Episodic content for Series 4

[Perversion]

I'm already thinking about my next game. It will include some of the material contained in this thread (http://www.pavilionboards.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8786), but as of now I'm leaving out the astral projection. I think I'll use that idea for another game. In any case, I plan to make this entry in the Series based on episodic content. This means that I'll release two short, self contained episodes that lead up to the events of the third episode, which will be where the meat of the episodes is located. If you read the thread in the link above, you'll see that I'm going to make it based on two powerful houses, and their links to a thieves' guild and an assassins' guild.

I was just going to make one game as described in the above link, but I feel that I am not really ready to undertake a game of that scale quite yet. I'm actually in the mood to do something fairly short and simple. Therefore, I've decided to make a three episode story arc, with the first two episodes being the rise of the two houses and their initial ties to the guilds, and the third episode pretty much being as described in the above link. The thing that was holding me back from making that game was a lack of ideas in terms of a strong cause and effect relationship between events that would lead to either getting the initial bad ending, and then on second playthrough getting the "good" ending. But I spent a while last night and some time this morning coming up with a storyline based on the stealing/assassination aspects of the game. The games will refer to events that happened in previous games in Series 4, and certain characters will be referenced in all three games. In other words, I plan on making a self-contained world, with events that carry over from one game to the next.

The first two parts should not be that hard or take that long to program, and will hopefully be released in a timely fashion. The third part will take a lot longer to program, and will undoubtedly come out in the distant future. I'm pledging to myself, though, that I'm going to see this thing through, and not start something else between episodes. Hopefully each episode will not last that long (I'm shooting for between 4-7 hours per episode). Seeing as how this is going to be heavily story-based, it's going to be fairly linear, and will not involve a lot of decision-making on the part of the player. Take that as a good or a bad thing, it's the way it will have to be to tell the story I want to tell.

I'm not going to get too heavily involved in releasing details of the story right now, besides that which I already wrote. I want it to be a bit of a surprise when the player plays it for the first time. Suffice it to say, Episode 1 will be one house's rise to power, episode 2 will be the other house's rise to power, and episode 3 will allow the player to play as either a thief or an assassin who affects the balance of power between the two houses. Ideally, you will play both, and will thus be able to see two different outcomes for the entire Series. So that's it for now...stay tuned for more details which will undoubtedly follow.

[hitogoroshi]

Is Series 4 coming before Series 3 and finally finishing with Series 2?

[Perversion]

Right now, it looks that way....I guess I should not have had numbers in all my game's titles, seeing as how none of them are coming out in numerical order.:lol . Oh, well. This is the game (games) I want to make now, so I'm putting the others on hold for a while. You can't fault a guy for having too many ideas.:) So yeah, I plan to start this Series fairly soon, possibly foregoing the short break I wanted from RPG Maker. We'll see what happens. I really just want to work on a game that has an actual cohesive story, and I don't count the piecemeal storyline in Series 1. I've been too bogged down in the technical aspects of my games (the programming), and giving story short shrift. For once, I want to go into making a game with a clearly thought-out story, and program around that.

I hope people do not get too confused by the order of my games. I might get around to making Series 2 and 3 sometime, but for now, I'm sticking with this one.


Oh, and the subtitle of Series 4 is A Dark Day Dawns. I'm planning on using the Series 4 title for all three episodes, because I don't want each episode to be counted as another Series, as they are all part of the same story. That is all.

[hitogoroshi]

You should just call them all Series Infinity: (subtitle). Sounds official enough.

[irate giraffe]

Perv, this is exactly what I am planning for my next game. I think that once I upload my first game, Duder..., which is more of a fun run through I made to learn about the software and all, I am going to take a break to write out my story (or a good portion of it) before hand. Yours sounds interesting--with the thief/assasin thing and all. I was thinking I want to incorporate a lot of religious notions into mine--you pick which religion to join and the story dances around that. Then, because of the way things turn out, you want to play again as a different religion.

Anyways, like I said I think I'm gonna sit down, not looking at RPGM3, and write out a lot of the story before hand. Is this your plan? Or will you just write it as you go? I'd be too afraid of the story falling flat half-way through to write it on the go, myself. Hope things go well. I am still enjoying A Series Aside. And I haven't even had time to start Series 1, yet.

[Perversion]

It's funny, because when I'm thinking of story ideas for my game, I'll sometimes turn on RPG Maker 3 and just look at the screen while I think. For some reason, having the game on gives me inspiration. To answer your question, though, I have a basic framework in mind with how the story will progress, but I'm going to add in the little details as I go. And who knows, it may turn out to be something unlike what I was expecting by the time I'm done.

[Chuck]

Maybe instead of Series Infinity it should be Series: Out of Order :lol

J/K sounds like another great game idea. I like the idea of it being in episodes. It means you can make a game that wouldn't fit into one game file with RM3's memory limits.

[Perversion]

Here are some pictures from episode 1...http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n304/incrediblehewoman/1-1-2004-81.jpg
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n304/incrediblehewoman/1-1-2004-82.jpg
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n304/incrediblehewoman/1-1-2004-83.jpg
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n304/incrediblehewoman/1-1-2004-84.jpg
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n304/incrediblehewoman/1-1-2004-86.jpg
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n304/incrediblehewoman/1-1-2004-87.jpg
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n304/incrediblehewoman/1-1-2004-88.jpg

[hitogoroshi]

How were those taken?

[Perversion]

Very carefully...





Actually, my DVD camcorder has an SD card slot, and a plug in the front that will allow you to input a video signal into the camcorder. I took still shots of screens from my game and saved them to the SD card. Then I went to Walgreens, put my SD card in their little machine, transferred all my pics to CD, went to the computer lab, put the RPGM pics in Photobucket, and...voila! Here they are now.

[Perversion]

Okay, so this game is not going to be as simple as I first envisioned. Leave it to me to complicate everything.:)

Originally, I was going to make Episode 1 without any battles at all, just short quests you needed to go on. Then, for one of the quests, I decided that to get the body part from a monster, you should be able to fight the monster instead of just writing a message that a monster appeared, and you got the body part. So now there are going to be fixed (no random) battles. At the beginning of the game, you will go to a "hero stone" in the castle that allows you to spend points on your stats. In other words, you can customize your character the way you see fit. But I didn't really have too many other battles in mind for the game. So I figured, after having made this elaborate system of adjusting your stats, why not incorporate Series 2's idea of arena battles into this game (seeing as how I'm not sure if Series 2 will ever be finished). So that's what I'm going to do. The levelling up system will be unique as well. After each battle, you will get a set amount of "stat points," which you can then go back to the first castle and spend on your stats. After your stats go up a fixed amount, you will level up, giving you more HP and MP (but not stat increases; those you will raise directly through the "stat points") and your choice of a variety of skills/spells. In this manner, I'm allowing you to customize your character however you want.

As of right now, the main character will be the only one in the party, and in the arenas will have one on one or one on two battles. As for the flow of the game, as of right now, you will need to talk to all the town mayors (probably 4 or 5 towns) to get them to go along with you. Before each mayor agrees, though, you will have to do something for him. One of these mayors wants you to prove your worth at the arenas, thus setting up the arena battling. As you are fighting at the arenas and fulfilling the other mayors' quests, you will also need to recruit members for a thieves' guild, and most of these potential members will have quests for you as well.

So something simple once again turns into something complicated. This is how the mind of Perversion works. Start out with something simple and easy, and through all of my thinking, turn it into a really complicated, labor-intensive game. Well, at least it'll probably turn out to be more interesting than my initial idea with no battles at all...

[Perversion]

I worked on this for a few hours last night. Although some of you might not want to hear this, there is one area with a quest inside of a quest inside of a quest, meaning in order to get the first mayor to go along with your plan, you need to fulfill a quest. Part of that quest involves another quest giver, and in order to fulfill all the requirements of her quest, you will need to talk to someone else, who gives you another quest. This game apparently is going to be loaded with quests, as each mayor will require you to do something for them, as will every potential member of the thieves' guild.

If I've not mentioned it already (which, by scrolling down and seeing my previous comments, I can see that I have not), there is one place in the game right toward the beginning that will have an (almost) identical storyteller for both episodes 1 and 2. In fact, I think that the easiest way to have some continuity between all three games is to start out with the same save file for all three games, and just delete that which I do not need. That way, I can be sure that things are in the right place in the towns, and I can just adjust the aforementioned storyteller to episode 2 instead of writing the whole thing down on a piece of paper and then retyping it in again. So far, I've set up two places where battles happen (once again, not random), and outlined a good portion of the quests that need to occur in the first town. There will even be a few puzzles (albeit of the trial-and-error variety) that go along with the gathering of items that you need to accomplish for one of the quests. I hope to work some more on this tomorrow, as I finally have a day off of work. Ideally, the first town and all its associated quests will be done being programmed in either by tomorrow or early next week.

Programming the quests will not be the hard part. Balancing the arena battles I think will be the labor-intensive part, as I have no clue how the player will build up his character. Let's say a character builds his character by focusing on STR and DEF. I want to make sure that every battle is winnable, but not too easy, so I will also have to playtest the same battle with a character that is focused on magic, with the same thought (not too easy but winnable), as well as a character with all the stats fairly equal. I can already see this as being a massive headache, which is part of the reason I gave up on Series 2. That game was supposed to contain 40 arena battles. In Series 4, there will most likely be 20 or 24 (4 for each town, with 4 or 5 towns where you need to talk to the mayors, and the starting town) arena battles, which, to me, sounds like not enough given the elaborate system of gaining levels that I've incorporated. But I do not think I can come up with quests for more mayors than 4 or 5. I could make 6-10 towns, but I'm not sure what I would use for all those quests. As it stands, I'm not sure what the quests are going to be for two of the towns (assuming there are 5 of them). Three of the mayors' quests are already worked out (the first town, as described above, a mayor who wants you to participate in the arena battles, and another one which I'm not going to discuss fully right now. Let's just say that it contains one of the events that crosses over between episode 1 and 2-a quest in episode 2 results in something happening in episode 1, and your reaction to this action will manifest itself in episode 2).

That's the update for now. Thanks to everyone who is keeping up with my progress and for your continued support.

[Perversion]

I've set aside working on the game proper to indulge in making something else. It's still part of Series 4, so I'm not giving up on the thing entirely, but I wanted to expound a bit on the backstory of the main characters in episode 1 and episode 2 with some detail that will not fit neatly within the confines of the game proper. So I'm making a teaser of sorts for episode 1. It'll all take place within one town, and the characters in the town will also be carried over to the main game. Ideally, this should take about an hour or so to play. Phoenix's demo kind of inspired me to do this, because even though his game was not 100% fleshed out or developed completely, I still had a lot of fun playing it. So I began thinking, sometimes playing a game that only takes you a short time to play can be fulfilling. And it solves my problem of introducing the back story elements. The only downside is that even though I plan to have this able to be played within an hour or so, it will still take up a full data file. On the bright side, after you play it once, you can delete it, because I'm not hiding anything you need to play through multiple times to get.

The other plus to it is that after you play the game, you will be given a code to write down. In episode 1, it'll prompt you for that code. If you input it correctly, you will be given a spell and/or items that you would not normally start the game with, as well as having a few of the characters say different things to you based on the fact that you played the teaser. I hope doing this is an incentive for people to play it.

Also, as I mentioned at the beginning of the thread, I wanted to make something fairly simple. As it turns out, episode 1 is not going to be that simple game. So the teaser will work quite well at being able to get something of substance out fairly quickly. Depending on what happens with my moving and all, I hope to have the teaser out before Christmas, and episode 1 out around March or April. My only hope is that I'm not spreading myself too thin by doing this, or that due to a quick flurry of releases (A Series Aside, followed quickly by the trailer), people will begin to lose interest. *shrugs* Regardless, I'm going to do it anyway. That's the update for now.

[hitogoroshi]

How'd I miss all this?!
Umm...too much to reply too, but I may try out your short-demo thingy (the "may" being that it takes a good hour to shift crap around to fit an RPGM3 onto a card, and I still have A Series Aside eating up memory. I need to finish that.)

[Perversion]

Yeah, as Hito said, I'm going to release this as a demo, as it is going to be quite short. However, it's not going to be a demo in the traditional sense of the word, because none of the material contained in it (with the exception of there being the same characters and buildings) will be in the game proper. This is why I'm referring to it as a teaser, not a demo. Also, there is going to be one short side quest in the game that I'm bringing over (but programmed a bit differently) from the first game that I worked on, which is unreleased. After making this little side quest in my first game, I came to understand a bit more of what the software was able to do, and how to make intricate quests and the like. Making this quest initially inspired me to set aside that "learning experience" game, and begin making Series 1, where I could make quests that were just as intricate, but were involved in the main story line, not as a one-off side quest. So this quest, to make a long story a bit longer, is an homage to the first quest I ever made in RPG Maker 3, in a game I have no plans of releasing as of right now. I might eventually polish it up and release it as a demo, but right now, that's not high on the list of priorities. So there you have it.

[Phoenix]

Sorry i haven't been able to reply Perv, I feel as though I've neglected this forum. It sounds very good though, and I agree with the episodic content, I'm doing the same in my game. It works wel lfor games that are long and go beyond the RPGM3 limits.

[Chuck]

or that due to a quick flurry of releases (A Series Aside, followed quickly by the trailer), people will begin to lose interest.
You don't have to worry about that, your games are all good and more importantly unique. It's not the same thing over and over so there's no reason for anyone to lose interest.

[Perversion]

Thanks for the kind words...I'm going to try to rapidly get this thread to go to the second page, so Pagerron, who's using dial-up, does not have to wait for the pictures to load every time he wants to see an update in this forum. I'm thinking of you, buddy!

[hitogoroshi]

Thaks for the kind words...I'm going to try to rapidly get this thread to go to the second page

Your games remind me of pork.

[Perversion]

I think you are insinuating that my posts (not my games) are :spam ...of course, I could be mistaken. I do not know if it's a good thing to have my games referred to as pork, but in my estimation, it's not. Please explain yourself, sir, for you confuse me.

[hitogoroshi]

I thought the quote made it obvious...I'm just making stuff up to get to page 2.

[DYRE]

You succeeded, Hito.

[Pagerron]

I've been enjoying reading through this thread. A game with three "episodes" does seem like it would be a good idea for what you're trying to do, Perversion. The one thing, though, is that if the player got started, it would take some real commitment to see the whole story through, but...cool. The fact that you're trying to keep each story self-contained helps a lot.

Oh, and thanks guys for trying to get this to the second page. LOL. Thanks for looking out for me, Perversion. My computer isn't that slow, just when the Antivirus program is updating itself.

[Perversion]

I've not worked on this for more than a week. I've just been lazy, and have been watching my new Seinfeld Season 7 DVD box set and my new Nightmares and Dreamscapes DVD box set. That, mixed with going to work, and Thanksgiving, have effectively put my game on hold for this past week. I think I might need to delete some stuff out of my teaser, as sometimes when I playtest it, there is a good amount of slowdown. I could see this as being pretty annoying when playing it, so I'll have to fix that soon. I'm not sure how I want to do it yet, but I'm thinking of incorporating some ideas from Shenmue into how I lay out the dialogue in the teaser, and in one area of the game proper. Either this, or I might make it how you can "unlock" new dialogue options after talking to someone about a particular subject ala Morrowind. I'm not sure yet. I know I want to do something with the dialogue that will make it like a puzzle you have to solve (ie-talk to people in a particular order) in order to get the special items that will carry over to the game proper. That's the update for now. Hopefully next time I'll be able to post a more substantial update.

[Perversion]

I started working on one of the "dialogue puzzles" yesterday, and I have three people completed. What I did is, when you talk to someone about a certain subject (there is more than one subject to talk with each person about), sometimes, a word or a phrase is capitalized (unfortunately, there is not boldface or italics in RPGM3). This means that you have unlocked that word or phrase as a subject of conversation, either with the same person or with someone else in town.

For the first "dialogue puzzle," someone gives you an item. If you talk to person A about a certain subject, it will unlock a new topic of conversation with the same person. In this new dialogue option, he prompts you to read a book on the history of Hellenica (the land you are in). When you read the book, you notice a mention of the item that the first person gave you, and notice that it relates to person A. So if you go back to person A, the item is now opened up as a topic of conversation. You then essentially give him the item, which opens a new dialogue option for person B. You talk to person B about this new dialogue option, and it opens up a dialogue option for person C. Then you have to do a (very small) quest for person C, and she gives you an item that will carry over (through a code you get at the end of the teaser) to the game proper.

These dialogue branches you open up actually have to do with the background of the family of the main character in episode 2, and also are related to one of the quests you have to go on in episode 1. As a matter of fact, the "small quest" mentioned above will actually be part of an event that carries over to the teaser of episode 2, and actually begins the whole storyline/conflict that occurs in episode 2. So even though this teaser is ostensibly introducing the storyline of epsiode 1, it is actually pertinent to what happens throughout the entirety of Series 4. The more I think about what I want to do storywise with these games, the more ideas keep coming to me to tie them all together. Also, as mentioned above, there will be a book you can read in the teaser that will give some background on the nation of Hellenica. So although it is not necessary to play this teaser before playing the rest of the Series, it does help to flesh out the story quite a bit.

I still need to make two more "dialogue puzzles" for each of two items, of which you are able to receive one in a playthrough. There is a point in time in which you need to make a decision in the game, and depending on what you decide, you will receive one of two items. Each of these items will unlock a "dialogue puzzle" of two people you need to find and at the end will receive another item to carry over to the main game. So in essence, by completing the teaser, you will have two extra items to begin the main game with. I did this so there was an incentive to play the teaser before the main game. Although, by adding pertinent pieces of the story to the teaser, this should be incentive enough to undertake playing it. As mentioned before, depending on how long it takes the player to talk to the people to unlock the "dialogue puzzles," it should take no longer than an hour or two to complete this teaser. I think there is something to be said for playing a short game and being able to finish it in one sitting. I think it gives the player a feeling of accomplishment that he or she completed an entire game in a few hours time. And now, I'm just rambling on, so I will end my post here. Until the next update....

[JPS]

wow....in-depth for sure, itll be interesting to play:lol

[Perversion]

As of today, the teaser is now posted at both the mag and the Pavilion. Hope to hear your thoughts on it in my other thread soon.

[Perversion]

I've kind of hit a brick wall creatively with this game. If I continue to work on it as I have been, it'll just be a bunch of unrelated quests (albeit with some that tie into the next game in the series). So I'm trying to come up with a better motivation for the main character, and flesh his backstory out a bit. As it is right now, the main character of the first game is kinda a cardboard cutout. Watching seasons 1 and 2 of Lost and season 5 of 24 recently on DVD really inspired me to try to develop my character a bit more than he is. And unfortunately, as I mentioned already, I'm coming up with writer's block on this. I'm going to try to come up with something next week that might serve to hold a player's interest a bit more.

Also, I'm still toying with the idea of making the game have a "commentary track," but this is still pretty nebulous. The computer lab does not open again until the 17th, so that's why I've not been posting here much lately. I just wanted to give everyone who cares about the status of this project a heads-up with what's going on.

[irate giraffe]

Good to see you're still kickin'!

I know what you mean about writer's block. I've been having the same problem. I created all my fields and everything, so it's story time, and man is it taking me time to figure it out. I hope you get past it and the creativity starts pumping. You can never develop a character too much, well maybe you can, but it sure would be cool to see, as I enjoy games with good stories more than anything else. So, take your time and I'm sure you'll get past the block.

The commentary track sounds cool, but you should wait and make sure you have enough memory for it before worrying about that. Just focus on the game right now.

[Perversion]

For those of you who do not frequent the mag, I've cut and pasted a post I made in the Development Studio discussion forum below. Some of the info is a bit redundant to what I've been posting here in this thread, but there are a few new tidbits that those keeping up with my progress might be interested in....


I plan to make, over the next few years or so, a 4 episode game under the name Series 4: A Dark Day Dawns. Each game will (hopefully) be completely different from the next.

The teaser for Episode 1 consists of talking to people in one town, and solving little "dialogue puzzles," as I call them. Eventually, you will get one spell and one of two items which you will then start Episode 1 proper with.

Episode 1 will be made on the premise of doing little quests for people and fighting in (non-random) arena battles.

The teaser for Episode 2 MIGHT be a long cutscene.

Episode 2 will most likely be an adventure type game with no battling.

Episode 3 will not include battles as well, and will use a Run Lola Run style setup.

Episode 0 will rely on placed battles, and will have 10 different character classes available to each party member.

All games will include events that happen in one game and will cross over to another game in the series. As an example of this, in Episode 1, in one of the towns, you are asked to investigate a mysterious death. It turns out the man in question was killed by an assassin. Episode 2, which chronologically runs simultaneously with Episode 1, will see one of the characters hire the assassin to do the job. In other words, there will be a number of events that you will experience in each game that might not make you think about them too much, until the same event happens from a different perspective in one of the other games.

As a matter of fact, an action that you take in the teaser for Episode 1 that, at the time does not seem to be that big of a deal, permanently affects the entire plotline of all the games that follow.

This is what I plan on working on over the next few years. My first few games were created with the thought in mind of trying to do something different with the software. I still want these games to be different and diverse, but the emphasis is going to be on the overaching storyline, and the development of each of the main characters within that storyline.

[Perversion]

Damn...it's been a while since I posted here. I finally hooked up my PS2 after moving, but have yet to load my game in to work on. Having a computer readily available for me to use is just too great an enticement, and is hindering me from working on my game. I'll get back to working on it soon; hopefully within a few weeks' time. I'm really hoping that this sad addiction to browsing the internet will pass fairly soon, that the novelty of having a computer in my home is just a passing fancy. But we'll see.

[Wavelength]

I've always been a fan of putting important words or phrases in [[ these brackets ]] in lieu of bold.

This whole thing sounds very cool. :)

[Perversion]

Geez...has it really been a year since the last post in this thread? 2007 was NOT a productive RPGM year for me. Excepting my garbage games, I've really accomplished nothing, after having released two games and a teaser, plus submitting a demo to the mag for preview, in 2006. Once I begin taking my meds again, and supress my 7 month-and-running manic episode, I should be able to focus my creativity into RPGM again. Hope to have more to post in this thread soon.