AWKWARD ZOMBIE

i set his whole gaddomn world on fire

In looking at the entire topic, it seems that most everyone wants to get in on this game somehow, but just plain being a random enemy encounter doesn't seem to be enough for some.

Here's a solution: why not make it so that the two extra party members that follow the main character are inconsequential to the storyline, thus allowing the player to choose two of whomever s/he wants to accompany them, including forum-submitted characters. (They can join you any number of ways, by either answering a few questions from them as an NPC, completing a quest for the character, or even defeating them in battle.) The catch is, for a person's character to be included as a possible party member, they must provide their own sprites. (Including animations for overworld, battle, etc.) Of course, if important characters become party members, the others are easily interchangeable, and will have their statistics / abilities automatically saved if you remove them from the group.

Secondly, I've come up with a few ideas for the character customization system. (This regards statistics, abilities, and equips.) I've divided them into categories based on what each one corresponds to.

Avatars
This category determines your strengths and weaknesses, if we ever get around to outlining what elements we'll be including in the game. (They will also bear a slight change in the appearance of the character.) Avatars can be either earned or purchased for the main character, and only one may be equipped at a time. Sub-characters (i.e. the inconsequential party members I was speaking of) are only capable of earning them, which I'll explain in the following...

Skills
Separate from your rudimentary "Attack" function, these skills have any number of special effects. The main character can hold a maximum of eight skills at any time. (Sub-characters can hold only four.) Skills are each labeled with an element, and can level-up three times by gaining experience that pertains to that element. (Enemies will have an affinity, and by defeating them, you gain experience from that affinity. For example, by defeating a "Troll"-type enemy, all Troll skills will gain experience.) While skills will only gain experience from certain types of enemies, the main character will always gain experience regardless. (1024 TROLLexp gained! Flamewar leveled up! MC gained 1024 exp!) By maxing out a skill at level 3, you may gain either an Avatar or a Signature as a bonus.

Signatures
These are equippable special properties for characters. They may be purchased, earned, or stolen from enemies (on rare occasions, certain members may have a theif skill.) Only one may be equipped per character, and boast a positive and negative conditional effect. (For example, "oh god i can't stop farting" which boosts Speed when facing Troll-type enemies.)

Title
Only major characters carry this property, which wards off enemy encounters based on the level / affinity of the user.

I'm not quite sure what all of the details are on the battle system, or even if they've been considered, but this is only a suggestion. Take from it what you will.

DREILEX
THAT IS AWESOME
YOU ARE AWESOME

There's nothing wrong with having people be bosses... except that that'd require extra spriting, since bosses can't be just the same as two-attack enemies but tougher. And since most of the people who want to be in can't sprite, it's really putting too much work on the people who can.

Of course, if you can sprite, or persuade someone to, there's no problem with being a boss.

Also, the reason I don't want people to have specific roles because in a game, non-enemy NPCs generally fall in two categories:
1: Major. Which, for as long as we don't have a proper story yet, shoudn't be added just for the sake of because someone wants to.
2: Minor. Which is really not suited for an actual member.


And your members-should-be-choosable-party-allies runs into the problem of that you've got about 20 complete character sprites, fully detailed, that won't be seen at all in a runthrough! Plus, it also means there's not much room for actual forumer personalities that you can get from having the character be more than just an animation.


Nooo we really should not! If you didn't notice, we only have one single set of enemy animations so far! I really don't want this to turn into a case of everyone forming a big, detailed, proper story... and we can't actually make the game because it turns out not enough people actually want to contribute properly. It's far easier to think up of game ideas than actually make them into the game.

So well have a Chrono Cross-like party system, with two interchangable party memebers? I can dig it.

Coming up with a story should go hand in hand with coming up with enemies and developing characters and environments. Game development in stages is never a good idea.

That's the exact opposite of how game development works. Normally, it works as:
1: Concepts, prototypes, and generally making sure you aren't about to blow loads of time and effort on something that won't work. <-You are here.
2: Story and game design.
3: Everything else involved in making the game.
4: Bugtesting.

The reason there's a focus on enemies is because that's the best indication of what people can/will do, and you can't make enemies without enemy ideas.

So, you're implying that it's perfectly fine to have a forumer be a boss, which has a greater impact on the storyline, than an interchangeable party member, which more or less has been done in previous RPGs without any real consequence? I was hoping that the only character that would truly matter is the Main Character and perhaps a few other Major Characters, which I included could be switched in place of the other party members.


I'm not quite understanding what you're getting at here. The sub-characters are meant to be inconsequential to the storyline, as more or less a nice shout-out to the people that were kind enough to contribute to the game. What you're describing here would imply that you couldn't have any party members because being Major would imply storyline (which you NEED for a decent game) and being Minor is apparently inadequate.


Everyone plays a game differently, thus who is noticed and who isn't all depends on play-style. Besides, it adds replay-value to the game if you weren't able to find particular characters you were interested in your first runthrough. Having a completely linear game where you're able to find everything at first glance isn't nearly as exciting as knowing there are secrets you may discover by taking a closer look. Furthermore, plenty of personality can be fit into an animation. Even then, there are also attack names to consider, as well as other details that could convey individuality.

Actually, I'm sorta ambiguous about your forumers-as-party-members suggestion. In that I wasn't expecting it to be this popular.


What the heck RPGs have you been playing?


Well yes, I did say that they shouldn't be party members until we make a story.

ill do some spriting but i dont have any time right now so ill start doing some proper ones on the weekend

It looks like you guys are actually going through with this.

I'd like to help out with concept art and I can try a hand at spriting. I never made sprites before but maybe some of the spriters on here can help out.

ask Pale or something
hes like our head spriter since hes actually good at it

I could probably hhelp with Concept art to, once I find an SD card.
Other han that, I might try spriting.

If you want the character sprites to be used, you just have to put them all into the game, and take out the ones that are in the main character's party, assuming you don't want the option to switch out secondary party members (which also solves the problem of unused sprites).

As for your second issue with the recommended system, look at the Final Fantasy games. Your party members get unique dialogue depending on who and where they are. If done right, they react to situations that affect to them directly, while other characters would stay silent in the same situations. Most of the significant character development is done in separate story arcs, which tend to force the specific character into your party until the arc runs its course. The biggest problem I can see here is that every character would need one of these, so they would either be too short to enjoy, or too long to fit into the game.

I'm into a bit of spriting, but I won't have much time between this and other projects. I do love drawing up concept art, though.