Fun Fact:
This is my first time beginning a collaboration. I am afraid of what seems almost inevitable: it will fall apart because of inactivity, management issues, lack of a clear goal, et cetera. Want to know how I know this? Believe it or not, I've been part of Scratch collaborations before. But you know what? I'm going to try it anyways. This idea for a collaboration has been an idea of mine for a while, but I always held off on it because of my fears and the fact that I had other collaborations and such to deal with. I'm going to do this now.

The “Why”
The reason I'm beginning this is because I have ideas and goals that I can't act upon by myself. I've tried, but I don't have the experience with coding that I want and for some reason, I can't quite learn how. This is why I need help.

WHAT YOU'RE REALLY HERE FOR
Once More is a game that I've envisioned as being like a classic JRPG from the SNES or Playstation, but with different aspects added in to make it unique (unspecific, I know). Don't worry, I know the limits of Scratch and I don't want to make this too complicated or extensive. Right now, it has a classic turn-based battle system but this will change later on to have more substance (I'm considering combining an ATB bar with stored up “battle points” like in Xenogears or Bravely Default). The protagonist as of now is a bland and silent one with a different role in battle than the two other party members, who attack with skills and stats of their own. Right now, I don't want to be too detailed because I'm afraid of losing your attention. Everything made so far (which isn't much) is in this project and the one linked in its “Notes and Credits.”

Management Plans
Even though I intend on acting as a sort of “director” to this and choosing most of what goes into this project, I need more creative vision from other people as well. And what else? There's no such thing as ranking or roles here. In my opinion, that only holds people back. Anyone can be an artist, coder, writer, or whatever. Everyone can contribute ideas.

Applying
If you're even slightly interested or have any questions at all, just leave a comment on my profile giving a brief explanation of why you want to join. From then, you'll be evaluated. However, the last step in the process might be confusing or difficult to interpret, but it is the most important. Thank you for your interest and I hope that it encourages you to contribute.

If you read all of this, I applaud you. Your attention span is incredible. My ideas might seem few now, but that's where you come in. Collaborators will help me both come up with and develop ideas. Thank you for your time.

Edited in Ideas Below:
Battle System Idea So Far: The player begins battle with about 75% of the timer full. When the timer is full, the player can select an action be it a normal attack, skill, spell, power move, etc. If the player decides to use their turn on an action, then the action is spent and the player must wait until the timer fills up again until taking the next action. However, if the player skips their turn, the timer will start over, but in their next turn will allow them to perform two actions. This would be able to keep filling up to a limit for balancing, but I've thought of possible other ways to spice things up that might not be implemented for ease. I'll post them anyways.

• Certain types of attacks use multiple these “turn points” maybe in place of MP (magic power) or in addition to it?
  

• Different characters have different stats that make their timers fill more quickly?
  

• Passive skills, items, or spells increase the amount of “turn points” that can be acquired?
  

• Building up enough of these allows the player to use an “ultimate attack”? The risk is taking damage and/or losing time before using it.
  

• Methods of executing the attacks or dodging/defending themselves (like Undertale or Touhou?) that are more interactive than just selecting actions are something to be considered.
  

More to be added: Leveling/Upgrade System & Story. If I get enough support for this, then I will share these.

Exypno wrote:

Fun Fact:
This is my first time beginning a collaboration. I am afraid of what seems almost inevitable: it will fall apart because of inactivity, management issues, lack of a clear goal, et cetera. Want to know how I know this? Believe it or not, I've been part of Scratch collaborations before. But you know what? I'm going to try it anyways. This idea for a collaboration has been an idea of mine for a while, but I always held off on it because of my fears and the fact that I had other collaborations and such to deal with. I'm going to do this now.

The “Why”
The reason I'm beginning this is because I have ideas and goals that I can't act upon by myself. I've tried, but I don't have the experience with coding that I want and for some reason, I can't quite learn how. This is why I need help.

WHAT YOU'RE REALLY HERE FOR
Once More is a game that I've envisioned as being like a classic JRPG from the SNES or Playstation, but with different aspects added in to make it unique (unspecific, I know). Don't worry, I know the limits of Scratch and I don't want to make this too complicated or extensive. Right now, it has a classic turn-based battle system but this will change later on to have more substance (I'm considering combining an ATB bar with stored up “action points” like in Xenogears or Bravely Default). The protagonist as of now is a bland and silent one with a different role in battle than the two other party members, who attack with skills and stats of their own. Right now, I don't want to be too detailed because I'm afraid of losing your attention. Everything made so far (which isn't much) is in this project and the one linked in its “Notes and Credits.”

Management Plans
Even though I intend on acting as a sort of “director” to this and choosing most of what goes into this project, I need more creative vision from other people as well. And what else? There's no such thing as ranking or roles here. In my opinion, that only holds people back. Anyone can be an artist, coder, writer, or whatever. Everyone can contribute ideas.

Applying
If you're even slightly interested or have any questions at all, just leave a comment on my profile giving a brief explanation of why you want to join. From then, you'll be evaluated. However, the last step in the process might be confusing or difficult to interpret, but it is the most important. Thank you for your interest and I hope that it encourages you to contribute.

Pokepedia11 and I worked on a RPG Pokémon Engine- you could probably accelerate your growth exponentially.

I don't wish to be rude but your early project reminds of my old Pokémon demo on my 2 year old c-o account. I think you got to think like well how do you fight? And so is going to be like Pokémon AnyPokemonVSAnyPokemon? Or YouVSAnyEnemy. I suggest the latter option.

If you want a short (about 1 hour) RPG you can't go wrong on my Pokémon Ranger https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/203418124/.
(You'll need to save so press C and down twice and Z to replay your game.)

I recommend doing it like the old Mario and Luigi games https://www.mariowiki.com/Mario_%26_Luigi_(series).

And using Pokémon attack formula's.

Feel free to take any of the advice or to ignore all of it. I know collaborations who have gone extinct who just ignore me lol!

What I can say is forget all your other scratch projects while working on this game!

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Damage
https://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/thumb/4/47/DamageCalc.png/489px-DamageCalc.png
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/200758179/ Good equations for experience
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/203418124/ Pokémon game as above
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/190392661/ Pokémon Map maker
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/204296065/ Time-based system

Thank you once again for your suggestions.

-message-

Exypno wrote:

-message-

a) Have you seen my essay in that battleships calculator
b) if yes do you want equations or not.

Bump entry:

Bump again

You've piqued my interest. But what kinds of ideas, specifically, did you have that are beyond your experience?

Bump

Update: I've added ideas about the general battle system so far. Ones about the story and progression system may be added later.

If anyone happens to be looking, please give some feedback on why this project seems uninteresting. Thank you.

Exypno wrote:

If anyone happens to be looking, please give some feedback on why this project seems uninteresting. Thank you.

Probably because you haven't done anything!

I saw you asked for tips on my profile. Anyway I have two important tips when it comes to planing.
1.Make sure the core system is working before anything else. I have gotten stuck on making a game where I had everything but the core system made. For me having to make a difficult core system with little idea on how to do it killed a lot of my motivation to work on the game. It is very disastrous to a project if the entire thing depends on something no one knows how to make.

2.Plan out things before you make it. From my experience planing things out in advance makes things flow better in design then making it as you go. If an game takes a long time to make you are likely to forget things while making levels if you make it as you go. I see that sometimes if you make things as you go you can get a bit lazy, and make the area smaller then it would be if you planed it out first. When making a story for a game I recommend plotting out all of the areas in the game(well generally) and making a list of what needs to happen there. That way when designing places you can make places for things to happen while without planning it could turn out you need more to happen than the size of the area. Also make sure you know your character's before writing their lines. I have looked back at a game's story after developing the characters more, and I realized that one guy kept talking about something he wasn't suppost to know. With planing things turn out better than they would be without it.

As for your fighting system it looks pretty good now with that beautiful blue cursor. Maybe for attacks you should make it so timing a button press makes it do more damage. This can make the player feel like they are growing along with the character as they more consistently get better damage boosts. You can either set up attacks so they keep building up until they become weaker than normal after you pass the perfect timing, have a combo that requires more and more perfect timing as it goes on or an attack that builds up and for a few frames after perfect it lowers in power until it becomes weaker than normal. The first one sets up a risk reward system where the player can chose how long to wait before attacking, however if they wait to long it is weaker then they would have gotten earlier. This can discourage some people from trying to get perfect as they could prefer to constantly get greats instead of risking to get perfect. This negates the grow with the characters feel. The latter two are more lenient and allow players to try to better themselves. Comboing is more forgiving than the timed press one as you don't do worse if you miss(well you can make it that way). You could even give different characters different styles to make them feel more different.

As for dodging attacks there are many different ways you could go about it. The transitional you just get hit is the most boring way. There is Paper Mario's guard system where you could guard to reduce damage, and there was an even harder super guard that did damage to the enemy. The key there was the hard timing which kept battles from becoming to easy. There is also the Mario and Luigi series games. There you would either have to time jumps and hammers to defend yourself from foes. To be honest I found it a bit boring and filled with a difficulty spike. First you would not know how to dodge and always get hit. Then you would learn the enemies attack pattern and never really get hit again. I found this frustrating at first and boring afterwards, but that is just my opinion. There is also how the Kirby series handles it(well how the arena plays out with a hammer). From what I've played their are two dodges, a stationary spin, and a dash attack. These gave to some invincibility frames to dodge with. Facing bosses like this is pretty fun and is a mix of mastering the controls, and memorizing attack patterns. This was also how you attacked however you might not want to do that. There is also how Undertale handles dodging in a bullethell like manner. This allowed for many different attacks to be made however I'm not sure if it would work the way the the battle are layed out right now.

The turn point system seems interesting. But what do you mean by waiting for their timer to fill? Does this mean that the player will have to continuously dodge attacks until they get a chance to attack? If not then how are you going to keep the player engaged for long enough for them to attack? How long will it take to charge up a turn? If it is to long the player will get bored, if it is to short the enemies will not get to attack. How could this limit how enemies attack? If you have a set turn charge rate you will likely have to fit all enemy attacks into that rate, this could cut off potential attacks if they are longer than it takes to recharge a turn.

Exypno wrote:

If anyone happens to be looking, please give some feedback on why this project seems uninteresting. Thank you.

This is because the base battle system isn't done yet. Once you finish it, it will be much more interesting. If this statement is about hardly anyone posting here someone has already given you advice, and this paragraphs long post is full of advice, and there is someone asking for more info. Your first post is kind of vague. All you have there are plans for the battle system, and a project that shows that beautiful blue cursor. What is your next goal for the project? The first post lacks direction which stops the project from getting anywhere. Also you should share your ideas for the story and leveling/upgrading system. That way people can give you feedback on them, and your entire collaboration is on the same page.

muellly wrote:

I saw you asked for tips on my profile. Anyway I have two important tips when it comes to planing.
1.Make sure the core system is working before anything else. I have gotten stuck on making a game where I had everything but the core system made. For me having to make a difficult core system with little idea on how to do it killed a lot of my motivation to work on the game. It is very disastrous to a project if the entire thing depends on something no one knows how to make.

2.Plan out things before you make it. From my experience planing things out in advance makes things flow better in design then making it as you go. If an game takes a long time to make you are likely to forget things while making levels if you make it as you go. I see that sometimes if you make things as you go you can get a bit lazy, and make the area smaller then it would be if you planed it out first. When making a story for a game I recommend plotting out all of the areas in the game(well generally) and making a list of what needs to happen there. That way when designing places you can make places for things to happen while without planning it could turn out you need more to happen than the size of the area. Also make sure you know your character's before writing their lines. I have looked back at a game's story after developing the characters more, and I realized that one guy kept talking about something he wasn't suppost to know. With planing things turn out better than they would be without it.

As for your fighting system it looks pretty good now with that beautiful blue cursor. Maybe for attacks you should make it so timing a button press makes it do more damage. This can make the player feel like they are growing along with the character as they more consistently get better damage boosts. You can either set up attacks so they keep building up until they become weaker than normal after you pass the perfect timing, have a combo that requires more and more perfect timing as it goes on or an attack that builds up and for a few frames after perfect it lowers in power until it becomes weaker than normal. The first one sets up a risk reward system where the player can chose how long to wait before attacking, however if they wait to long it is weaker then they would have gotten earlier. This can discourage some people from trying to get perfect as they could prefer to constantly get greats instead of risking to get perfect. This negates the grow with the characters feel. The latter two are more lenient and allow players to try to better themselves. Comboing is more forgiving than the timed press one as you don't do worse if you miss(well you can make it that way). You could even give different characters different styles to make them feel more different.

As for dodging attacks there are many different ways you could go about it. The transitional you just get hit is the most boring way. There is Paper Mario's guard system where you could guard to reduce damage, and there was an even harder super guard that did damage to the enemy. The key there was the hard timing which kept battles from becoming to easy. There is also the Mario and Luigi series games. There you would either have to time jumps and hammers to defend yourself from foes. To be honest I found it a bit boring and filled with a difficulty spike. First you would not know how to dodge and always get hit. Then you would learn the enemies attack pattern and never really get hit again. I found this frustrating at first and boring afterwards, but that is just my opinion. There is also how the Kirby series handles it(well how the arena plays out with a hammer). From what I've played their are two dodges, a stationary spin, and a dash attack. These gave to some invincibility frames to dodge with. Facing bosses like this is pretty fun and is a mix of mastering the controls, and memorizing attack patterns. This was also how you attacked however you might not want to do that. There is also how Undertale handles dodging in a bullethell like manner. This allowed for many different attacks to be made however I'm not sure if it would work the way the the battle are layed out right now.

The turn point system seems interesting. But what do you mean by waiting for their timer to fill? Does this mean that the player will have to continuously dodge attacks until they get a chance to attack? If not then how are you going to keep the player engaged for long enough for them to attack? How long will it take to charge up a turn? If it is to long the player will get bored, if it is to short the enemies will not get to attack. How could this limit how enemies attack? If you have a set turn charge rate you will likely have to fit all enemy attacks into that rate, this could cut off potential attacks if they are longer than it takes to recharge a turn.

Exypno wrote:

If anyone happens to be looking, please give some feedback on why this project seems uninteresting. Thank you.

This is because the base battle system isn't done yet. Once you finish it, it will be much more interesting. If this statement is about hardly anyone posting here someone has already given you advice, and this paragraphs long post is full of advice, and there is someone asking for more info. Your first post is kind of vague. All you have there are plans for the battle system, and a project that shows that beautiful blue cursor. What is your next goal for the project? The first post lacks direction which stops the project from getting anywhere. Also you should share your ideas for the story and leveling/upgrading system. That way people can give you feedback on them, and your entire collaboration is on the same page.

You're right my advice to OP is give as much detail as this in your reply.

It's been a while since I bumped.

Hi! I'm interested, due to my interest in making RPGs.

I might not be able to staff due to my life things getting in the way, but I think I could be really a strong and helpful asset.
Even if I can't staff, I'd still like to watch for this project to release and help out if I can.

I like drawing with my tablet, I can also do some graphic design (My logo on my profile is pretty garbage at the moment)
and I'm also a bit of a fanatic of programming turn-based battle mechanics.
I love building characters, character design is one of my favorite parts.

I have a little knowledge about creating RPG battle engines, I used to try make those when I was smaller
but never really came out with a full game because I never got started on developing the rest of it beyond the engines.
Since this isn't my strength, I would leave the programming up to you.

I don't mean to advertise, but I figured I should mention that I'm working on my own RPG too as we speak.
It's called Thief of Time and the story is already written. Hard part is getting to build a battle engine for it and
other things like adding art since I'm a perfectionist. It has a lot of different characters and it's own world/universe.
Just figured I should mention out of experience's sake.

EDIT: I edited so that I could provide a link to a large portfolio showing some art and logos.
https://imgur.com/a/3YIZX

Bumping with this: #6587

Bump

B