NAG Online Forums - Game.Dev

Enemy Resistances in RPG games query

BlackShipsFillt — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 00:37:46 GMT

I've got a question, I'm posting it up here because we had a discussion about it at Tasty Poison and no consensus was found, so I'm looking for other opinions (This is for Pocket RPG).

Most RPG's, especially Diablo-likes have elemental damages that can be added to other normal damage that a weapon deals, or spells that deal purely elemental damage. It follows then that enemies will interact with these damages, by being resistant or susceptible to different elemental damages.

What I'm trying to work out is the effect of these resistances on gameplay. Here is my thought experiment:

Coming across a enemy that is susceptible to fire when you have a fire sword spell is pretty cool. It rewards the player's choice in that item. I think anyone may enjoy this, provided it doesn't make the game too easy.

Coming across a demon, who is resistant to your fire sword, is a different matter, it could play out in several ways depending on how the game is designed and the player's temperament :

a) The player knows about the demon beforehand and has a backup item. This scenario occurs if the player has thought ahead and understands the game enough to play it. It also comes as a result of more pack management and it also means that some of the better items or spells in the game are only conditionally good, or otherwise the items in the game rely on elemental damage less. This scenario also requires the player to stop fighting and muck around in his/her inventory which slows down the game. When the player has had the foresight to keep a backup the player is rewarded with success.

d) The player fights the demon and uses something on the level to win. I know Dragon Age has shrines in heavy elemental resistant areas that allow players to change their elemental damage to suit their enemies. This could result in some interesting puzzles... though these same puzzles could happen just as easily without the presence of resistances... eg. a totem keeps respawning enemies and the player must destroy it first. This rewards some on the spot problem solving on the player's part.

b) The player fights the demon, it a tougher battle, but the player beats it. This is acceptable to players, especially if they have forewarning about there being fire resistant enemies. It does up the difficulty, however it is not actually more fun than fighting a demon without the disadvantage.

c) The player cannot fight the demon and has to return to town to purchase an item. This really punishes the player's poor judgement. This doesn't feel too bad if there was forewarning about the presence of resistant enemies, however neither is it fun in itself.

Resistances are part of the RPG and are part of the flavour of some enemies. A fire elemental cannot take as much damage from a fireball, it would seem silly. Also strategising and choosing of equipment is part of an RPG, but resistances are just one part of this.

Personally I would much rather abuse knock-back or stun or area damage or criticals than try choose an item with elemental damage that suits the area, especially if the game is short and linear (which in this case it is) and therefore choosing a spell or item stops being a meaningful choice (because you have to choose the one that suits the next area)...

In a long RPG resistances can be dealt with well, for every item you equip you reject dozens of others and the player has control over the area that he/she goes to next... however in a short game where the player does not get to choose his or her opponents I feel that having too much resistances either encourage a feeling of powerlessness or creates prescriptive play. While players may enjoy finding the right weapon for the task the first time successive plays will have exactly the same puzzle (and identical puzzles are inherently not good for replayability).

One solution I guess is to have resistances, but then in each area only offer the items that are useful against the monsters of that level. That way the player only has to choose between meaningful choices and the monsters keep their flavour (and the players feel they are making the right choice, which is nice for them).

I know people like resistances in RPGs, and that in itself is a good reason to include them, however in a short linear game where replayability is key I feel that they are problematic and should be used sparingly.

Eternally Us - A Really Deep Game

AndrewJ — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:20:45 GMT

Adventure Lantern review of Eternally Us, reviewed by Rob Hamilton.

This game deals with death, loss and grief. It looks really deep. I'm busy downloading it now...

NEVER: Vector Vacuum

edg3 — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 20:57:28 GMT

Well, I'll be using pygame for this "competition", also a big thanks to dislekcia and Aequitas from QCF for lending me some lovely cake and a look at their code for their random ship generation of complete awesome!

Without further ado, I will have to share with you Vector Vacuum!

What is it?
The shmup I never got around to getting anywhere with, I aim to make all the art in game procedurally generated (thanks to dis and aeq for the code sample to get an idea of where to start). Essentially I hope to evolve this into a tribute to Spacehack (still waiting for this to be sold on XBL so I can buy it).

How will it incorporate the theme?
There will be a global score, to allow players to drop in or out of the game and play together. When the game isnt being played by a human it will go into "autopilot" mode where a ship will be automatically piloted but that doesnt add to total score.

For a player to "drop in" they simply have to click the left mouse button, for them to drop out they must just die (then a new ship spawns and the next player "drops in" or the current player can continue), there will be "milestones" to reach, when you reach a milestone your score will be added to the total, if you die your current score will be subtracted from the total. At the milestones I hope to let you choose new weapons, etc, and the total game score will determine what weapons will be available to you.

Auto-pilot mode will never add to or subtract from score, but at "milestones" will randomly select a different weapon that you have access to to use.

v0.1 - Ship generation testing
Space bar = new ship.
Arrow keys = movement.
~4.2mb zip, v0.1

v0.2 - first playable (no scoring yet)
Spacebar = respawn/stop ai playing (when the game pauses it is waiting for the "next player", use spacebar to respawn. the ai will shoot, but nothing else at this point in time)
Arrow keys - move around
Note: you have 10 health, so you can take 10 bullet hits before you die.
~4,2mb zip, v0.2

Creative Processes

FuzzYspo0N — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:57:13 GMT

From lost garden, it rocks.

http://www.lostgarden.com/2010/08/vi...e-process.html

Quote:

The single most common flaw during the brainstorming period is that creators do not build enough testable experiments. This mistake comes in a variety of flavors.

The creator already knows what needs to be done
Experimentation is considered expensive
The original idea is brittle

September Experimental Gameplay theme: Neverending

dislekcia — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:03:56 GMT

http://experimentalgameplay.com/blog...g-in-september

Quote:

You have seven days out of the month of September to build a game that is �NEVERENDING�. Can you build a game that is infinitely playable, and always crowd pleasing?

There is a special reward this month for the best, most infinite games: The winner (or winners, as selected by the fine folks at Babycastles) will get their games displayed as an installation at the brand new Babycastles indie game arcade in Times Square, NYC at a yet to be determined event toward the end of the year.

Remember, your game will be shown in a loud, busy, public space. People will be walking by, their attention will be split between dozens of distractions. Some tips:

1. Look interesting even when not being played. Attract players!
2. Be instantly playable, understandable, intuitive. Assume your game will be left in any possible state, and must always be ready for one player to leave, and another player to pick up some time later.
3. Avoid a title screen, or any menu system at all. (Like Flow.)
4. Use sound, but don�t rely on it for gameplay.

Good luck constructing a NEVERENDING game! See you on the other side.

A nice piece with more information about Babycastles (I would totally hang out there, damn!)
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...,1355640.story

So I have about 5 ideas that could work for this... Wonder if I can scrounge the time to mess with them.

Where to find a Actionscript programmer?

BlackShipsFillt — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:07:01 GMT

I've got two questions... one game.dev related, and another that I apologise for in advance.

At some point in the future I want to revive Black Ships Fill the Sky... and I think it would be useful marketing to create a Flash version of it (to complement a monetized iPhone version)... I no longer feel like making it in Flash myself, so want to find someone who can port the game over.

I really don't know where actionscript programmers hang out, any pointers would be appreciated.

The other question is: Is there an actionscript programmer who needs some work who can help out my friend who urgently needs help in exchange for money? (*sorry*)

But seriously, Flash is a reasonable platform to make games in, and good free Flash games do sometimes make a lot of money if they become popular and get ported... I'm surprised to see so little Flash in the South African game development community.

Batch file help :)

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 17:21:21 GMT

Hey all.

Last LAN i was a victim of a rather nasty batch file that restarted me after 20 sec of so. I managed to remove it and now i think its time for some revenge...

So I need to make a batch file that makes a folder in c:\ then creates a folder inside that folder
and so on until the hard drive is full. (evil i know :P)

You ask "why not just google it?" Well i have and i found this code...

@echo off

MD C:\TEMP

{other code}

:END

This works fine for one folder, but i cannot figure out how to make folder after folder after folder. If i loop the code it just over writes it so no point there. The only obvious solution would be to type in the folder as may times as i would like it but this guys packing 2TB and i dont think i have to will to copy/paste over and over. Surely there is another way?

Feedback for my First Game

Sharky — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 18:51:10 GMT

Hi, for my Final Matric project this year I decided to make a game (13MB, exe, rar), and would like some constructive criticism on it.

This was made using only Delphi 7. My idea was to create a simple RPG, much like Final Fantasy (the very first one), but much more basic. All graphics are downloaded. It obviously lacks polish, due to time pressure and the fact that that is not what we are assessed on.

Could you please give some feedback, as I would like to know if it has potential that I could build it on.

Note to any future Matrics: Do not try to do this! It is 10 times as difficult as you think it will be (this is over 2000 lines of code), save yourself the pain and do a cool database.

Ishiwatari is South African!!

BlackShipsFillt — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 11:20:29 GMT

This guy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisuke_Ishiwatari (creator of Guilty Gear) was born in South Africa!

Of course it's extremely unlikely that he was raised and trained here, but it does make South Africa slightly more awesome.

(this was news to me, it's probably well known)

Project I'm working on

xyber — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:29:06 GMT

Thought I'd post some screenshots from the project I am working on.
I'll update this post with more info closer to release date, which should be in September sometime.

"dungeon" is just a working title, will probably change. It is a turn based multiplayer dungeon crawler where 4 players must make their way through the dungeon while a 5th, who is controlling the dungeon and monsters, try to stop them.

Indie devs vs. AAA devs

Kensei — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:38:26 GMT

Since my post in the main Gaming Discussion was a complete failure (no one replied :( ) I am reposting it here since it is relevant to you guys who are involved in the gaming industry

I came across this video (while catching up on my weekly Zero Punctuation) and the speaker makes some incredibly good ideas about Innovation and how, in order to support innovation, we need to bridge the gap between Indie and AAA Game developers

Extra Credits: Innovation

The Harvest

Fengol — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:14:02 GMT

At Luma Arcade one of the titles we're working on is The Harvest on the Windows Phone 7, which has been finally shown at GamesCon in Germany and I can share with you!

Gametrailers has 2 videos of a play through http://www.gametrailers.com/game/the-harvest/13714 The Harvest is a futuristic hack 'n slash adventure set during an alien invasion on earth.

Unfortunately I can't talk about release dates, prices or the availability of the phones yet.

The game is built in XNA and is full 3D (we are fortunate to have some incredible artists) and as the videos show, uses screen touches to navigate and use your special abilities.

StackOverflow For Games

FuzzYspo0N — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 16:53:12 GMT

In case you missed it :

http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/

Great place to learn fast, and find answers.