Work Post

12:52pm - Well I'm going to be watching a long video shortly but I wanted to write this down while I was thinking about it.

I found an answer to my need for a Dragon Quest style grindy RPG in the form of the Etrian Odyssey games and as soon as a friend reminded me of their existance I was like, I have no more interest in making that sort of thing myself.

That's a half truth though, because I kinda still do? But only barely.

The idea of an MMO or a MUD using old fashioned graphics would be a fun thing to do. I don't know if I have the time or drive for it anymore, but I want to think about it at least.

I'd have to develop the client and server seperately. Since things are slow and don't involve a lot of physics I could run it like a MUD, with the server pushing out updates every tick, and accepting moves as it goes.

The client would just display a Dragon Quest lookalike, and the player would be able to do a variety of actions. In towns and the world map, there would be moving in a direction or inputting a command from the command menu. In combat, well, there would be several ticks between actions, to give players time to respond to the monsters, but a limit, so that players could stand around doing nothing if they don't put any input in.

Anyways I think that's enough ideas for now. I need to finish another game I've been playing.

Work Post

4:24am - Well, I finished the RPG I was playing, Grandia II HD Remaster. It was good. Not as good as the first Grandia, but still quite good.

I'm not sure what to do with myself now, though. My Birthday is in a day, and my closest friends have all told me they're getting me a gift, and hinted some of it would be games. So I don't want to start another big game right away. Plus I've been procrastinating on some other games for a while, so I might want to get back to them.

I'd also like to do some work again. It's been a while since I've done anything more productive than job searches.

I haven't felt up to working on my Transformation Survival game, since I've become very mixed up on the design. I don't know what game I want to make anymore, what I want it to look like and how the transformations would work. I don't know how to do it anymore.

But that leaves me in the lurch, since that's become my defacto main project after I realized the problems with my Character Creator project. I'm not sure what I could work on that would progress myself towards a better future, and I don't know what I 'want' to make either.

I've been talking about making a Dragon Quest looking graphical MUD sort of thing, but I don't think I really want to do that. It's a lot of work for little benefit.

I don't have a story to tell for an RPG.

I know I like simulation games but I don't know what kind of simulation I want to make anymore.

I was hoping when I opened up my journal here and started writing I'd be hit by inspiration as to what to do, but it doesn't seem to be working out that way.

Maybe I should focus on making small game demo projects to improve my portfolio? But I don't think I'll ever actually use them to find a job...

6:13am - Well I need to go to bed, but I'll give it some more thought.

Work Post

8:24pm - I'm still stuck on what I want to make next. I tried talking with a friend yesterday about it, and we came up with some interesting stuff, but nothing really caught me.

The best idea I think was the one for a Dungeon Sim. But there's so many ways to do a Dungeon Sim, and a lot of them have been done already.

I think the most interesting one to me is the idea sort of like the Viva Pinata games, a sort of pet simulator where you build a habitat for monsters and let them interact.

I'm not sure on many of the details yet.

I'm also not sure on the core gameplay. Like, is it building the dungeon itself, or attracting the monsters and satisfying them, or is it both?

In Viva Pinata there was a sort of story mode where you had to unlock things by attracting more and more difficult creatures. That could probably work.

Oh here's an interesting idea. I forgot that in Viva Pinata, you could send your Pinatas to the factory to be shot via cannon to a party. It might be an interesting alternative in my game for the player to actually sell the monsters they attract to their habitats to other dungeons or evil beings or whatever.

So one motivation for your dungeon could be to attract monsters and improve them and/or breed them for sale.

But, I think you might not have to sell them if you don't want to. In Viva Pinata you could also make money by planting and harvesting crops, that the Pinatas would also interact with. They might eat them, or help them grow. So there might be 'monster products' like fancy monster poo or scales or feathers or something that you could also interact with or sell, and plants you could grow for the monsters to forrage on or sell. All sorts of things like that.

This is sounding better all the time.

So we've got a dungeon, that you can build and improve on, and attract monsters by giving them food and shelter that they like, and maybe some decor too. I was thinking that there would be more than just wild animal type monsters though. Like, there are your basic monsters and then there are humanoid monsters that are smarter and live in tribes. There's also undead as an option. What about bandits? They're not really monsters, but humans who have chosen to be bad, but sometimes they live in dungeons too.

I could see something like a Lich wanting to live in a really deep part of a dungeon with lots of other monsters already living there. Maybe with a preference for mindless undead. On the other hand, a Dragon would be attracted to a huge pile of treasure in a large cavern with an exit to the surface so it could fly around.

I think there would also be adventurers who come to your dungeon for various reasons, like taking your money and the loot, killing a specific monster or all monsters in general, or maybe even just exploring. It might be like that game, Evil Genius, and its agent system.

But the Adventurers wouldn't be guaranteed to win, because this is a game about monster pets and we don't want them getting killed easily, but we want there to be a threat. You might be able to deal with adventurers personally if they're a real problem, or maybe there'll be a ressurect option for your monsters.

This seems like a pretty cool game.

What would it take to make a prototype, I wonder?

I'd need to make an editable map system, and some monsters to inhabit it, at least one or two crops to grow in the dungeon, and some adventurers to make things interesting.

The perspective of the player is up to interpretation too. Do you exist in the dungeon, or are you an all-seeing eye, or both? Who does the actual dungeon building; is it done by magic or dug out by minions?

I'll run the idea by some friends and see what they think. Feel free to leave a comment if you have any ideas yourself, reader.