equip one weapon at a time. 
• Each weapon also consists of a Cool-down, so after player attacks with an equipped weapon, the weapon cannot be used again until it's Cool-down has expired (calculated in turns). 
• Area of Attack(or Effect) weapons also added into the combat system, which can do damage to all enemies on the screen at once.
• Enemies = Wolves, spawns at Lynroad, between 1 and 3. Click a wolf to apply damage and receive damage. Possible to do area damage to all wolves with certain weapon types. Mousing over an enemy displays a red outline.
• Loot System = when enemies die they can drop loot, which appears at the end of the battle The player can choose whether or not he/she wants to take each loot.

 Some screenshots of the prototype:
(Note: All in-game graphic are simply placeholders for the time being)

The NPC Buy & Sell System + a Simple Conversation System

The Combat System, showing the current weapon equipped and the mouseover target for attack.

 Major bugs/obstacles so far:

• The inventory and equipping system was a nightmare to get working correctly. Multiple scripts were written to give custom functions of adding a certain item from the master item list to the player's inventory as well as equipping an item if it is equip-able. I tried coding an idea I had about increasing and limiting the amount of equipped weapons to 4 and have it displayed at the bottom center of the screen, however writing code to keep track of both 2D arrays simultaneously as well as the mouse clicks and array empty slots proved to have too many bugs and not worth the time. Instead I went for the original idea of just allowing 1 equipped weapon at a time straight from the player's inventory.
• The area of attack weapon abilities proved somewhat difficult to implement. Bugs kept popping up left and right with cooldown not working correctly at one second, to not being able to attack at all the next. By tonight I finally managed to get it all working in order.
• The Cooldown system had a few hitches which was tied in with the area of attack weapon ability.
• Buying and selling and managing the NPC's inventory took quite a few goes with different methods to get right. Selling an idea from your inventory was easy. Buying one from the NPC, it moving to the correct slot in your inventory, the correct amount of coins deducted, and the NPC item stock decreased accordingly was not as easy. When one method might work for one function it screws up the other. Took many tries to find one that worked for all.

GA1A02/05 Game Maker - Update

Prototype so far consists of:

• 2 rooms = Oldlyn and Lynroad
• Enemies = Wolves, spawns at Lynroad, between 1 and 3.
• Click a wolf to apply damage and receive damage.
• Player stats: HP, Hunger, min and max Attack.
• Other stats: Time.

Got the basic battle mechanics in place. You click one of the wolves, and damage them for a value between your min and max (inclusive) and they damage back with their own attack.

Had trouble initially getting the other wolves which you did not target to attack you on the enemies' turn. They either did not attack or attacked continuously without stop. Figured out a solution by using 2 counters on the number of enemies currently on the battlefield, and the number of enemies that has attacked. So whenever an enemy attacks, it decreases the second counter by 1, therefore once it has reach 0, all enemies will have attacked, after which becomes the player's turn again.

I have also drawn up a world map draft of the game:

Green dots = Friendly Settlements (Size of dot represents size of settlement)
Red dots = Hostile/lawless settlements

Realistically I think only 3 or 4 cites/towns maximum will be completed by the due date, including the wilderness in-between each city/town as well. That's fine as the rest of the map's inaccessible locations could give the player a sense of immersion into this fantasy world and can be left up to their imagination.

Game Maker - Ideation

Ideation:

Features to include:

• ·         First person view conversations with NPCs.
• ·         Turn based RPG combat.
• ·         Inventory system, similar to Runescape
• ·         Stat system, including a speech stat that unlocks addition dialog options from NPCs
• ·         Sandbox as much as possible

Game Maker - Research

Research:

Genre: Point and Click Role Playing Game

Games Researched:

1.       The Pride of Taern – Point and click MMORPG, third person active-turn based.

Figure 1 - Turn based combat

The Pride of Taern is a game I played last year, and it got me hooked on turned based RPGs again in a long time.

The gameplay is as follows: you control your player character from an isometric view and walk around the game map. When you mouse over another character, be it NPC, enemy, or another player, a coloured outline appears around the character.  If you click on a NPC, you initiate a conversation with them from a first person view point. Different dialog and quest options then display to the right side of the screen. I grew fond of this mechanic, as well as the character outlining, and have decided to implement some form of this feature into my game.

The combat is active turn based with a set time. Although I would like to also include this feature into my game, I fear the programming needed to implement such as feat would drain up too much development time.

Figure 2 - First Person Conversations 

2.       Runescape

Good old Runescape, the first MMORPG I’ve ever played since I was little. The major feature of this game that stood out for me was the vast amount of activities other than combat that could be done to progress your character, features such as fishing, wood chopping, mining, cooking, smithing etc.

I want to create an RPG that has more than just the usual mob grinding, and more goals than just simply levelling up your hero without adding in too many features that I won’t have the time to complete. For that idea to work, my RPG will need a specific goal that is not “Get to level XX” or “Defeat the final boss”. Perhaps by acquiring certain items, like on a scavenger hunt while encountering enemies along the way, or a race against time to complete a certain objective.

Figure 3 - Runescape gameplay

Figure 4 - Runescape inventory system

Another small feature I like about Runescape is the inventory layout and art style, as it allows easy reference to your inventory, yet still provide adequate information by simply mousing over the item.

3.       Fallout 3

One of my all-time favourite RPGs, Fallout 3’s most stand out features are it’s sandbox gameplay, V.A.T.S, perks, and dialog options. The features I would like to implement in some form are the sandbox nature of the RPG, and the dialog options, notably the “Speech” options in game which allows special conversation options if your Speech level is high enough. The sandbox gameplay gives a big sense of freedom and control to the player, which would be mostly absent in a mostly linear “Point A to point B” RPG. The speech option also encourages a non-combat form of skill increase, adding diversity to the game.

Figure 5 - Fallout 3 dialog options

GA1A02/05 Game Maker Summative Begins!

Initially thought about the idea of making a point and click story-based adventure game, however discarded the idea as I believe there would be far too many dialog and art to create and not enough gameplay/game mechanics.

Now I have started creating a point and click RPG adventure instead, with a more balanced complexity between art and game mechanics.