Making A Game.

[Rune_74]

Ahh yes the prpblem would be where they wanted to add something that was totally new and not in the game. Hmm this can be taken away by not really allowing that, to the main character creation that is. I once thought up a spell system similar to what was used in morrowind, where you could make your own spells and then you would even select the graphics that happen with it(not to hard really) but I remember one thing I really thought about is how detailed the whole thing would have to be, how many extra values should someone be able to enter? This was a bit different because I wanted this to be an in engine mechanic(still think it would work on this style of game.) So as long as you put enough variables attached to everything you open alot of doors, not all doors but alot(does that make sense?)

For instance, you have your basic dungeon door, you could give it hp, fire resistance, bashing resistance etc...all as values....how many values? not sure but the more you add the more detailed the world will be. Then you go next...well if the door has these values why not a wall or any other object? So then you can bash down walls in a dungeon or building opening new ways for the game to proceed.

I think in some ways before designing you would have to decide what universal values are applied to every object in the game, then move forward from there.

The tile system works better for this style of game then I think it worked for NWN. In this style you are sort of locked on a rail unless you wanted to go with free movement through these dungeons which I don't think is necessary. So say you put down one step of hallway, you would then have to place values and wall graphics(unless a universal choice that lets you place it like a paint brush) pretty simple.

The random dungeon part was more for the development side which would make designing really easy if you wanted to do a lot of large areas.

I haven't even gotten into lighting(which can be simple) fog, elements etc yet....

Dave

[Saxon1974]

Hey Rune_74,

I have been wanting to make my own game for a while now and have actually started on one....Problem is the amount of effort\time required is pretty everwhelming to finish even a pretty basic RPG game if you make everything yourself.

I have somewhat given up thinking I will ever be able to get a working game going, although I do work on it on occasion still.

I built a 2D map editor to allow you to create a map and add tiles and save it as a way to learn how to code with 2D tile maps and gets some knowledge with coding graphics. I have programming experience from my job with various languages although Im more of a systems analyst now and don't do that much dev progamming anymore...that being said working for a big companies finance department none of may coding experience is game progamming or graphics type of stuff.

I have also written a partial novel to introduce the world setting to go along with my game.

So as much as I would like to offer my help on the game, I honestly don't think I could contribute enough time to the work to be usefull to anyone.

From the amount I have done so far, just make sure you can commit a heck of alot of your time to the project to ever be able to finish. Pretty much all your nights\weekends\freetime I work about 50 hours a week now and so I might be able to get about 8 hours a week for this type of thing if that, so I got pretty frustrated and kind of gave up.

Unless I lose my job, which is possible in this economy I dought I will have the time needed for this....

That being said, if its something you really want to do, I dont want to discourage you from getting started as we need more old school games!

Also, wanted to point out this link I sent a while ago, it has a bunch of good sites for an aspiring game developer.

Good luck!

http://forum.dead-code.org/index.php?topic=998