Developing an Action-RPG

[Deleted]

...............

[Fencers]

Hey, that's kinda neat. Good for you actually turning an idea to reality. No matter how unfinished it may be.

I wish you luck and hope you find the time/means to continue.

[Deleted]

Hey, that's kinda neat. Good for you actually turning an idea to reality. No matter how unfinished it may be.

I wish you luck and hope you find the time/means to continue.

Thanks man, I really appreciate that.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

A year ago, I got a PM by another member of MMO-C who wanted some advice on making a game. Here is a portion of my email I sent to him.

From MMO-C member

Dear Valyrian Stormclaw,

I seen your reply in the forms to someones post about a game engine. I seen that you have created games, I wanted to ask you. Would it be better for me and my group of friends to create a game engine, I have no idea what that all entails right now, were kind of still in the planning stages, or for us to use an existing game engine that is already out there? Also if were creating the game engine, why does it cost so much to make in total? Thanks for the reply if you have time!

From Valyrian Stormclaw

Dear MMO-C member,

It really depends on what you want in your game. First off, pre-made game engines such Unreal Engine, Unity, RPGmaker, etc, have been developed by very talented programmers who have been working on them for many years. If you are looking for a pre-made, professional written engine; it will almost always be better for you to obtain licenses rather than take the time to make your own (Mass Effect, Hawken, and Far Cry use pre-made engines). It should be stated that many game engines such as UDK or Unity will allow you to utilize some form of their engine for free until you start making profit, in which case licensing will be required to do some licensing, but these engines require far less time to develop games for. It should be noted that there is no 'best' engine; each and every single one will be written and designed differently and have various strengths and weakness's. Do research before committing to one...

...The other option for creating your engine is to simply write one from scratch. Many indie as well as top AAA developers have used proprietary (custom made engines owned only by the devs) specifically built for a single game project (ie, Minecraft, Skyrim, Cube World, etc). The advantage of this method is that your engine can run your game exactly the way you want it (in some cases, this is far better than using pre-made engines); given of course that you engineer it just for that game. The disadvantage though is that an engine is only as good as the programmer who writes it, and it will take time to make a prototype version. However, as the creator of the engine, you will not need to make any deals or licensing agreements to utilize it...


...As far as budget goes, the only particular expensive aspects of an engine are the lighting, AI, physics, and particles. In the past, game makers simply changed the colors of their textures to make fake lighting, implemented very basic "physics", and scripted AI behavior. Today however, there is much, much more involvement in these features such as light-maps, dynamic AI, ultra realistic particle effects, etc. Although you can write that into your engines, it is often difficult for many game developers to do it effectively on larger projects and instead opt to pay licensing fees to use pre-made plugins (ie, Havok, Nvida Physx, etc). Often times, the plugins are more complicated then the actual engine, especially the AI...

Also, here is an example outline of a game development cycle

1. Plan plan plan, this cannot be overemphasized. If you don't get this down right, you will be in big trouble.
2. Develop a working prototype engine, and build up from there. Be sure to fix bugs before adding new features or optimizing.
3. Start creating game content and mechanics as you outlined in your plan...

...There are also guides on the internet; they are on youtube channels, engine fourms, blogs, etc. There are also very detailed books in libraries. Some colleges offer free or cheap game development boot camps. If you are serious about your project, you can always consult them...

...I wish you luck on your endeavor.

[Deleted]

A year ago, I got a PM by another member of MMO-C who wanted some advice on making a game. Here is a portion of my email I sent to him.

I was more thinking along the lines of 3D modelers and sound effect producers as help, but your input is appreciated.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I was more thinking along the lines of 3D modelers and sound effect producers as help, but your input is appreciated.

Soundeffects are much easier to produce than actually making the game, but it still takes quite a lot of time and effort into getting them. First, you can always browse the internet for free soundpacks. Over the past decade, many, many people have been producing their own games, and they realized just how time consuming it is to find the right instrument, record the sound, clean it up, and then compress it. That's why those same indie game makers have joined together and tossed up some of their sounds for free; no charge or licensing needed. If you can find one of these, I absolutely guarantee you that the vast majority of your work in this department will be as much as simply implementing it into the game.

If you do decide to make your own SFX, then you'll need a recording device (preferably a high definition rec-phone), a SFX program (to clean it up), and lastly the instrument in question to produce the sound (ie, pieces of metal for making sword clash sounds). Make sure that the room you record in has no background noises going on, no echoes, etc. Also, don't be afraid of the microphone; the mic is your friend. Get your instrument as close as possible to it.

For 3D models, you will need a professional program like Maya (Don't bother trying to make your own 3D modeling software, believe me just buy it). Play around with it and start small, first make tea cups, then furniture, etc. It will take a couple weeks to learn but once you do, making models is a breeze. You won't become an overnight master modeler, but they will look good. One very important thing: don't leave unnecessary vertices inside or clumped up around your model. Even if you don't actually see those vertices ingame, the engine will still render them, which uses up computer performance for no reason. It will also bloat the model file. If you go to Nexus mods and open up some brand new, amateur models and looked inside them, you'll be horrified and see why they cause such bad computer performance.

As for rigging your models, you can use Blender. Again, start rigging simple things, like fish, then birds, etc.

[Nurabashi]

Will try it out. Feedback soon.

Edit:
Gave it a good 10 minutes.

I really like the art style, it falls in line with what you would expect nowadays. The lack of a mini-map made it hard to tell where I was going in the catacombs, think I ran in circles. Not sure why I was naked at the start . Nothing really much to add, I liked the visuals though.

I see that you have a crafting system planned, which is nice.

Think this could become a really fun ARPG.

[zealo]

At a first glance, id suggest you to change the name of the graphics preset to low-medium, high etc instead of 0,1,2,3,4. I am assuming 0 is the lowest and it goes up from there but describing it with words would be an improvement.

[Deleted]

Will try it out. Feedback soon.

Edit:
Gave it a good 10 minutes.

I really like the art style, it falls in line with what you would expect nowadays. The lack of a mini-map made it hard to tell where I was going in the catacombs, think I ran in circles. Not sure why I was naked at the start . Nothing really much to add, I liked the visuals though.

I see that you have a crafting system planned, which is nice.

Think this could become a really fun ARPG.

A minimap, hm. I'll definitely look at that.

At a first glance, id suggest you to change the name of the graphics preset to low-medium, high etc instead of 0,1,2,3,4. I am assuming 0 is the lowest and it goes up from there but describing it with words would be an improvement.

They are the shadow settings (which can also be modified in-game).
Soon the start log won't be there anymore, I just gotta fix the fullscreen bug I'm having.

Soundeffects are much easier to produce than actually making the game, but it still takes quite a lot of time and effort into getting them. First, you can always browse the internet for free soundpacks. Over the past decade, many, many people have been producing their own games, and they realized just how time consuming it is to find the right instrument, record the sound, clean it up, and then compress it. That's why those same indie game makers have joined together and tossed up some of their sounds for free; no charge or licensing needed. If you can find one of these, I absolutely guarantee you that the vast majority of your work in this department will be as much as simply implementing it into the game.

If you do decide to make your own SFX, then you'll need a recording device (preferably a high definition rec-phone), a SFX program (to clean it up), and lastly the instrument in question to produce the sound (ie, pieces of metal for making sword clash sounds). Make sure that the room you record in has no background noises going on, no echoes, etc. Also, don't be afraid of the microphone; the mic is your friend. Get your instrument as close as possible to it.

For 3D models, you will need a professional program like Maya (Don't bother trying to make your own 3D modeling software, believe me just buy it). Play around with it and start small, first make tea cups, then furniture, etc. It will take a couple weeks to learn but once you do, making models is a breeze. You won't become an overnight master modeler, but they will look good. One very important thing: don't leave unnecessary vertices inside or clumped up around your model. Even if you don't actually see those vertices ingame, the engine will still render them, which uses up computer performance for no reason. It will also bloat the model file. If you go to Nexus mods and open up some brand new, amateur models and looked inside them, you'll be horrified and see why they cause such bad computer performance.

As for rigging your models, you can use Blender. Again, start rigging simple things, like fish, then birds, etc.

I meant like another person modeling etc for me. Programming takes time as well, so I haven't really looked into modeling etc.


EDIT: Did anyone find any bugs while playing? If so, please report them. Thanks.

[Deleted]

There have been a couple of threads like this lately- with indiegame developers or people with ideas and a desire to realize them.
I thought it could be cool with a amateur/indie game designer sticky where ppl could picth ideas, get honest feedback and offer their talents (coding, modelling, art, sound etc) or simply their time. Maybe with guidelines and advices from mmoc members who have experience.

[Deleted]

OP can you post a video or some screenies pls , I can't play it since I'm running a 32-bit OS (ye lol... )

Much appreciated !

[Dundebuns]

Yes please to the screenshots! I was part of a small indie studio a while back and I love the processes that go into making games! We made a few games that we released on PSM, so I know the work that goes into this, but the elation you get when you start tallying up those downloads!. I'm looking to get back into this this weekend, as I have found a good music producer, and between us I think we have the expertise to prototype a few concepts.

Keep up the good work!

[Hyve]

I'm studying a BSc (Hons) Computer Games Technology Course at University. If you want, I can hand this around to my peers and lecturers to play, see what they think?

I won't claim any rights of it of course, and I'll only do so if you're happy for me to do it.

Edit; I assume you're using UnityPro, which is nice and I have to say the visuals are really impressive. It's not well optimised, but that'll come in time I'm sure, and I'm running on Dual Monitors (1 Primary & 1 Secondary) and I had to restart it a few times to prevent it trying to clip between the two screens.

I'll give it a proper play-through a little later, but the one thing I would suggest, is try to find a slightly different style to the User Interface. Everything replicates that U.I. and it creates too much of a similarity between Diablo and your game.

[Howard Moon]

I'll try it out later when I get home. Can anyone post some screenies?

[Hubbl3]

From what I've seen not a bad start at all. Keep it up!

[zealo]

Solid foundation, found no obvious bugs yet.

I have some things related to gameplay but i realise you probably got a lot more planned for this project so its probably irrelevant.

Anyhow, got 3 shot by the boss in the catacombs and respawned all the way back at the start. Making the player respawn at the start of a new area they enter or giving them some kind of portal functionality they can drop in order to return to places more rapidly could be neat. Its not a problem in zones this small but it could become tedious once more expansive areas are introduced to respawn right at the start of the game.

[Deleted]

I really like the environment visuals. The characters not so much. Obviously pre-alpha is what it is, so I won't deduct any points for small things. Really good so far.
I guess I beat the game.

[Yalingo]

Some screens I took.

http://imgur.com/Kj2quQy

http://imgur.com/jyEgf0L


Seems very early development, not many systems implemented yet, but I do like the art style you've got going at the moment. Hard to give you much feedback at such an early stage besides that though.

[Deleted]

Everything is going to change(not the art style).
I've been working on skills (abilities) the last couple of days, it should be available for testing tomorrow or the day after that.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

EDIT: And I'll also have more content that you can play through soon enough.

EDIT2: I'll post some screenshots in a moment.
The next update will probably have a mac version as well as a 32-bit version.

EDIT3:

OP can you post a video or some screenies pls , I can't play it since I'm running a 32-bit OS (ye lol... )

Much appreciated !

Yes please to the screenshots! I was part of a small indie studio a while back and I love the processes that go into making games! We made a few games that we released on PSM, so I know the work that goes into this, but the elation you get when you start tallying up those downloads!. I'm looking to get back into this this weekend, as I have found a good music producer, and between us I think we have the expertise to prototype a few concepts.

Keep up the good work!

I just added an album of 4 screenshots.

That's awesome man! I could use a sound effect/music producer, so if you could hook me up, that would be really cool!




By the way, you are allowed to come up with ideas.

[Pool of the Dead]

For a guy working on it by himself, it seems not too bad at all.

I am probably bias since I usually dislike indie games, but not too shabby dude.

Keep it up!