Yeah, I think you might be putting yourself in a box without a lot of wiggle room. Rushing through a creation is going to be apparent, and game design? There's just too many elements that will collectively stand out as "rushed". I'm not at all saying good games can't be made in a short time, but sacrifices will certainly have to be made and planning is crucial. Check out Pixelboy's (the dude that made the superpowers assets) ludum jam games, they're wonderful, imo. Even the game Inked. It was made in three months, but both of those examples it's clear sacrifices were made in one area or another.
As for RPG maker, it's a good engine for beginners and I've seen people use it in prototypes (check out Solarus), but it is incredibly limiting. Simple code changes can be quite a task and the end result is still going to be "Oh, another rpg maker game". I think, you should make a framework or maybe even buy one (maybe there's a free one somewhere) for gamemaker so you can make it more unique, since you're already made good games with it. I get it, though. Impatience etc etc, but patience will pay off.
As for me, I am not making my game for larger audiences, exactly. I'm just wanting to make a good game, taking elements from my favorite titles and throwing in a few of my own, so I can look at the finished product and feel a sense of pride. If it catches on, that's a bonus, but I doubt it will since I have no advertising plan and I hate social media haha
If you're focused on telling your story and are really wanting quicker results, visual novels might be the way to go. Your dialogue systems are solid from what I've seen, so you'd already know what you're doing. Another option to possibly consider is webcomics. Personally, I'd prefer to check those out than sit through another rpg maker game.
I just wanna throw this out there too. I really like the idea of an rpg platformer and think you're onto something there... But like, I just love platformer games, so I am totally biased. If you need an example of how to approach something like that, have a look at child of light. They did an outstanding job with it and kept the game short enough to where it ends before the mechanics get too tiresome and removed the typical rpg "grind for exp before the boss" thing. So, it's more story and environment than it is a typical rpg, I think.
It's a struggle. I think the most important thing you can do is plan thoroughly. If you want a story intensive game, start by writing the story, at least that's where I would go first. Once you've got that out of the way, work on game mechanics. I like to use stand-in graphics (blocks and basic shapes) in this phase because I can get a better grip on whether the gameplay is actually fun on it's own, without the distraction of art dictating how it looks vs how it feels. This also gives you opportunity to make the framework as clean and efficient as possible so it's easier to layer on functions and features later. Then start getting story-relevant graphics made. If the story starts in a house on a snowy mountain, well... We know what we need to create! If you can, manage your time to accomplish these phases in the planned order and try to not deviate too much (I know ideas flow in the process!). That's not the "correct" way or anything, that's just how I handle this stuff.
But yes, I know how you feel and I've been feeling it for awhile. I've been spending the bulk of the last 6 months working on my game and at this point, It's not even fun or very rewarding, but I knew it was going to be like this with the plan I've made. But I also know that in the long run, it's going to make the creation much easier and by extension, fun and rewarding. Like you, I think my standards are to blame the most.
I'm not sure what to suggest for you, though. Just ask yourself which genre would you get more satisfaction from.
I really like the idea of bullet hell games but I genuinely don't like any bullet hell games... So, it's weird. I think the closest I've ever come to one is Enter the Gungeon. I love just about everything with that game except procedural generation and it's grinding nature, based more in luck than skill.
So, I was thinking it'd be cool to make a game closer to Zelda: link to the past, with equipment based progression, puzzles and worldly interactions but with the chaos of bullet hell. Instead of the awkward shield that's in lttp, maybe have a "shield generator" that can be erected and block attacks from all directions, as long as it has energy which will recharge on its own after some time.
I dunno, it's something I've kinda wanted to do for a few years now but content creation would be massively time consuming and I'm already buried in my current project to even consider starting something of that scale. If I was to attempt anything on the side, it'd have to be something simple and more like a mobile game. Anyway, if someone took that idea anywhere, I'd be your number 1 fan. :D
Yeah, I spent probably only 10ish hours on the game I was working on for the jam but I spent probably just as much time packaging and researching. I actually made all assets from scratch, so I'd have to pack everything into my game engine and pack everything again into a user-friendly format (which isn't how I pack for my engine) for the oga submission. I really don't mind sharing, everything I've posted so far has been cc0, the most unrestrictive license we have, with the exception of derivatives. The biggest problem I ran into is when I made the music and sfx. Some of the sound packs I used in those could be used freely (some I sampled myself), but some had licenses that could only be used by one end-user, which won't work with OGA submissions. I just really didn't have it in me to open the audio projects back up and figure out which sound was which and replace them. I've made or worked with friends to make music for every jam and personal project except one (the first jam I did).
So, yeah, I'd have to agree with Medicine on this one. The "ALL-OGA" thing turned out to be a bit too steep for me, even with the intent to follow that rule. I much prefer the standard OGA jam rules, because it's pretty much stress-free. I can follow the rules and create stuff that either just isn't worthy for submission or has a singular use, without worrying about how it can be used abroad.
Hey guys! Sorry, I wasn't quite able to submit anything. This wasn't the best month for me to attempt anything, anyways. We had state testing, making halloween costumes (kids always wanna be something you can't just buy), halloween parties among normal life stuff. I only have about 8 hours invested into the game I was working on but couldn't find time to make a HUD and start screen, which is all I really needed to submit something playable.
Anyway, I'll just show what I've got. It's a goofy randomly generated first person shooter, which is something I've never done.
Oh, cool. Everyone's late! Haha! I just started stuff today, with a disaster of a prototype and some rushed art. It'll be absolutely probably okay or not!
@chaser Thanks! I'm super excited to get this thing going with these new systems!
@spring Yeah, sorry I didn't get to it in the jam version. It was one of many things that got left out due to time constraints but probably should have been more of a priority @.@
Oh, lawdy, no! Haha The engine is a little over 20 gigs. The packaged game, and this is just a roundabout guesstimate, will probably be around 300ish mb.
Hey, so, I was considering this but I have a few questions. I've been remaking the psychopomp in UE4, and in doing so I rebuilt the engine from source (which you have to do if you want source code access). I made new features, scrapped about 3 gigs of pre-coded features, so most of the work has been on the engine itself so far.
However, if I were to participate, I'd be using stock features, classes, nodes etc that I didn't get rid of (yet) but I'd like to not download the engine again, as it comes stock because that's like... another 20 gigs. I'd be doing it all in blueprints (The psychopomp uses strictly c++) and to show I'm not using anything I made for the psychopomp, I'd make something that isn't a platformer (I was thinking of using mindchamber's red baron and doing a beat 'em up). I'd also be willing to release the source code (blueprints, not engine code) too, which would be compatible with the stock engine.
Yeah, I think you might be putting yourself in a box without a lot of wiggle room. Rushing through a creation is going to be apparent, and game design? There's just too many elements that will collectively stand out as "rushed". I'm not at all saying good games can't be made in a short time, but sacrifices will certainly have to be made and planning is crucial. Check out Pixelboy's (the dude that made the superpowers assets) ludum jam games, they're wonderful, imo. Even the game Inked. It was made in three months, but both of those examples it's clear sacrifices were made in one area or another.
As for RPG maker, it's a good engine for beginners and I've seen people use it in prototypes (check out Solarus), but it is incredibly limiting. Simple code changes can be quite a task and the end result is still going to be "Oh, another rpg maker game". I think, you should make a framework or maybe even buy one (maybe there's a free one somewhere) for gamemaker so you can make it more unique, since you're already made good games with it. I get it, though. Impatience etc etc, but patience will pay off.
As for me, I am not making my game for larger audiences, exactly. I'm just wanting to make a good game, taking elements from my favorite titles and throwing in a few of my own, so I can look at the finished product and feel a sense of pride. If it catches on, that's a bonus, but I doubt it will since I have no advertising plan and I hate social media haha
If you're focused on telling your story and are really wanting quicker results, visual novels might be the way to go. Your dialogue systems are solid from what I've seen, so you'd already know what you're doing. Another option to possibly consider is webcomics. Personally, I'd prefer to check those out than sit through another rpg maker game.
I just wanna throw this out there too. I really like the idea of an rpg platformer and think you're onto something there... But like, I just love platformer games, so I am totally biased. If you need an example of how to approach something like that, have a look at child of light. They did an outstanding job with it and kept the game short enough to where it ends before the mechanics get too tiresome and removed the typical rpg "grind for exp before the boss" thing. So, it's more story and environment than it is a typical rpg, I think.
It's a struggle. I think the most important thing you can do is plan thoroughly. If you want a story intensive game, start by writing the story, at least that's where I would go first. Once you've got that out of the way, work on game mechanics. I like to use stand-in graphics (blocks and basic shapes) in this phase because I can get a better grip on whether the gameplay is actually fun on it's own, without the distraction of art dictating how it looks vs how it feels. This also gives you opportunity to make the framework as clean and efficient as possible so it's easier to layer on functions and features later. Then start getting story-relevant graphics made. If the story starts in a house on a snowy mountain, well... We know what we need to create! If you can, manage your time to accomplish these phases in the planned order and try to not deviate too much (I know ideas flow in the process!). That's not the "correct" way or anything, that's just how I handle this stuff.
But yes, I know how you feel and I've been feeling it for awhile. I've been spending the bulk of the last 6 months working on my game and at this point, It's not even fun or very rewarding, but I knew it was going to be like this with the plan I've made. But I also know that in the long run, it's going to make the creation much easier and by extension, fun and rewarding. Like you, I think my standards are to blame the most.
I'm not sure what to suggest for you, though. Just ask yourself which genre would you get more satisfaction from.
I really like the idea of bullet hell games but I genuinely don't like any bullet hell games... So, it's weird. I think the closest I've ever come to one is Enter the Gungeon. I love just about everything with that game except procedural generation and it's grinding nature, based more in luck than skill.
So, I was thinking it'd be cool to make a game closer to Zelda: link to the past, with equipment based progression, puzzles and worldly interactions but with the chaos of bullet hell. Instead of the awkward shield that's in lttp, maybe have a "shield generator" that can be erected and block attacks from all directions, as long as it has energy which will recharge on its own after some time.
I dunno, it's something I've kinda wanted to do for a few years now but content creation would be massively time consuming and I'm already buried in my current project to even consider starting something of that scale. If I was to attempt anything on the side, it'd have to be something simple and more like a mobile game. Anyway, if someone took that idea anywhere, I'd be your number 1 fan. :D
I absolutely love these! I'm pretty inspired.
Yeah, I spent probably only 10ish hours on the game I was working on for the jam but I spent probably just as much time packaging and researching. I actually made all assets from scratch, so I'd have to pack everything into my game engine and pack everything again into a user-friendly format (which isn't how I pack for my engine) for the oga submission. I really don't mind sharing, everything I've posted so far has been cc0, the most unrestrictive license we have, with the exception of derivatives. The biggest problem I ran into is when I made the music and sfx. Some of the sound packs I used in those could be used freely (some I sampled myself), but some had licenses that could only be used by one end-user, which won't work with OGA submissions. I just really didn't have it in me to open the audio projects back up and figure out which sound was which and replace them. I've made or worked with friends to make music for every jam and personal project except one (the first jam I did).
So, yeah, I'd have to agree with Medicine on this one. The "ALL-OGA" thing turned out to be a bit too steep for me, even with the intent to follow that rule. I much prefer the standard OGA jam rules, because it's pretty much stress-free. I can follow the rules and create stuff that either just isn't worthy for submission or has a singular use, without worrying about how it can be used abroad.
Hey guys! Sorry, I wasn't quite able to submit anything. This wasn't the best month for me to attempt anything, anyways. We had state testing, making halloween costumes (kids always wanna be something you can't just buy), halloween parties among normal life stuff. I only have about 8 hours invested into the game I was working on but couldn't find time to make a HUD and start screen, which is all I really needed to submit something playable.
Anyway, I'll just show what I've got. It's a goofy randomly generated first person shooter, which is something I've never done.
https://youtu.be/vjGLzYubqkc
Later, we'll get junked out on candy and try out the submissions!
Oh, cool. Everyone's late! Haha! I just started stuff today, with a disaster of a prototype and some rushed art. It'll be absolutely probably okay or not!
@chaser Thanks! I'm super excited to get this thing going with these new systems!
@spring Yeah, sorry I didn't get to it in the jam version. It was one of many things that got left out due to time constraints but probably should have been more of a priority @.@
Oh, lawdy, no! Haha The engine is a little over 20 gigs. The packaged game, and this is just a roundabout guesstimate, will probably be around 300ish mb.
Thanks for clearing that up!
Hey, so, I was considering this but I have a few questions. I've been remaking the psychopomp in UE4, and in doing so I rebuilt the engine from source (which you have to do if you want source code access). I made new features, scrapped about 3 gigs of pre-coded features, so most of the work has been on the engine itself so far.
However, if I were to participate, I'd be using stock features, classes, nodes etc that I didn't get rid of (yet) but I'd like to not download the engine again, as it comes stock because that's like... another 20 gigs. I'd be doing it all in blueprints (The psychopomp uses strictly c++) and to show I'm not using anything I made for the psychopomp, I'd make something that isn't a platformer (I was thinking of using mindchamber's red baron and doing a beat 'em up). I'd also be willing to release the source code (blueprints, not engine code) too, which would be compatible with the stock engine.
Would that be okay to do?
Pages