Topic: Creating JRPG Plugin Programs for AGS

[Pomperipossas_Godishus]

This topic is about creating JRPG´S, like Final Fantasy VII, Chrono Cross, Legend of Mana (PS1),
Xenosaga, Harvest Moon (PS2)

I believe people also might want to do PS1-Ps2-Dreamcast JRPG´S. Many uses RPG Maker, still as you can see
the point is not SNES game style, but I have especially Chrono Cross in mind, and Harvest Moon - A simulator
RPG. Chrono Cross is very similar to adventure games, plus it´s actually have objects one using on people,
or places to get an effect.

Harvest Moon, like Oh Wonderful Life, is a simulator, with actually make things more interesting. JRPG´S has
a tendency to pretty much circulating around, fighting, buying weapons, fighting again, push that crystal to
open that chamber. I´m actually missing the idea that each character has different work.

One is a healer, and using healing, like: Trauma Center, another is a Cook, and to get too the castle you need
to win, and become the best Cook, and the king wants you to be a cook at the castle. The third is a bizarre golf,
or sport simulator. One is a prostitute, and voila, one has a Hentai, Final Fuck Simulator, Urotsukidoji style. The
Yakuza has a Beat´Em Up in 3D (combined with Final Fantasy VIII fighting combo). The Yakuza boss, is rich and
building parts of cities, like Utopia, the strategy game, or Settlers. One digging gold and is like Diggers to PS1,
or vas it CD 32??

As you can see, if all of these ideas where open source Game Motors, the JRPG Genre could evolve.

My point is to inspire people to create JRPG plugin. Perhaps one for Combat, one for Simulator, and one for Maps,
in 2D and 3D, and one for Feng Shui. Yes I´m actually believe JRPG´S many times using Feng Shui in the Game
World, to creating attractive, places in the Game World.

The Game Worlds should be part of a Game Universe, where copyright is NOT so important, except you can sell the
game. However one should do the most things in the game if possible, and give credit to other persons plugins,
music, graphic, etc, if used. If the Game Worlds, and the Game Universe grows, then one could create a Big Game
World, where you could find Spiritual Sucsessors of Final Fantasy and Chrono Cross, and probably a worthy rival
to Square/Enix.

I´m an inspirer,so just feel free to use my ideas and spinn further on these ideas, as that´s the point

[Danvzare]

I have a question.
Why do so many people want to use an engine specifically designed for adventure games, to make role playing games?
Are adventure games and role playing games that similar, and I just never noticed?

I'm not complaining or anything. I've just noticed a lot of people coming to AGS to make RPGs, and I've always wondered why.

[VampireWombat]

I'm not sure why you'd want to make JRPGs using AGS. RPG Maker works well enough. Unless you really don't want sprites. And if you're wanting 3d game, Unity or such would be much easier.
You'd probably have better results trying to convince people to make plugins in for RPG Maker MV. Since it uses Javascript it's capable of all of the things you're wanting if you're willing to put in the time.
I think AGS is better suited for making hybrid games or some other type of RPG.
Of course something like Harvest Moon (only played the SNES and GBA versions) could easily be done in AGS without need of a module or plugin.
And the "Feng Shui" could be done using one of the modules that already exists. Or just some minor scripting depending on what you want done.
Of course I'm a little confused by your post anyway, much of it just sounds like naming random ideas to me. If you're not wanting to make a game yourself, then why do you want people here to make plugins for making JRPGs? And what is open source Game Motors? And if you want the JRPG genre to evolve, wouldn't it be better to address a community that actually makes JRPGs? If you were wanting Adventure Games to evolve by including some JRPG elements, it would make more sense.

Danvzare - I don't know why either. Maybe the challenge. I started making one a few months ago, but I was doing a dungeon crawler, not a JRPG.

[dactylopus]

People look to AGS for all kinds of games.  The primary reason is that it is free.  It also has a great deal of accessible and easy to use functionality that would have to be built from scratch in other engines.

It's not necessarily a great choice for RPGs, but it's not the worst either.

[Pomperipossas_Godishus]

Yes, I know very well RPG Maker, and I like Sprite based games as well, like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VII.
Have in mind that I´m actually talked about, the graphic styles of Final Fantasy and Chrono Cross. And Chrono
Cross could be turned into an adventure game. Had you played Chrono Cross??

The idea was creating hybrid JRPG-Adventure games, by creating plugins, or some program that might help. Why I
want to use AGS, is because I like the feeling of AGS.

I´m actually don´t know any other JRPG Community other than RPG Maker´s forum. The point was not 2.5 D (SNES
and sprite based games), but 2D games, like Monkey Island, Simon The Sorcerer games, ironically they are real
3D, as they have the depth´s and perspective´s, but it´s not "3D Graphic´s".

You said it better than me, Yes, I want Adventure Games to evolve, by including JRPG elements.

RPG Maker feels more limited in a way, than AGS and better suited to SNES style games, with is nice. RPG Maker
is Good Stuff, but it costs. If just the earlier version of RPG Maker where free, and the latest versions cost. AGS
is free, RPG Maker costs.

From my standpoint, JRPG´S, has stagnated in a way, all games doing the same things, fight, heal, buy, fight,
save the princess, fight again, get pissed of the pop-up fight. The ideas of game motors I talked about was:
Menues, game motors of fighting, new workclass of the characters. For short the real idea, was that the games
really felt like a real RPG; by this I mean the fighting in the game is just one of many important things to do in
the game. One could call it a Multigenre Adventure Game with JRPG elements.

I want to inspire people who wish to do these things, to see how the Indie Game world evolving to more areas,
how Indie Games become more popular. I´m bored by the present Game Industry, worshipping blood, teasing
of sex everywhere, but when it come to show it, it´s censored. Games are not full hearted done today, some
immoral jokes will never be told by, the BIG Companies, and I want to inspire people to creating new things. Of
cause this is not pure Adventure Games, but open the road, for they who wish to walk it.

Open Source Game Motors, is meant to be free to anyone who wishes to include the Game Motor to their games,
even when selling. Game Motors, and plugins could be many things. For example think of Final Fantasy VII´s
3D World Map, The Choccobo Race in the Golden Saucer (probably some kind of AI). Creating New colors of the
Choccobos. Open Source Game Motors, could include, AI´s, gamecode, music, sprites, tiles, etc. It´s meant to be
Freeware, to be sold by anyone who wish, without any Copyright.

Of cause respect should be shown to the creators of the Game Motors, plugins, by perhaps try perfecting their
Game Motor in some ways, or at least a thanks for using it, and/or how to contacting them if wished.

ATLUS made very interesting JRPG hybrid games, where you don´t just run around and attacking everyone. Think
of the weird Danganronpa game series.

This is Harvest Moon under a different name:

http://www.rpgfan.com/reviews/Story_of_Seasons/index.html

[/quote]

[C.L.I.C.K.]

I have a question.
Why do so many people want to use an engine specifically designed for adventure games, to make role playing games?
Are adventure games and role playing games that similar, and I just never noticed?

I'm not complaining or anything. I've just noticed a lot of people coming to AGS to make RPGs, and I've always wondered why.

People make adventures in RPGMaker. Fitz makes music videos in AGS. I once made a short boxing match animation in Powerpoint. People are weird.

[Radiant]

Are adventure games and role playing games that similar, and I just never noticed?

From a technical perspective, yes: a large part of what AGS does for you is take care of graphics, walkbehinds, music, GUIs and related functionality in an orderly fashion. This works more-or-less the same in a 2D RPG, and AGS does a much better job at these tasks than most game design platforms (I'm not personally familiar with RPG maker, so no comment on that one). And, bear in mind that one of the most famous classic adventure games, Quest for Glory, is also an RPG.

People make adventures in RPGMaker. Fitz makes music videos in AGS. I once made a short boxing match animation in Powerpoint. People are weird.

Yes, they are. People make a functioning Gameboy emulator in Minecraft, of all places. AGS has also been used for platform games, shoot-em-ups, life simulation games, and probably a couple other genres too.

[Retro Wolf]

If you're capable of making your own custom functions, make use of the drawing surfaces, it's not any harder to make a platformer/RPG/tower defense or whatever than using something like say pygame. The inbuilt functions for dialogue make it easier to add story or tutorials to your games than any other engines I've come across.

[abstauber]

I made a JRPG proof of concept back in 2013. Unfortunately the guy I made this for never released the game. I never implemented a battle screen though, but Snarky did.
So yes - it's all possible, and it's fun doing it in AGS

[CaptainD]

I made a JRPG proof of concept back in 2013. Unfortunately the guy I made this for never released the game. I never implemented a battle screen though, but Snarky did.
So yes - it's all possible, and it's fun doing it in AGS

Just out of curiosity, did you use tilesets to make the backgrounds first and then use the results as large rooms in AGS, or did you have AGS put the tiles together in-game?

[abstauber]

It's a tile engine made with AGS script. The room is still 320x200 in size and everything else is handled by script. Here's a screenshot of the tile editor (in AGS as well) for a different project

[Retro Wolf]

What I do is make the level data into a small 20x13 pixel png:


Each different pixel colour represents a different tile. So AGS would loop through every pixel of that png then draw a 16x16 tile onto the room background.

x1 x2 x4 x8

So my art software is the level editor in a way.

[CaptainD]

Guys, I am mightily impressed by both of your techniques!

[abstauber]

Sorry for being offtopic now, but @Retro Wolf, are really parsing the image with getpixel() everytime you load a level, isn't this painfully slow?
I used to work with ascii files and with notepad being my leveleditor and even that wasn't very fast.

@CaptainD: Thanks I would have released the code a long time ago, but without proper documentation that would be a waste of everyone's time.

[Scavenger]

I made a JRPG proof of concept back in 2013. Unfortunately the guy I made this for never released the game. I never implemented a battle screen though, but Snarky did.
So yes - it's all possible, and it's fun doing it in AGS

I remember this! I put it in my game!





Unfortunately development stalled a lot since I wasn't yet prepared for a game of that scope.

[abstauber]

Cool, thanks for the screenshots! Nice to see the Metaverse one more time.

[eri0o]

GetPixel once isn't painfully slow. You can get away with a thousand per second with absolutely not noticing.

Is that editor source code available somewhere?

Also if someone is interested RPG Maker MV has some pieces open source, and has the js engine (not the editor) open source. You can even embed it in a blog post apparently.

[abstauber]

Is that editor source code available somewhere?

Well, the editor is just an add on the tile engine, so it wouldn't do much as a stand-alone solution. I based my tile editor on the work of DKH's "The Art of Dying". The sourcecode is freely available over here: https://gamejolt.com/games/the-art-of-dying/21047
That would be also a pretty nice codebase to create a jrpg engine in AGS.

[Retro Wolf]

@abstauber: If there's any delay it's hidden by the fade from black when I load the room, I've not had any problems so far. Perhaps If I made a big ass level it would be more noticeable. The level data sprite is part of the exe I do not load externally, and I place all the tile data in an array should I need to refer to it during play.