A little trick to give the player options

[Arcturus]

Someone may have posted this before, but I looked around and didn't really see anything exactly like this. It's pretty simple. What you do first is have an event that has a Q&A branch. For each branch, you take out a character that you are currently using and replace that character with an exact duplicate of that character, except the duplicate will have different characteristics. These differences can be anything, from stats to elements. And the character doesn't even have to be a duplicate. You can have a graphical change if you change an element, for instance. So each time the player chooses a different option of the Q&A branch, they can get a different element or whatever you made the differences to be. For my game, I had it so each choice gave you a different combat style and a different weapon type.

[tjoris9]

Re: A little trick to give the player options

It sounds like a good idea.

The only downside is that this can take up quite a few character slots.

For changing elemental properties you might want to just do away with weapon and armor shops and just swap out their equipment.

As for stat changes, you can make those fairly easily without changing characters.

Also, if you only really need 4-6 skills per character state, you can swap out the skill set and have 3-4 unique character states.

[Arcturus]

Re: A little trick to give the player options

Well I had this in mind for the main character. That means a maximum of four slots are taken. While you can do this in other ways, it seems to me this way is easier because the other ways would take quite a bit of coding and time. To me, sacrificing four character slots to avoid all of that coding is worth it.

Also I forgot to mention that if you don't do it this way, then you can't switch out abilities, stat growth rates, or make graphical changes to the character. You can, of course, give stats with events, but you can't change the rate at which they grow.

I just thought about it some more, and you could have more than 4 choices if you wanted to give up more character slots. You could just have the options handed out by multiple characters instead of using a Q&A branch.

Personally, I really like games that allow for customization by the player. It gives games the feeling of nonlinearity.

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: A little trick to give the player options

Well, it's not really nonlinearity if the quest is still a straight path (optional subquests that have no bearing on the main quest aside). It's just regular customization.

[Arcturus]

Re: A little trick to give the player options

Well, I was trying to say that it gives the sense of nonlinearity. I didn't necessarily say that it was nonlinear, I just said that it gave the feeling of nonlinearity. That being said, I do intend on making the story of my game nonlinear.

[Crythania]

Re: A little trick to give the player options

The word you're looking for is "versatile". It provides versatility, as in the player has to make choices instead of being spoonfed a set of premade characters. It'll make for a more versatile game. Because it's versatile, the player can play through it in different ways.

[Arcturus]

Re: A little trick to give the player options

While the word "nonlinearity" works to a degree, I do believe "versatility" is better suited for this situation. So thank you correcting me. I would have done the same.

[MagusMartovich]

Re: A little trick to give the player options

I still agree, and I don't really care what word is used! BEing able to "customize" anything (even naming characters whatever you want) makes a game that much better to play. I really enjoy the Diablo games for this reason.

On the other hand, I need all 100 of my character slots for every game I'll ever make, so your idea is not good. Joking: the idea is really good and I truly don't understand why you can't make a great/epic/whatever game with only 75, 50 or even 5 characters! Technically, you only need four, and that's only if you want a full team to be able to be assembled by the player!

One character can be used (as shops/inns/events can still exist w/o using character slots) for a Dragon Warrior or Legend of Zelda type game... Plenty of RPG(-esque) games only have one character and that doesn't make them any less fun/playable/beatable than games with unlimited character choices...

[Arcturus]

Re: A little trick to give the player options

When I said the four character thing, I was talking about making it so the player can choose his/her element/abilities/powers. So in the game it would look like only one character after your done, but to program it you would need to use the same amount of character slots as you would options. You could do this for every character in your party, but it would take up quite a few character slots. But anyway thanks for your post MagusMartovich.