How To Make A Video Game

[LoneKiller]

Very Intriguing.

http://www.stormthecastle.com/mainpages/videogametutorial/tutorial_videogame1.htm

 

[ajdass1]

Seems like a good resource, good to have a list of great books.

I'd like to add http://www.stasisgame.com/blog/ to this. It's the blog of a one-man development team and he talks about his design philosophy, how he gets inspiration, how he designs levels and all sorts. It's a really interesting read.

 

[LoneKiller]

Seems like a good resource, good to have a list of great books.

I'd like to add http://www.stasisgame.com/blog/ to this. It's the blog of a one-man development team and he talks about his design philosophy, how he gets inspiration, how he designs levels and all sorts. It's a really interesting read.

Sounds interesting ajdass1.
I'll check it out. Welcome to the forums.

 

[Phaedron]

I made a game called runewind saga for RPGM2. Don't know if you can still find it at RP Pavillion but I spent a good 3 years on it, did all kinds of stuff no one else thought of, even the game designers, but I never finished the second part so it has a weird ending and the party winds up thrown in jail.

 

[LoneKiller]

I made a game called runewind saga for RPGM2. Don't know if you can still find it at RP Pavillion but I spent a good 3 years on it, did all kinds of stuff no one else thought of, even the game designers, but I never finished the second part so it has a weird ending and the party winds up thrown in jail.

What kind of specs would a person's computer need to have to make a game like "Mass Effect" or say "Tekken 3"? Just curious.

 

[ajdass1]

I made a game called runewind saga for RPGM2. Don't know if you can still find it at RP Pavillion but I spent a good 3 years on it, did all kinds of stuff no one else thought of, even the game designers, but I never finished the second part so it has a weird ending and the party winds up thrown in jail.

What kind of specs would a person's computer need to have to make a game like "Mass Effect" or say "Tekken 3"? Just curious.

I might check that out Phaedron, it looks like you put a hell of a lot of work into that. How long did it take you to produce it?

@LK: Theoretically you'd need the minimum specs for rendering everything... the more important factor is time and resources. Bioware, one of the most critically-acclaimed, highly-funded studios in the world, probably took 3 years to make Mass Effect? By contrast, it took Jonathan Blow three years working on his own to create Braid. At this point in video game history I don't think it's possible for a single person to make something like Mass Effect.

Also I just realized the article you linked is thoroughly out of date! It mentions Windows XP, dialup and 30 MB as a large download. Yikes!

 

[LoneKiller]

I made a game called runewind saga for RPGM2. Don't know if you can still find it at RP Pavillion but I spent a good 3 years on it, did all kinds of stuff no one else thought of, even the game designers, but I never finished the second part so it has a weird ending and the party winds up thrown in jail.

What kind of specs would a person's computer need to have to make a game like "Mass Effect" or say "Tekken 3"? Just curious.

I might check that out Phaedron, it looks like you put a hell of a lot of work into that. How long did it take you to produce it?

@LK: Theoretically you'd need the minimum specs for rendering everything... the more important factor is time and resources. Bioware, one of the most critically-acclaimed, highly-funded studios in the world, probably took 3 years to make Mass Effect? By contrast, it took Jonathan Blow three years working on his own to create Braid. At this point in video game history I don't think it's possible for a single person to make something like Mass Effect.

Also I just realized the article you linked is thoroughly out of date! It mentions Windows XP, dialup and 30 MB as a large download. Yikes!

Sounds like you really know your stuff. I have a bad habit of not checking the dates of some of the info I post. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. I'll look a little closer next time I post an article and such.

 

[ajdass1]

Sounds like you really know your stuff. I have a bad habit of not checking the dates of some of the info I post. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. I'll look a little closer next time I post an article and such.

I was just a little surprised is all, considering that all the books it linked to are still good or have since received new editions (and so are still relevant).

I'm in the process of learning to code, specifically so I can make a videogame, so I ended up doing quite a lot of research and knew some stuff offhand from listening to shows like the Giant Bombcast. Really showing my nerd cred here!

 

[LoneKiller]

Sounds like you really know your stuff. I have a bad habit of not checking the dates of some of the info I post. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. I'll look a little closer next time I post an article and such.

I was just a little surprised is all, considering that all the books it linked to are still good or have since received new editions (and so are still relevant).

I'm in the process of learning to code, specifically so I can make a videogame, so I ended up doing quite a lot of research and knew some stuff offhand from listening to shows like the Giant Bombcast. Really showing my nerd cred here!

You should talk to Lone Drifter. If memory seves, he worked for "Electronic Arts" on a development team for games.

 

[Phaedron]

I might check that out Phaedron, it looks like you put a hell of a lot of work into that. How long did it take you to produce it?

About 3 years. It uses it's own script editor, I would up with like 500 scripts, you need a 16 line script just to make a single chest event, but I had to make everything memory efficient so I made a huge chain of variables where each chest has a number and then opens the flag, sets the treasure variable, and gives you the item at the very bottom. The programming language is straight forward enough, but very complex, the learning curve is rather high.

One of the things I did that even the designers hadn't though of was called the Encamp feature. No matter where you are on the worldmap you can teleport to the encamp site and then return to where you were. With a proper script desert terrians takes you to the desert one, snowy to the snowy one, etc. I even let you encamp on vehicles, if you're in the ship it will force you out of the ship, then teleport you, then when you return you try to move and go back into the ship, airship, submarine, and flying dragon. Submarine being my favorite, because I made doors with blue bubbles like 3d versions of the ones who blast to open in Metroid. These were also used in the spacecraft in the second part.

While encamping your party members are available to talk to. Members have random portions of their script as well as messages dependant upon quest progress. There were 12 or 13 characters I think, so it gets to where its your choice. The final boss you have to beat with a 3 team party setup much Kefkas Tower in FF6.

Here is a couple videos of the game itself, the editor and the preset game, NOT my game. I have my game and part 2 nearly finished (just need to connect quest events and play test) and part 1, but I don't have a ps2 anymore unfortunately, and I would also need a (max drive I think) to convert the memory card over to computer format. So thats the only thing holding me back or else I would have it done. Everything else in part 2 is done. Thing is, I got so sick of it I had to stay away for several years. lol

There are people who use this editor for a lot of different things. Some have set out to make Zelda games, Tetris, even Tactics like version where battle are conducted on the overhead map.

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I actually made huge towns by making huge enlarged size versions of the object editor towns and castles with custom colors (that are normally used on the world map and are smaller) these made good normal houses, but you need to build mounds inside of them or else you walk through them. Usually, buildings you can enter like shops and stuff I used actual buildings, and made transparent on all but 1 side so that you don't run into problem. You can place up to 200 objects in a town, but only like 6 or 7 full size buildings and if you try to place too many the game will freeze. So if you use objects you could make a town with 200 houses. If you make doors and archways instead of buildings your block limitation is better you can make like 20 or 30. This helps to distinguish what you can enter and what you can't. I made 3d dungeons instead of the type he uses, where again I make the walls transparent on all but one side so that no matter what angle you look at it, stuff doesn't get in the way. I made a 22 room castle this way.

 

[Phaedron]

Good news everyone. I have got Runewind up and going. I haven't thrown the files up to rapidshare yet, but I will be doing that shortly. Anyway, here are some demo videos from the project.

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[LoneKiller]

You've got wicked talent man! I wouldn't even know where to begin creating stuff like that.

 

[Phaedron]

You've got wicked talent man! I wouldn't even know where to begin creating stuff like that.

And thats the part people didn't like. You can start with a bunch of preset stuff from the beginning, but really most of your work is in the script editor selecting lines of programming. I'm going to have make some videos of scripts to show what I mean, to put it another way, its almost as complicated as trying to program a game from scratch.

What you have a group of editors: characters, enemies, items, abilities, map editor, event placement, object placement, dungeon editor, building editor, special effects editor. You can import pictures from digital cameras but they tend to take up a lot of room. I was going to try and use that trippy picture I have in the second part, if there is room.

Now the preset game has about 1,500 scripts. Each script is a file with programming, so thats like having 1,500 files. Scripts can call other scripts up to a total of 10 times, so when trying to trace problems it can sometimes send you for quite a loop. The hardest script by far was the one I made to enable three team simultanous dungeons, where you switch back and forth between different teams to open paths through a single dungeon.

Runewind only uses about 500 scripts, but many of them have 999 lines of programming. Anything that sorts abilitiy effects during battle, world number, dungeon number, chests per world number, party member responses based on quest progress, another ten or twelve scripts for townspeople. The system in a pain in some ways and makes some things harder then they need to be. I mean with this game, designing a game is the real game. You can sit and read help messages to learn how to use all the preset flags and variables, and theres just a ton of stuff you have to keep track of.

 

[LoneKiller]

You've got wicked talent man! I wouldn't even know where to begin creating stuff like that.

And thats the part people didn't like. You can start with a bunch of preset stuff from the beginning, but really most of your work is in the script editor selecting lines of programming. I'm going to have make some videos of scripts to show what I mean, to put it another way, its almost as complicated as trying to program a game from scratch.

What you have a group of editors: characters, enemies, items, abilities, map editor, event placement, object placement, dungeon editor, building editor, special effects editor. You can import pictures from digital cameras but they tend to take up a lot of room. I was going to try and use that trippy picture I have in the second part, if there is room.

Now the preset game has about 1,500 scripts. Each script is a file with programming, so thats like having 1,500 files. Scripts can call other scripts up to a total of 10 times, so when trying to trace problems it can sometimes send you for quite a loop. The hardest script by far was the one I made to enable three team simultanous dungeons, where you switch back and forth between different teams to open paths through a single dungeon.

Runewind only uses about 500 scripts, but many of them have 999 lines of programming. Anything that sorts abilitiy effects during battle, world number, dungeon number, chests per world number, party member responses based on quest progress, another ten or twelve scripts for townspeople. The system in a pain in some ways and makes some things harder then they need to be. I mean with this game, designing a game is the real game. You can sit and read help messages to learn how to use all the preset flags and variables, and theres just a ton of stuff you have to keep track of.

And I thought that chess players have a lot to consider while playing. lol

 

[ajdass1]

Really interesting hearing your processes Phaedron. The bit about the campsite which has terrain according to the location you enter, and party members with variable moods and appropriate dialogue in particular grabbed my attention. You have some good problem-solving in there too, such as when you were talking about placing buildings that are actually just mounds inside. I'm going to start watching the videos in a bit.

If you do have some videos of scripts I'd love to see those too. It's great that things like this exist!

Edit: Also the fact that you had to do all of the creative writing as well, which is a job and a half in itself. Plus testing. Holy **** that must have been so much work >.<

 

[TropicalStarfish]

LK... It weirds me out a bit you would post a link to such an outdated webpage, lol. How did you even happen upon that site?

 

[Rigel]

If you're interested in game design, you could maybe start level editing or modding a game that you're very familiar with. Plus that way you have the base content to start with (the game, level editor, scripting language, maybe tons of web tutorials if the game has a solid community) i started out working with the unreal engine, but I never got the handle of unreal scripts, even though it's supposed to be super accessible, so level editing was my thing. anyone that actually gets and has the patients to work with scripts is damn clever and patient
Here's a cutscene i made with ued for uni. the engine looks ancient and i still suck at it (for ex i couldn't remove the interface)

 

[Phaedron]

yeah, its a lot like directing. When building story scenes you often test and go back with several takes. The campsite terrain thing just sorts X and Y variables. It works well in Runewind because Desert and Snowy terrain are in very specific places, but if you have lots of random patches it gets to be a real pain.

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Battle system requires unit placement to use the random encounter settings, the problem is that unit placements are too big to make more then a couple, let alone one for every dungeon like Fuma does. That's just crazy. So the only other way to make it so you only encounter specific enemies in specific places was to use the unit placement, but teleport to same location on the battle enter script, and then selecting form a list of event battles in the enter script.

Everything that has a place where you can put something is an event, and every event is connected to a script, so everything you see in all the other editors which have the white box and a named event ultimately go back to the script area.

After a couple years they made RPG Maker 3 which made things simpler, uses a final fantasy like battle system, has character portraits, and is all 3d. The graphics seem to be better too. It's much less complicated then RPGM2 though, and doesn't have many of the advanced features, since the goal was to make it more user friendly. Some people still like RPGM2 better then 3, who like me want to do things outside the box.

 

[Phaedron]

Download link if anyone is interested:
https://rapidshare.com/files/1153522160/Runewind_Saga_1.rar

Actual PS2: You will need to have or order Action Max - a CD that facilitates transfer between memory cards and a USB device, which you will also need.

PCSX2 Emulator: You will need to download MMYC, or use the memcard file enclosed. First find and download RPG Maker 2 ISO, then format a Memcard file in RPGM2,
then open the memcard file in MMYC and import the max file save.

Actual PS2 is recommend unless you have a really good graphics card. Otherwise weather will cause slowdown and graphic errors, places with heavy weather like the morphing space of the dark portal might not load at all. Sound might be slowed down. Trees will not display. I'm not sure if this is the card, or just the Emulator itself. If you get a problem with menus not closing change your graphics sections to use a blend+ in plugins will fix that problem.

 

[LoneKiller]

LK... It weirds me out a bit you would post a link to such an outdated webpage, lol. How did you even happen upon that site?

I believe it was a "Stumble Upon" hit.