RPG Systems

on

RPG Systems
By Brian J. Lancaster (March 2022)
RPG systems should be in all computer games. I loved the fact that I had to sit underwater for a while in GTA: San Andreas just to increase my lung capacity skill so I could do the next mission (no irony). It also made me swim around and explore underwater, even though looking for oysters in that game is completely pointless because you have to find them all in order for anything to happen. And finding all the oysters requires super Autism abilities which I do not possess.

The original plan for Brigand: Oaxaca skills was to name them after body parts: Mind, Arms, Legs, Lungs, Heart, Cock, etc. Eventually, however, I had to rename them to the more traditional RPG stats to broaden the meanings. All Lungs did was let you hold your breath underwater and give you the sprinting ability, but I had to change it to Survival so I could make it more important. The term "Survival" let me include abilities like foraging for food, cooking meat, resisting the elements, and generally just surviving on your own without the need for civilization. It still let you hold your breath underwater longer, of course.

Survival Ability Theme Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p2z5CGCrJM

So with that change, all the other stats became traditional RPG skills. Arms became Strength, Legs became Agility, and so on. I still want to work on a game where all stats are physical parts of the body, including Mind. But here's the problem: having a stat called “Intelligence” implies that the human player's intelligence is essentially irrelevant, and so the game is stupid. In Brigand, it's called Willpower (with the picture of a brain), and in the upcoming Warlordocracy, it's divided between Cunning (reaction time, ranged combat, and quick thinking), and Education (crafting, magic, and other stuff). Then there's Vitality, Willpower, and Physique.
Warlordocracy Link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1748160/Warlordocracy/

Since Warlordocracy won't be ready for another year, I have a lot of time to think about the next RPG system, but I will most definitely make use of either the 3D Brigand RPG/FPS engine or the 2D Warlordocracy RPG/RTS engine. I use the term “engine” lightly, because it's an engine based on an engine. And they come fully equipped with world editors and scripting engines, so then you can make a game based on an engine based on an engine. Still beats RPG-Maker.

There is also a text-adventure RPG system on my itch site called TARS (Text Adventure RPG System, pay no attention to the initials inside the acronym). I like the idea of parsing a sentence for a game filled with puzzles, but of course there is no way people will pay money for a text-only game, which is why it is completely open source on Visual Basic. I got the annoying Windows ding out thanks to @manuk3r so I might keep working on it.

The game is called Beached! and it includes stats such as Hydration, Nutrition, and Energy (sleeping restores Energy). You can look at that primeval bucket of Visual Basic code if you so desire on my itch site below. I am also terrible at designing puzzles, so if people want to collaborate with me on a free project, please send an email. I just think I prefer text parsers to point-and-click adventure games. Eventually if a monkey rubs enough objects on other objects it will figure out the puzzle, but it would take a thousand monkeys typing on keyboards for a thousand days to figure out how to beat a text adventure game with a sentence parser. I did the math.

Beached! Link: https://blancaster45.itch.io/beached-demo


Laughing Coyote Software: https://blancaster45.itch.io/

 

Comments

Post a Comment