Learning to create a CRPG

Hi,

I’m sometimes here and sometimes not, but since I’ve kinda liked the vibe here, I’m telling you about my hobby-program.

I’ve complained about plenty of games, and now I’m finally starting to create my own.

It’s not exactly postapocalyptic, but it has elements that might evolve it into one (eventually).

I’m an engineer by trade, so I have little, but not extensive knowing of coding and scripting, I’ve bee trying to involve AI to help me with that, but as advanced as it seems, it is still just a wrench when you need a toolbox.

My intent is to make a somewhat modernlooking game that borriws aspects from Wasteland 1, Fallout 2, Pillars of Eternity 2 (adventurewindow) and Wizardry 8.

The narrative covers topics regarding humanity’s degradation due to addiction on technology; and as such, the game is more of a Cyberpunk game than survival of the wastes.

The aim of the gams systems is to be easily adapted to a PnP scenario, so it is based off of D100, D10 and D6 rolls.

I’m making it on the Godot engine, since it is, or seems to be, the most beginnerfriendly engine.

What I’m askin for is some assistance on the general ideas, the code and the art (since I’m not a artist).

All help is appreciated.
@Gizmojunk I know you should be interested, but of course I might wrong too.

I wrote a big post that I feel is a bit too uh... Speechy.
Might post it, probably not gonna post it.

I'll just say, if you're learning something then don't get too attached to the project and don't stake your life on it. Create something basic to learn fundamentals of what makes a cRPG what it is. Baby's first game maker game basically. Your first work of art is not very likely to be a masterpiece. It rarely is. Just use it as a learning experience and don't get too bogged down in some visionary project who's scope is out of this world. As Emil Pagaya likes to say Keep It Simple, Stupid. Once you know how to do those basic things you can apply them much quicker with less sloppy coding for a new project, then reiterate reiterate reiterate by creating new projects.

And you should watch a bunch of Tim Cain's videos on how he designed games back in the days. Cause they can offer a lot of insight into what good game development can be and what pitfalls to avoid.

Mr Fish said:

I wrote a big post that I feel is a bit too uh... Speechy.
Might post it, probably not gonna post it.

I'll just say, if you're learning something then don't get too attached to the project and don't stake your life on it. Create something basic to learn fundamentals of what makes a cRPG what it is. Baby's first game maker game basically. Your first work of art is not very likely to be a masterpiece. It rarely is. Just use it as a learning experience and don't get too bogged down in some visionary project who's scope is out of this world. As Emil Pagaya likes to say Keep It Simple, Stupid. Once you know how to do those basic things you can apply them much quicker with less sloppy coding for a new project, then reiterate reiterate reiterate by creating new projects.

And you should watch a bunch of Tim Cain's videos on how he designed games back in the days. Cause they can offer a lot of insight into what good game development can be and what pitfalls to avoid.

Click to expand...

Yeah, it is a hobby project I do little by little when I have time and energy, and it will be very… rudimentary; learning the ropes and tools. Mostly text and menuwindow’s with few thematic illustrations since I’m not an artist nor an animator.

Basically a visualized rulesystem and a story with which I might be able to do something eventually, when things with the engine start to feel familiar enough.

The biggest things really are learning the engine, code, and figuring out hiw to compensate the lack of art and animation.

I suppose I'm more asking for feedback than "advice". I've been rolling this concept in my mind for a few years already, but just now gotten to put it all on paper and production.

I'm a mechanics kind of guy as those who might remember me know. The charactersystem I've been toying around so far is as follows (it still lacks details and is generally raw, so all feedback is appreciated and considered):

Main attributes (1-10):
Body – (Strength + Endurance + Constitution)
Coordination – (Dexterity + Agility + Nimbleness)
Mind – (Inteligence + Resolve)
Senses – (Perception)
Influence – (Charisma)


Derived attributes:
Health
Healing rate
Morale
Initiative
Dodge/evasion
Critical success
Critical fumble
Recoil control
Natural armor class
Armor class (nat.armor class + worn armor)
Status (normal, unconscious, bleeding, on fire, stunned… etc)

Skills (1-150):

Combat:
Close combat (Base: Body*2 + Coordination)
- Melee and HtH combat (possibility for combo attacks based on skill and weight of the weapon – max. 4 attacks that decrease in damage per subsequent attacks)
Single Shot (Base: Senses*2 + Coordination)
- Guns that fire either singular shots or few (max. 3 rapid shots – rapid shots have cumulatively incresed recoil effect per shot, e.g. First shot is penaltyless unless combat conditions dictate them, second shot is 15% less accurate and third shot is 30% less accurate)
- Skill relies on singular precise fire and Critical Hits – Every 10th point in the skill raises critical hit chance and critical damage above the default for this skill only starting from skill level 50 (e.g. skill level 50 raises critical change from 95 on D100 to 96, and 70r raises it to 97; similiarly skill levels 60, 80 and 100 raises the critical damage modifier)
Burst Fire (Base: Body*2 + Coordination)
- Guns that fire 5-10 round bursts (the heavier the weapon, the fewer rounds)
- Skill relies on accurate bursts where every round has its own to-hit roll and after the first round, every round decreases in accuracy by 15%. Derived attribute ”Recoil control” combats this effect by decreasing the recoil effect by 0,5% per every 5 points in it.
Explosives (Base: Body*2 + Senses - Doubles as an Exploration skill)
- Throwed weapons like dynamite and grenades; shot explosives devices like grenade launchers, set explosives like mines and C4 (or C7.a015)
Combat tactics (Base: Mind*1,5 + Senses*1,5 + Coordination – evasion, dodge, movement in combat)

Covert & security:
Stealth (Base: Coordination + Senses*2)
Steal (Base: Coordination*2 + Senses – Pickpocket and steal items from NPC inventory)
Pick lock (Base: Coordination*1,5 + Senses*1,5)
Hack (Base: Mind*2 + Senses)
Traps (Base: Coordination + Senses + Mind)


Social:
Human Insight (Base: Influence + Senses + Mind – see the NPC disposition, spot a lie, identify the stats of an enemy)
Mercantile (Base: Influence*2 + Mind*0,5 + Senses*0,5)

Intimidate (Base: Influence + Body)
Negotiate (Base: Influence + Mind)
Flatter (Base: Influense + Senses)
- This has to be thought more… maybe ”speech” skill + attribute = a thematic derived attribute as above, but speech itself is handled as common logic


Exploration:

Urban explorer (Base: Senses*2 + Mind – how avoidable map encounters are, what kind of encounters are found, what is the opening status of the encounter beginning (e.g. have enemies seen the party already or not))
Acrobatics (Base: Coordination*2 + Body – getting past obstacles)
Strength feature (base: Body*2 + Coordination -- lifting/moving heavy objects)
Doctor (Base: Mind + Senses + Coordination – Healing HP or statuseffects on anyone for certain amount of times per day (e.g. every 20th point gives 1 more heal-attempt per day))
Inspect (Base Senses*2 + Mind – identify enemies, adventure features and items/objects)


The combat is to work similiarly to Wasteland 1, but with a number of "enhancements" like adding weather effects, day/night effects, morale effects, cover and party formation and directional enemies, and advanced combat movement.

Exploration happens on a city district map by pressing a button called explore, which allows for different kinds of encounters like Fallout and Fallout 2.

Dungeon crawling and "situations" are handled with PoE 2 -like adventure widonws.

Dialog is aimed to be similiar to the original 2 Fallout's, but might change to being similiar to Morrowind depending on the workload - although, skill test, -checks an the like will be in.

The narrative is meant to be higher level without minute details, but choises do matter. This might change along the way - writing is not a problem, but scripting everything is.

So that's the mechanical base I'm currently at. If anyone has feedback, it is greatly appreciated,