Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2821
Location: Northern California
Recommended listening material:
Link to video
I had a crazy idea and a burst of nostalgia, which usually go together about as well as a blindfold and a skydiving trip, but after discussing this idea in IRC there's a lot more support behind it than I was expecting... I mean, I wasn't expecting any support in the first place, so having even a single person support it was unexpected, but there's actually a fairly large amount on top of that!
I guess the idea is easy enough to figure out from the title of the thread, but here it is anyway: Let's TAS the making of an RPG... then TAS the RPG itself.
Now I don't just mean we make some stupid little 5-minute RPG. I won't accept cop-outs (or Cop Dog). I want to put together a "legitimate" "game development" team to actually create a worthwhile game for this TAS. Yeah, we could make a "game" where you start in front of the event trigger that calls the end of the game, and the TAS would be maybe 5 minutes tops, but then there'd be absolutely no point. I want the game to be playable, something we could theoretically "release" for people to play if they have the means to do so.
So I guess I want to know two things:
1. Who else is interested in seeing this come to light? It's definitely an odd project and the actual TAS might not be the most exciting thing to watch, but I think it'd still be interesting/fascinating to watch a game being developed at top speed with absolutely no downtime.
2. Who would be interested in working on the project? Ideally, I'd want to get a group of 5-10 people to hash out all the design aspects and maybe an artist or two to create some custom artwork... And who knows? If this actually ends up happening and getting finished, and this team works really well together... perhaps we could go on to actually make games outside of RPG Maker... But maybe that's just me being ambitious.
One last thing: I'm not concerned at all about whether or not this TAS would be publishable on the site. This would be done entirely out of just wanting to see how it would look when it's finished. If it's publishable, then that's just an added bonus.
EDIT: Looks like the feedback is completely positive so far. Excellent~ I'll keep track of progress and other important posts below. Once we get some planning done, we'll most likely make our planning document available for public viewing so people can discuss/criticize/add to our ideas.
Current Team
Samsara
ars4326
arandomgameTASer
Invariel
xy2_
Posts Of Interest
*Menu screen explanations: Use these to help post/discuss ideas if you don't have access to the game.Progress Posts
yo man we ain't even started yet chill
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
I would be interested in at least seeing this happen. I love games and game development, and combining that with one of my favorite hobbies makes this a project I will not want to miss.
I plan to keep up with this thread, and if I think there's something I have the SKAs and time to contribute, I will let you know. It might be a little harder to commit to something this year since I'm going into my senior year of college though.
One thing that would help is if you or someone else could provide a list of specific things needed for the design and development of the game. Even if someone just has a grand vision for the game's story and gameplay, sharing it could help get things started.
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2821
Location: Northern California
CoolKirby wrote:
One thing that would help is if you or someone else could provide a list of specific things needed for the design and development of the game. Even if someone just has a grand vision for the game's story and gameplay, sharing it could help get things started.
Hmm... For a basic starting list, I suppose this will do:
* Plot (probably a joint effort)
* Character designs (playable and non-playable)
* Map design/setting
* Dialogue?
* Possibly custom artwork: Game allows custom character sheets, title screens, and monsters to be made
On a bit more of an advanced level:
* Controlling pacing/Trimming down excess into something more manageable
* Difficulty balancing
* Playtesting
I'll go through the exact specifics of the engine soon, though to anyone who's interested in directly contributing I'd recommend finding the game and playing around with it over just reading my future explanations.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Count me in for things that aren't custom artwork.
I am still the wizard that did it.
"On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata
<scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is
Crazy idea alright. Very interested in seeing this come to fruition. Not sure if I would be able to provide significant help, but at the very least you can count on me for yay-or-nay opinions on pretty much anything.
It would be incredibly interesting to see a game assemble itself in front of one's eyes. Like those quick drawing vids, except a lot more educational and grandiose. I can see this making news on gamer sites easily.
Now for the important question: should there be built-in sequence breaks/skips/glitches, or would a honest, no-easy-way-out approach serve the goal better? And, since I'm not familiar with it, how friendly is the engine itself towards TASing in general (luck manipulation, etc.)?
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 12/8/2012
Posts: 706
Location: Missouri, USA
As I spoke with you on irc, I see a great deal of potential in this. If you ask me, it's an innovative idea and thinks outside-of-the-box.
Count me in! We could make some noise on this one :)
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
Depending on how long it takes to make the whole thing, do you think this would be a good choice for SGDQ/AGDQ? Make the whole game lightining fast, then let someone play it all the way through?
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11473
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
As a sand box game, won't be vaultable, so would need Moon feedback to get accepted. No idea how entertaining creation of the game will end up, but an RPG TAS usually needs to be done to a popular (and thus, known) game to be liked. So it'd require coding some things that'd be generally enjoyable when tased, or people just won't like anything but the concept itself. Maybe some innovative gameplay ideas? How far from RPG genre could the result go?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
I'm wondering what are planned process to make this TAS.
1. take time build rpg together
2. write lua script to extract needed inputs to build exact stuff?
As a sand box game, won't be vaultable, so would need Moon feedback to get accepted.
It looks like the idea's getting a lot of positive feedback so far, but I suppose we'll have to see if the TAS itself lives up to it.
No idea how entertaining creation of the game will end up, but an RPG TAS usually needs to be done to a popular (and thus, known) game to be liked. So it'd require coding some things that'd be generally enjoyable when tased, or people just won't like anything but the concept itself. Maybe some innovative gameplay ideas? How far from RPG genre could the result go?
I'm admittedly one of those ~*game designer*~ types who loves coming up with unique ideas and design elements, so assuming everyone doesn't quit the project due to my pretentiousness I think we'll come up with something worthwhile for people to watch and play.
ventuz wrote:
I'm wondering what are planned process to make this TAS.
1. take time build rpg together
2. write lua script to extract needed inputs to build exact stuff?
Something like that, yeah. I was thinking more "Plan first, then TAS normally".
I'm thinking about setting up a central place for people to post their ideas even if they can't/don't want to actively join the team... But now that I think about it, this thread will probably suffice. I'm still procrastinating on setting up a base of collaboration for the main team, honestly... Anyway. At some point I'll compile all of the stock assets together so people without access to the game can more easily contribute, but for now I can at least give this.
Here's the main menu of sorts:
Title: Just a basic customization of the title screen. Technically optional!
Skill: Think of this as a pretty detailed Class system. Create custom character classes (i.e Warrior, Mage, Thief) and have them unlock under specific circumstances. Give them special abilities such as +1 Attack or Counterattack. Pretty nice.
Configuration: All we wanna do is turn off the collision sound because why is that even a feature. This is also what controls the music that plays while you're editing the game, so we may come back here and change up the music on occasion to keep it fresh. Or we can just leave it on Home 3, the best song of all time.
Monster: Edit monsters and bosses. Self-explanatory!
Gameplay Edit: Less self-explanatory. Allows you to turn on/off specific features, like Special Attacks and the Magic Defense stat. Probably best to just turn everything on and leave it alone otherwise.
Dungeon: This is oddly named, because it's actually how you make all of the in-game maps, not just the dungeons. You can choose from premade areas like towns and forests and, well, dungeons. Or you can build your own custom areas using the stock tilesets.
Parameter Name: Change the names of stats. That's it! Bye!
Field: Create the overworld maps! Hooray! The overworld system is reminiscent of Final Fantasy Tactics, except there are no random encounters.
Magic: Ah, here we go, something that requires detailed explanation. Set up spells and spell effects! Create your own spell animations with sound effects and stuff! This is pretty cool!
Monster Appearance: You can set up custom appearance rates for random encounters based on the in-game maps you've created.
Item: It's like Monster, except with items!
Blank Space:Main Characters: Create playable characters, with stats and sprites and all the things you'd usually expect from playable characters!
Game Info: It is, indeed.
Event: This is where most of the time will be spent! This is where the actual game is made. Nearly everything is done here: NPCs, cutscenes, things as simple as door transitions and signs... If it's not created in the above categories, it's created here.
Game Info: It is, indeed.
I'm thinking the "Dungeons" can be the first things created, as that's probably one of the more frustrating parts of RPG Maker. From there we can jump from category to category, leaving the Events for last. Once work on the project actually starts, we'll most likely post some progress and ask for community ideas based on what we're working on... But if you have ideas now, we'll definitely take note of them.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2821
Location: Northern California
Alright, let's start getting into this mess. I did a couple quick test TASes to see how long it would take to make certain things:
Here's a quick test character.Here's a test spell using one of the sample animations.
And here's an embedded video of making a custom spell animation. I'm embedding it as a Youtube vid instead of a gfycat... well, mostly to remind myself to tell everyone to turn their volume down during the entirety of the spell creation section:
Link to video
Eventually I'll get to the more long-form stuff, like creating a test map and a test event, which should be both more and less interesting to watch somehow!
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
I do think this is a cool idea. how i thinkit should work.
1) decide minimum standard (overworld map siz,e and number, dungeon size and number, etc.)
2) have two teams working on it. one team does the creation part, and the other does the TAS part.
3) use neither intentional shortcuts, not anti-TAS tricks beyond what commercial games have. FOr example you can have a system that bases encounters on stepcount, but nothing that attempts to counteract lucky beaks on purpose. making attack hard to manipulate is fair game.
Things with a good TAS of the game will probablt have.
1) good luck manipulation to fight and/or run from battles.
2) good route planning.
3) skips that don't use glitches (skippign the torch cuz yo already know the map from DW1 TAS is a good example of suhc a skip).
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2821
Location: Northern California
zaphod77 wrote:
I do think this is a cool idea. how i thinkit should work.
1) decide minimum standard (overworld map siz,e and number, dungeon size and number, etc.)
This will be done once we actually figure out the kind of game we want to make. I'm a pretty obsessive planner by myself, so even if the rest of the team leaves due to my high demands, harsh language, and spiked Cat o' Nine Tails whip, everything will be planned out long before it's implemented. The great thing about this kind of project is that, with a sufficiently-sized team, the efficiency goes through the roof: Everyone can work on designing different game aspects, run them by the rest of the team for approval, and then it can be thrown haphazardly into the TAS!
2) have two teams working on it. one team does the creation part, and the other does the TAS part.
...I'll consider this, actually. It's an interesting idea to have a separate team TAS the game. The only problem is I don't want the co-author count getting too high in case we're urged to submit the run once it's finished. The way I'm seeing it now is this: The benefit of the creation team TASing the game is that we'll already know everything about it, so we should be able to create a more optimized TAS in a shorter amount of time than any other team. Either way, regardless of whether or not we TAS our game or someone else does, that part won't even be started for a while.
3) use neither intentional shortcuts, not anti-TAS tricks beyond what commercial games have. FOr example you can have a system that bases encounters on stepcount, but nothing that attempts to counteract lucky beaks on purpose. making attack hard to manipulate is fair game.
You maaaaay be giving a bit too much credit to the engine. The engine itself is static from game to game: I believe you can change how random encounters are handled, but you can't tinker with the RNG or anything. We might have to wait until the PC RPG Makers are TASable so we can do high speed Ruby scripting, because that's a language everyone knows!
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2821
Location: Northern California
Planning work has officially begun. Once we get some stuff planned out, we'll post it here in case anyone wants to give feedback on it. Eventually we'll just make the whole planning doc public, but I'd like to wait until we have a substantial amount there. Looks more impressive that way!
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Some years back I designed a PS1 controller mod for RPGM 1 that allows you to connect a PS/2 keyboard to it, drastically speeding up text entry.
If you're interested in speeding up text input & are inclined to have some fun with a soldering iron, check this out:
Technical explanation and parts listSource code, schematics, and images download
Old blog that hasn't been updated in a while, so there are lots of broken links. But the download links on the schematics page all work.
I never did get around to finishing version 2.0, which would have been majorly faster and better designed, but que sera sera.
Good luck on your project regardless! The RPGM 1 community is light on interesting projects these days, so it's great to see something new pop up like this. :)
Is there an IRC chat where we can pop in whenever we have time to keep up with the run's progress? If there isn't, it's okay, I look forward to the planning document being made public regardless.
Title: Just a basic customization of the title screen. Technically optional!
Skill: Think of this as a pretty detailed Class system. Create custom character classes (i.e Warrior, Mage, Thief) and have them unlock under specific circumstances. Give them special abilities such as +1 Attack or Counterattack. Pretty nice.
Configuration: All we wanna do is turn off the collision sound because why is that even a feature. This is also what controls the music that plays while you're editing the game, so we may come back here and change up the music on occasion to keep it fresh. Or we can just leave it on Home 3, the best song of all time.
Monster: Edit monsters and bosses. Self-explanatory!
Gameplay Edit: Less self-explanatory. Allows you to turn on/off specific features, like Special Attacks and the Magic Defense stat. Probably best to just turn everything on and leave it alone otherwise.
Dungeon: This is oddly named, because it's actually how you make all of the in-game maps, not just the dungeons. You can choose from premade areas like towns and forests and, well, dungeons. Or you can build your own custom areas using the stock tilesets.
Parameter Name: Change the names of stats. That's it! Bye!
Field: Create the overworld maps! Hooray! The overworld system is reminiscent of Final Fantasy Tactics, except there are no random encounters.
Magic: Ah, here we go, something that requires detailed explanation. Set up spells and spell effects! Create your own spell animations with sound effects and stuff! This is pretty cool!
Monster Appearance: You can set up custom appearance rates for random encounters based on the in-game maps you've created.
Item: It's like Monster, except with items!
Blank Space:
Main Characters: Create playable characters, with stats and sprites and all the things you'd usually expect from playable characters!
Game Info: It is, indeed.
Event: This is where most of the time will be spent! This is where the actual game is made. Nearly everything is done here: NPCs, cutscenes, things as simple as door transitions and signs... If it's not created in the above categories, it's created here.
Game Info: It is, indeed.
I'm thinking the "Dungeons" can be the first things created, as that's probably one of the more frustrating parts of RPG Maker. From there we can jump from category to category, leaving the Events for last. Once work on the project actually starts, we'll most likely post some progress and ask for community ideas based on what we're working on... But if you have ideas now, we'll definitely take note of them.
