Why I Started to make M.E.G.A. Craft
OK let me tell you about this game I have wanted to create for years and years. Everyone wants to make their own game and I hadn't really thought that seriously about it until the last few years when I realised that it was actually possible and without too much coding knowledge. Yes, with the power of RPG Maker it is possible for little me to make an awesome video game. Of course this doesn't mean the project is gonna be a simple crappy beginner thing. I am gonna make it big and if I have to learn some coding I will. I have already used RPG Maker to experiment with and even learned some manual codes along the way for things like opening doors to look better and such. When looking at the programs capabilities, I realised that this will be very possible for me to do. Crafting is not a very complex game in terms of programming as games go. It is more about the amount of details you have to create and implement into the game that is the biggest struggle. I will work on it little by little and post updates about what I have done so far on this very website. Here's hoping it goes well. Wish me luck :3
Basic Game Concepts and Mechanics
As for the actual game itself. Let me specify a few details about what the plan is. The game, in case you didn't read the description, is called Marvellous Extreme Giga Awesome Craft or M.E.G.A. Craft for short. It is a silly title because the game is going to be a comedy game and it won't take itself seriously. The main basis of the game and the main mechanic of the game is going to be crafting items. NPCs will ask for a certain selection of items and you are the one that needs to craft them all. I am still in early stages and I am still working on the details but I plan to have several different types of crafting and these will level up the more you do that type of crafting. For example, cooking would be of course food and every time you finished a recipe you would get experience. Then when you levelled up, you would have more options available to you. Similarly, certain plants and ingredients from enemies you need for certain crafting recipes will not be available until you have reached a certain level. Then you basically just keep making more and more recipes as the NPCs ask for different things but you might be able to go into a different branch of crafting, different times of playing. You might focus on tailoring one time and then do cooking the next. This is the basic concept of the crafting. The details are being worked out currently and I will make another post for the details on these specific mechanics and my progress with them so far. Remember though, anything I say is subject to change along the way.
For beating enemies, there will be RPG elements which will determine whether you can beat a certain enemy. Here I am crossing the crafting gameplay with RPG gameplay. This is because the game I took inspiration from (see inspirations section of this post) and many RPGs I have played have a problem with being a little too repetitive and yet not being fun to go back and collect and run around. I want to avoid this if I can and I believe adding simple RPG aspects into the game to help improve the fighting system will help to make fighting more interesting and worth repeating over and over. I am starting with a basic but effective style of fighting similar to the way the Maplestory fighting system works. A basic attack and a select choice of power attacks and/or spells to cast activated through a simple button press during battle. Then there is the classes which of course make the choices of attacks and spells different to change things up and make the game fun to replay. Again, these elements of the game will be discussed in more detail in another post where I will show my progress on figuring out appropriate classes and how this will integrate with the crafting and how the classes will be balanced (not having any biases in MY game!).
Inspirations
I am inspired by many different aspects from various games I have played. I know from years of being a gaming fan, what things are good and what things are not (at least in my opinion of course). I have played plenty of RPGs in my time and of course they are a rather big inspiration. The one I will probably be taking some inspiration from for the RPG elements in the game is Trickster. This game was my favourite online RPG for a long time. It ran on low specs and yet still managed to look amazing for a start and my computer was absolute trash at the time. The games servers were very well handled compared to some other online games I can think of. The fighting was simple but still rather fun as it has a basic attack but also certain little power attacks that were different depending on what you chose to learn and what class you were (basically the same as Maplestory if you need an example). This works very well to keep the grinding parts of the game a little less taxing. Also speaking of grinding there wasn't an excessive amount of it even when you were a high level. I never felt like I was too bored of being in the same place doing the same missions as the game changed rather often keeping me invested. There wasn't any crafting elements or at least not very advanced ones but the interface and menus for buying items proved to be very organised and clear. I love a clear and simple to understand shopping system in my RPGs. The game also rather funny and random at times and I just loved the music and environments. So you see, I don't know how the game is now as it has been years since I played it but these things that Trickster did so well will be a great inspiration for my RPG elements.
Then there is the crafting side. Of course, this is the main part of the game so where do I get inspiration from for this? Well it is difficult to explain because the actual game I got big inspirations from has actually been discontinued since. It's very sad and I loved the game and it makes me want to make this game even more to make sure other people who miss that gameplay can have something to play. You might not know it but the game was Sanrios Hello Kitty Online or Sanrio Online (can't remember exact name but it was something like that). Yes, I know it's a kids game but it had an interesting gameplay style I had never seen before and I loved crafting so I gave it a go and it was actually much more awesome than I expected it to be. The basis of the game was that you were dropped into the land of Sanrio with all the characters all around and you had to give them the items they wanted by crafting them. There were enemies and plants scattered about which you had to harvest to get the items. There was even a gardening system so you could grow your own plants you needed for crafting. And that was the entire game. Longer and longer lists of items to craft in more and more quantities. The gameplay was simple and repetitive but somehow very addicting. I hope to implement the same awesome addicting crafting feel of that game. That is the biggest goal here.
So without further ado, please feel free to find out more about my progress so far on this website or give me a comment about any questions or suggestions you have. I will be happy to answer and I will check often for comments. Well with all that said...wish me luck everyone! X3
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