Game system ideas?

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monele
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Game system ideas?

#1 Post by monele »

I was just wondering if there were makers out there who had ideas for frameworks and wether they were planning to make them come true or put them aside for lack of Ren'Py understanding.
I guess I won't limit this so frameworks without an associated game counts too ^^.

EDIT : Changed "frameworks" to "game system" in the title as it seems frameworks is a bit vague... Though game system might be too ^^;... Help!
Last edited by monele on Sat Aug 25, 2007 3:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Frameworks ideas?

#2 Post by papillon »

... what are frameworks?

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Re: Frameworks ideas?

#3 Post by Alessio »

You mean engines, GUIs and the like? I have one on hold until I finish Cyberlin. But then I'll start my Fantasy VN which, hopefully, will also contain (simple) 1st-view dungeons that can be explored à la Dungeon Master. The logic is actually fairly simple, I released a game for Atari ST in 1993 which did just that.
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Re: Frameworks ideas?

#4 Post by DrakeNavarone »

I was working on an RPG one... even though there already are a few buried somewhere in the forums. The only thing I really have for it though is the battle menu. Still, I thought it was neat... Hoverable/Selectable status windows, turn order bar, description window, "dynamic" menus... I even managed to change the functionality of the right mouse button to cancel a choice instead of bringing you to the save screen... But I've been putting other things first lately, so I haven't been working on it more... And I'm not sure if I'm allowed to share... you'd have to ask "the boss" for that...
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Re: Frameworks ideas?

#5 Post by monele »

I thought frameworks had been discussed enough for a definition not to be necessary but I guess it's still needed ^^. A framework, here, would be a game system with a base concept. You should be able to change some rules and, most importantly, its content. Good examples are the various battle engines that were posted on the forums and maybe Magical Boutique's system. The DSE is also a framework since it adds a day planning system.

Drake : changed the right click ? Cool ^_^. I happened to wish for such a thing for multi-level menus and such :)

Alessio : Actually I realize I'm curious about anything that makes a VN... not *just* a VN :). Wether it's about a battle system, an exploration system, stats system...

papillon : the mini-games in your next game fit what I'm curious about but we probably can't call them frameworks unless they're reused multiple times during the game.


A lot of people want to have a RPG system in Ren'Py but would probably be better off with an actual RPG maker... BUT... I'm pretty sure there are people who want their game to be mostly a VN yet have some mini-gameish systems.

I'd say there are two ways of adding non-VN content to a VN : occasional mini-games and constant interfaces.
The mini-games are self-contained and, in Ren'Py, will probably use the new minigame system more and more.
Constant interfaces *are* the main part of the game, with VN scenes added to tell the story.

Mini-games : Elven Relations (battles)
Constant interfaces : Magical Boutique

Morning Star is a bit harder to classify... The battles could be considered "mini-games" but the study-choosing is there often enough to be considered a constant interface.

Eh... it's not totally clear in my mind I guess ^^;

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Re: Frameworks ideas?

#6 Post by rocket »

Actually papillion advertised two systems in her game which I think would be great frameworks (but I wasn't clear if that game was written in Ren'Py):

The first was the auto-save system. In that case it was used right before every mini-game, but I could see it also being used right before any choice point. Very handy. The author wold basically insert various auto save points into the script as a convenience and courtesy to the player.

The second was the "already taken choice highlighting system". This would show players which choices they had already taken on previous plays to aid in replays getting full completion. Also very nice, though not appropriate for every game (for instance in my current game Starlight each choice individually is not that significant to the few outcomes, so encouraging playing through every choice permutation would actually be a little tedious).

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Re: Frameworks ideas?

#7 Post by monele »

Mmm... you're referring to engine features here ^^. The frameworks I'm thinking of are about game content.

In any case, I know auto-saving was mentioned at some point but it wasn't a good idea because of saving duration... But I think things changed some time ago so it might be worth asking again.
As for showing already-taken choices, it's already in. There's a style for these choices, try to look at the wiki/doc ^.^

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Re: Game system ideas?

#8 Post by Ren »

When I first saw this post I thought a Jankenpon framework would have been cool...but I saw they put it in XChange2T^T
I like repetitive games, i could go on playing Pong for hours, same goes for Tetris, if anyone made a game with it in it I'd probably play it 24/7!

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Re: Frameworks ideas?

#9 Post by Scout »

My secret unannounced project involves space combat-- think Star Control II style, not Soft Landing. But the technically less interesting but way more important from a design perspective is that it'll also include a "world map."

I'm way more interesting in the latter because a lot of work has already been done on visual novels with minigames-- which, at the end of the day, is what an interlude into any combat is. The idea of a world map, I don't think still quite qualifies for your "constant interface" idea, since you really shouldn't be spending a whole lot of time on it, but it will need to feel like travelling is the highest level of the game. Then from there, you can either get into a fight, or switch to a written scene, etc. And furthermore, it means I have to structure the game around that, which I am not quite sure how to do yet since I don't think it's been done yet, unfortunately.

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Re: Game system ideas?

#10 Post by papillon »

(I am auto-saving at choice points as well - and no, I'm not using RenPy. Which is why I sometimes get confused if discussions wander in here out of the RenPy forum, which I'm not always reading. :) )

Almost all of my challenges are intentionally different, the only thing that comes up multiple times is the 'search the room' puzzle where you click on different parts of the picture and get text describing what each object is. mostly present as an homage to older adventure games. :)

(Isn't clicking-on-parts-of-a-picture something people have kept asking about for navigation map purposes in renpy?)

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Re: Game system ideas?

#11 Post by PyTom »

I'll point out that auto-saving was added to Ren'Py a few releases ago. IIRC, autosaving occurs about once every 100-200 screens of text or so, regardless of if there's a choice or not... this makes it reasonable to use for kinetic novels.
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Re: Game system ideas?

#12 Post by monele »

I did post this here because I thought "it's a general problem not linked to the engine" but then, I did ask for Ren'Py users opinions......... I is conflicted, yuh @_x...

The room clicking could end up as a "main system" if it was the main way to move around and interact with the game I'd say ^^... If it happens in most rooms, then it fits :)

I'd also consider a world map as a main system if :
- you get to it right after the intro part
- you launch VN scenes by clicking locations from the map
- you go back to the map after these scenes

And heck, you could mix things and have a world map for general locations and then a room clicking to move inside places ;).
Maybe one could define a main system as something that can't be easily removed from the game. A mini game could be simply skipped, I think... but a world map would have to be replaced into some choice menu at least.

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Re: Game system ideas?

#13 Post by Scout »

I think that's a much more useful definition; if so, then my world map would definitely count as a "main system."

(Although as just a point of clarification, I wasn't thinking of having a clickable world map. I want the player to actually feel like she's travelling a long distance just a bit, so you'll have keyboard control over yourself while on the map. This way also leads to variable travel lengths, which means any number of interludes during travel.)

I'm interested in how it works out structurally, though, if you still have a linear (or at least mostly linear) story to tell.

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Re: Game system ideas?

#14 Post by monele »

I guess you could forbid access to places that don't yield any event at that time... or as many games did before, permit access but make clear that nothing happens (either through a message or by letting the player look at an empty place with a "get out" option waiting for him).

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Re: Game system ideas?

#15 Post by Adorya »

Scout wrote:I think that's a much more useful definition; if so, then my world map would definitely count as a "main system."

(Although as just a point of clarification, I wasn't thinking of having a clickable world map. I want the player to actually feel like she's travelling a long distance just a bit, so you'll have keyboard control over yourself while on the map. This way also leads to variable travel lengths, which means any number of interludes during travel.)

I'm interested in how it works out structurally, though, if you still have a linear (or at least mostly linear) story to tell.
Even though this idea is immersive at the first travels, the user will end up skipping the travel phase if possible if your game is lenghty.

An exemple is the H-STG I currently play : Oh-Zoku (王賊), a strategy tactical game. During the World Map phase in Combat mode, you can move your army from a specific point to another.
Image
Each path is subdivided into 2 segments when you travel, that mean when you click to one place it you will see your army move to the 1/3 of the path, then 2/3, then to the place selected.
This small animation is funny at the beginning, but when you will have to move to a place far away or move lot of armies, you will tend to click "skip" to accelerate the animation.

Another exemple is the STG Heroes of Might of Magic. The map is composed of hex grid and you can click anywhere for a move. Playing for a long time will often make the player disable the animation of the running horse to make it warp directly to the objective.

So in short, travel transition is nice, but set an auto skip mode if possible (and "new event", "trap", or "extra-scene-you-don't-expect-when-clicking-on-an-already-visited-place is always nice) :)

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