It has been a little while since I have been able to put a blog post up about the progress of Project Alpha RPG (Title in development). While I have been doing a some development unfortunately i have not been able to do anywhere as much as i would have liked to and the game is no where as far along as i would have hoped it would be since the date I started.
The main reasoning behind not being as far along as I had hoped to be is a combination of work, life and creative burn out. I am coming into a holiday period in my work and which will allow me to have a lot more free time over the next few weeks. This will be great because I am hoping to set aside enough time to develop the game to a point where i can release the first prototype of the game.
In order to get to this stage, I am happy to show a road map to prototype V01:
- Complete mapping out Mid-town (Name in development) – 40% complete
- Create interior’s for shops and other buildings in Mid-town – 5% complete
- Add NPC’s and events to Mid-Town – 10% complete
- Develop a town notice board for quests (Mid-town) – 0%
- Generate and develop quests to be given from the notice board and NPC’s in the town – 5% complete
- Complete Tavern (1F, 2F and cellar) Including internal quests – 60%
- Complete Sewer, Mapping is complete however eventing and questing areas are needing to be setup (thinking about a secret shop hidden in the sewer). Overall 45% complete
- Script NPC dialog – 15%
- Implement dialog – 10%
- Script at least 2 NPC’s to allow them to join the players party (have an existing NPC in mind)
- Debug and fix battle system (calculations are preventing player taking damage) – ???%
- Create classes for player and NPC’s (currently standard RPG MV classes) – 25% complete
- Test and expand upon reputation system – 40% complete
- Develop Initial Game start and basic path for the prototype – 35% complete.
Currently out of those tasks completion of this goal is about 19% overall, So lets break down each one of the goals above and establish the where I am currently up to, what I feel i need to do and thoughts on how i may expand on that at this point or maybe into the future.
Complete mapping out Mid-town
So as it stands I consider “Mid-town” to be about 40% complete and to be honest my concept drawing of the town isnt much more complete then that. as you can see by the image.
Well maybe it was a bit more complete then i remembered however I never finished it. However it did give me enough to go off to start developing it in engine with a few tweeks and changes as seen below.
From the image above you can see that it is not at all near being complete.
You can see the tavern is in the bottom section of the map and then the main town above, there are also currently two shops at the top of the map which may very well eventually move because there will be an entry to the upper town and castle. So I may alter this plan to have a guard post instead.
To the left there is a circle that will be the main guard building which will be where the player can interact with some NPCs and it could eventually also be the gaol.
To the right, there will eventually be houses that may or may not be accessible and this could also be determined by a few different variables.
For this to reach 100% completion I will need to finish painting/ building all of the buildings, foliage, water and lights. As it stands i am not sure exactly what sure what I am going to do in the lower half. I do know i want to show some sort of shanty town outside the main wall be it old run down wood buildings or tents.
Create interior’s for shops and other buildings in Mid-town
The only interior that is mostly complete is the tavern building which I will elaborate more on later in this blog.
I will need to concept a few interiors for the homes as well as the shops which will be throughout the game as the player progresses. Mid-town at current only has two other shops on the town map and that is the main shop and the weapon shop.
In the top right you can see a ladder access which takes the player to the sewer. I am planning on having these access locked until the player completes a quest that they perhaps get a key to open these access points. there is another south of this location.
Depending on the size of the outside will determine the size of the shop on the inside, in the image the general shop will be relatively small where as the weapon shop may have a back area with a smithing station. I have yet to even consider a crafting mechanic for this game. at all..
Add NPC’s and events to Mid-Town
At this stage in development there is only one NPC visible in the town itself and that was more to act as a reference for a little tent stall I was concepting. This particular NPC currently does not have a name nor any programming. Please feel free to leave a suggestion on their name. The sprite is also only a place holder for now and may eventually change.
Overall I would like to add at least a dozen NPC’s that will wonder around the town and that just grunt or utter pleasantries to the player.
I would also like at least four or five NPC’s that will communicate more in depth and perhaps provide a quest. They may also only interact with the player after they have completed a quest for that NPC from the notice board.
Develop a town notice board for quests (Mid-town)
Firstly I need to prototype this concept further and find or create some sort of sprite for it to be in the town itself either in the town center or near the stairs the player has to climb to enter the town proper. The only thing I have close to this concept is a note on the wall in the tavern. So I will need to setup an event and script a choice function for the player to select quests from the board.
I would really like to have a pool of quests that this board could call upon randomly and display five or so at a time.
So there is a little bit to figure out with this goal as well as seeing if i can integrate it with the already present quest tracker (I am considering doing a separate post on this)
Generate and develop quests to be given from the notice board and NPC’s in the town
For the quest board to be usable there needs to be quests for it to show to the player, for this to be accomplished I’ll have to brain storm at least a dozen or more ideas for quests the player can do around town such as find a missing item, catch a NPC’s run away pet or to venture into the sewer and defeat enemies or even complete bounty’s for the guard.
Complete Tavern (1F, 2F and cellar) Including internal quests
Ok so complete it almost is, alot of what the game currently has in it was tested and practiced in this little tavern and I feel that it may get a make over to the second concept image I showed in the last post.
First floor is the most complete and has NPC’s sitting at the table and one is walking around which i am thinking could be a party NPC, you’ll need to complete a few quests for that character first.
There is also a quest on the wall to collect the empty plates for the tavern owner behind the bar. for the moment the NPC is transparent and can be walked through to access the cellar however I plan to change this and add an excuse me option to their conversation tree to move them for the player to get past, this will be appear after you complete a few quests for the tavern owner. I also need to come up with a name for the NPC
At this point the 2F is complete except for NPC’s and events, I might add a few sleeping NPC’s in some of the beds which will perhaps have locked doors.
When the player sleeps at the tavern they are teleported to one of the rooms after the fade out and in.
Lastly for the Tavern is the Cellar and it is one of the more complete rooms, however I may change this to have some sort of different appearance or a chance of an enemy attack.
But for now this serves as the main entrance to the sewers which for the the prototype will be one of the main questing areas as well as the area the player can battle and level up.
Complete Sewer, Mapping is complete however eventing and questing areas are needing to be setup (thinking about a secret shop hidden in the sewer)
This by far is the biggest map in the entire prototype and the most intricate. I have probably put the most time into designing, mapping out and painting this map mostly because for this stage of development it is the main area that the player is going to operate in.
It has areas where the player steps through door ways to get through the wall and some of those doors lead to little maps inside of the sewer it self. I have toyed with the idea of having a sub cavernous area under the sewer however I have yet to decide this.
The image doesn’t show the full extent of the map however i would say this is about 20% of the final product. There will also be other aspects to the sewer and I’m planning on having a secret shop located somewhere. Currently there are active enemies which i will talk a little about below.
Script NPC dialog
As it stands there really isn’t a lot of dialog written for the game, just a couple of lines for really the only two interactive NPC’s at this point. I would like to write enough to make the game and quests interesting and not generic. I would also like most if not all interactions to have a choice to the player results may be determined by the players reputation
Implement dialog
Some Dialog has been implemented for testing purposes. however I do require most of what I will script to be implemented in game.
Script at least 2 NPC’s to allow them to join the players party
For the testers to get a good taste of what the game is meant to be like I am going to need at least two NPC’s to be able to join the players party however this is going to require the player to do some quests and increase their reputation with that person or their general reputation.
Debug and fix battle system (calculations are preventing player taking damage)
Currently the battle system works and the NPC’s take damage from the player but there are a few enemies that don’t seem to be able to damage the player, so I’m going to have to look at the calculations and do some math to get this working correctly.
Currently there are rats, bats and thieves for the player to fight in the sewer. I am not planning to have weird creatures and monsters in the game however some different enemies or allies maybe conjured or summoned by a mage or the like.
Create classes for player and NPC’s (currently standard RPG MV classes)
At the moment i am using the standard classes that come with RPG maker, While they are ok they are not complete and are only there as a base so I have started to write different classes out in my Codex book. I have yet to implement any of the classes I have written out.
At this stage for the prototype i am planning on having three different classes
- Mercenary / Ranger
- Knight / Paladin
- Archer / Rogue
I will probably do a sub blog at some point to talk about these different classes however eventually I am intending on having a class upgrade system that will allow the player or NPC follows to be upgraded.
Test and expand upon reputation system
Currently I have a basic reputation system in place that when a player completes a quest it adds a certain value to global variable called reputation, yet to be implemented is the system that only allows certain interactions to occur when the players rep is over a certain amount. I also need to implement events that contribute negative reputation such as theft. once this is in place be careful because guards may come in waves to arrest you and take you to gaol
Develop Initial Game start and basic path for the prototype
So this is a hard one to plan for or to map for progress as it is the prototype as a whole, the way that I see it i would like the player to at least have a good hour or two of game play in the prototype. It will also need some clues to point the player in the right direction to move through what is playable in the first version. This means dialogue, quests, mostly complete back end systems, sound and a part story that can assist the player testing the core functions of the prototype.
Thank you for reading this blog entry into my game development series, once I am able to get to the prototype version I will be looking for testers to test and document their findings to then help with the second prototype so make sure you sign up and register to get notifications for when I do post.
For those that do want to test, I am planning to provide you with a document to complete for the prototype and I would also like to say thank you for your contribution by having you become apart of the game. So you will have your own NPC, Quest line and house which you can design yourself or by giving me some ideas on what you would like.
Until next time.
Take care.
