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Quick Summary
Quick Summary
This is about a fantasy world where monsters are slowly becoming more rampant and is invading the human kingdom! So Genny, an aspiring hero from Bark Village, and her party must defeat all the monster bosses in order to vanquish all evil in the world! But as she defeats the last monster boss she realizes that she was put under a spell by a devil, and it turns out she was actually killing humans that she saw as monsters.
Why use RPG Maker MV?
Why use RPG Maker MV?
After testing out different game engines such as Game Maker Studio I decided that RPG Maker MV was the best fit for this mini project as it was simple to learn through short Youtube video tutorials and it allowed me to create levels quickly through the editor. I also think that the database editor is really easy to use and it allows me to tweak values with ease. Since it will be a small RPG game it a must to playtest the game multiple times as balancing the values is a top priority when designing these types of games, a log of sorts must be kept in order to understand what to do with those values. Another reason why I choose this engine is because the art assets are already there and there is even a character creation page which automatically creates usable sprites so I can make my own original characters!
This is the RPG Maker MV tutorial playlist that I have went through step by step to understand how the engine works. I highly suggest watching this playlist if you are planning to learn this particular engine as I think it's very easy to follow!
Design Intentions?
Design Intentions?
The main purpose of this small project was to practice my game design skills in relation to rpg games. This is because I haven't touched much on this genre of games and I think it is a good way to broaden my knowledge, especially since rpg games are fairly popular within the gaming community. As for the game itself I want it to reward the player for exploring the levels more than they are required to. I have included exploration as a form of fun in my previous solo projects so I'd like to include it here too in order to see how effective it can be in a rpg setting. As a result I'll be including lots of secret treasures in most of the levels and some npcs will hint the player into searching containers in the hopes of finding useful items/weapons that they can use or sell. I also want the monsters in different areas to slowly hint to the player that they are actually human and that they are on the same team/side.
Main Characters
Main Characters
Genny
Genny
Genny is a young lady that aspires to become the best Hero in the kingdom, this passion comes from all the tales she read/heard about as a kid. Her personality is friendly and upbeat about life and prefers to see the best out of the worst. She is the main tie that brings all her party members together. In the game her class is Hero as most of her stats are average.
Klist
Klist
Klist is an old friend of Genny's who's been training as a warrior with the hopes to help make money for his struggling family. He is very determined to his goals but he tends to lose his temper whenever anyone speaks of his insecurities. Due to his bond with Genny he joins her party to help her achieve her goal to be the best hero in the kingdom.
Dreek
Dreek
Dreek is an old man who is currently enjoying retirement in the small Bark Village. He use to serve as a mercenary in the kingdom and has specialized the use of knives and guns. In his spare time he helps train Genny and Klist in exchange for drinks at the local tavern. He then agrees to get back to action by joining Genny's party to see if he can still serve for the force of good one last time.
Sal
Sal
Sal is a healer from a faraway land that the kingdom has made minimal contact with. She has the ability to use water and healing magic as she was enrolled in a mage academy in her younger days. She is very clumsy when doing most activities hence why she specialized in healing magic as she often hurts herself in numerous accidents. When being saved by Genny's party, she decides to join her and offer her aid in exchange for keeping her safe whenever she goes to forage in the wild.
Overworld
Overworld
Since the game has a very linear storyline, I decided to make the world into different stages that the player progresses through one by one. At first the player starts at Bark Village (1) where Jenny meets Klist and it is also where the player can buy/sell items as well as heal their party at Jenny's house by using the bed. The rest of the levels are as follows:
2 - Forest opening, this is where the players first try out battling enemies and levels up initially to gain new powers.
3 - Shamara Mountains, this is where the player will face much stronger enemies and will eventually have to fight the first boss in the game, which is a strong demon that has special powers that other enemies don't have.
4 - Caravan Camp - when the player first reaches this area the merchants are under attack by zombies. After helping out the merchants the player can then start trading with them and buy special items that can't be bought anywhere else.
5 - Tower of Pain, this area as of now is still being considered but I was planning that this area will be where the player fights an evil sorcerer boss which gives Jenny the fabled Hero Sword which allows her to use powerful magic.
6 - Infested Forest, this area is meant to be home of the demon lord which is the source of the monsters that are attacking different parts of the human kingdom. After exploring this area a bit the player will have to head to the kingdom's capital city to meet the king.
7 - Capital City, this is where Jenny and her party meet the King and he tasks them to travel to the infested forest once more to defeat the demon lord once and for all. The kingdom is also a place where the player can buy supplies for their journey to the final boss fight.
In game values and IDs
In game values and IDs
Since this game is a RPG the values of things such as weapons, items, armour and classes are very important in defining the gameplay. Since this is my first time setting values for a RPG I decided to place an average value, which I will use to determine the values of other variables. For example if I set the average starting health to 200, then for a tank class I would place it at about 300 or something around there.
(Armour values table)
As for the software I used to create the table it was Airtable, which was first introduced to me during my FYP project. I used it because you can customize the columns to have a different type of field, so I can choose a normal short text for things such as names or numbers, but I can also set it to tags meaning that I can set the type of armour and can sort it by that. So in the picture above I have set a column to "Armour Type", and under it there are different variables such as General and Magic. Organizing it like this will help me in the long run when I have to re-evaluate the values of certain armours, so if I'm looking for a specific set of armours I can just sort it by armour type.
After setting the item values for the first time it was apparent that I had to test out the values in the game quite a few times in order to keep refining the values. The first thing I had to test was the battling system, and through multiple playthroughs I found that there were a few values that were either inputted incorrectly, or was too under/overpowered. One tricky part was getting Sal's damage values to be balanced as she is pretty much the only magic user in the party for this game.
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