Discussion about future games

[BobTheMob]

I'm afraid I don't understand, Jack: even as far back as the original tabletop RPGs fights are one of the utmost main staples.

How could one create an RPG w/ so few battles?

(As always, NOT MEANT AS AN ATTACK; I'm simply confused.)

[jack1974]

Since each battle would be a sort of little story, I couldn't have 100 battles. It would be more like a CYOA game, than a "standard CRPG".

[Franka]

Not a great fan of trial and error style combat, though I can see the appeal of being able to do more descriptive writing over just showing abstract numbers.

[jack1974]

Well it wouldn't be something like "win/fail". Think about various rounds of combat, but each round with unique/different texts and consequences based on choices+stats. On each round you can increase/decrease the win score, so you could win (or lose) the battle in different ways
For sure they're not easy to do, and as usual the problem is that I cannot write those scenes myself, so it's harder to find writers who can do such things. But it could be interesting.

[Jaeger]

So it's basically a series of skill/stat checks? Depending on how the whole thing is setup, it could be flexible enough to use in-non combat situations.

BTW, the the link to your latest blog post is broken.

[jack1974]

Well the thing is that it's how the "combat" would work Will be more clear once I have a working example.
What you mean the link is broken? I had an issue with some plugins recently but I see the latest blog post just fine

edit: ah in the homepage, yes I fixed it now. By mistake a post I auto-queued showed up yesterday

[jack1974]

I just finished writing a blog post that will go live in May (I write them in advance and then schedule them, to avoid forgetting), but basically I've learned a lot from those past two years, where I made some "new experiments"
While I consider PSCD a big success on gameplay aspect (the game was fun, the only critiques on that fonrt that it got was from people who remembered the first Planet Stronghold and wanted both the old manga art and RPG gameplay) the other two experiments, QoT and Amber were... less successful
Don't get me wrong, QoT was my best selling game of last year by a wide margin. Amber seems to be doing well too even if it's clearly too early. But I'm 99% sure that's not because of the gameplay it's because most people buy them for the dating sim aspect (and was a good idea to allow a "VN Mode"!).

Anyway for future games I'll stick to the VN/RPG formula that it's already proven to work, without any "gameplay experiments". I mean I'll do experiments but within the RPG rules, where I think I'm much less likely to make mistakes. So doesn't mean all identical games, but simply experiments about RPG gameplay (like the Cursed Lands enemy personalities thing).

And if I decide to do other gameplay experiments definitely will first do the gameplay and not write the story first.

For same reason I'm going to rethink a bit Undead Lily and definitely NOT make that game another "experiment", since I think I've done enough for a while!!

[Palmettogamer14]

Sorry if I'm resurrecting this thread, but recently I began to realize that among all of the games where you play a god, well, there aren't that many where you play a god (except the Dominions series) and get to decide on things like how your faith works, who worships you, or doctrines or anything like that.

Now, while I know that a strategy game would take a lot of work, tears, sweat, and blood (but mostly tears, work, and sweat), I feel that maybe a dating sim/strategy RPG game would be possible for someone like Jack (yeah I mean you, Jack!). You could have it set up where the previous head deity (we could choose our relationship with said head deity) has passed away, and now a new deity has to take over. Of course, between you and that lofty goal are a bunch of other deities! Maybe you have to fight your rivals with weapons, magic, minions, faith, diplomacy, etc. and maybe along the way you could have your chosen deity fall in love with a mortal or another deity (or like Zeus, you could have multiple lovers! If you wanted take that route that is).

I feel that for the main character we could design our deities to look like Anubis, or Hermes, or Ares, or Thor or Inari (the Japanese fox kami) or even make our deity look angelic or demonic (if we wanted to play the evil dark god/goddess) or a nature deity that looks like a wolf or a tree or an elf!

And then we could decide on what we have power over which would decide our choices of starting spells, abilities, powers, and weapons. And then we could pick who would worship us: dwarves, elves, humans, beastfolk, centaurs, orcs, merfolk, dragon-like humanoids, etc.

I think this would be a cool idea for Jack to think about.

[jack1974]

The main problem in those games is the enemy/computer AI, even Civ cheated (at least in the early versions) to provide a fair balance.
Though something could be done differently, without a map, just text+strategy, like the recent Kitfox game "Shrouded Isles". Maybe adding combat.
Not sure yet but there are various possibilities. The main thing of those games, and something I discovered while doing Amber, is that I must do the coding and writing at same time. I can't use an external writer, otherwise the writing would surely feel "disconnected" from the gameplay.
So I need to find the time myself to write the text that will be edited later in practice
It can be done, but as I replied to someone else in Patreon, I want first to finish the older games like PS2 and Loren 2 in the next years.

[Palmettogamer14]

The main problem in those games is the enemy/computer AI, even Civ cheated (at least in the early versions) to provide a fair balance.
Though something could be done differently, without a map, just text+strategy, like the recent Kitfox game "Shrouded Isles". Maybe adding combat.
Not sure yet but there are various possibilities. The main thing of those games, and something I discovered while doing Amber, is that I must do the coding and writing at same time. I can't use an external writer, otherwise the writing would surely feel "disconnected" from the gameplay.
So I need to find the time myself to write the text that will be edited later in practice
It can be done, but as I replied to someone else in Patreon, I want first to finish the older games like PS2 and Loren 2 in the next years.

That was me you were replying to and it slipped my mind that you had already said that. XP

Still, I never knew that Civ cheated.