Fresh Thoughts

I'm still not working on this again (sorry to anyone reading this, I need a bit more time before I can get back to full throttle, how much I cannot say, but I approximate like ten days.)

However, today I realized that my game ideas might be outgrowing the capabilities of Ren'Py. I need to have a lot of animations which Ren'Py doesn't excel at which is pretty much the biggest problem.

Now the original plan was to make a Corruption of Champion styled gameply game (exploration wise) but actually with graphics, and a bunch of minigames (such as an actual world map system) but the problem that arises, is that while I could make a dungeon crawler styled minigame quite easily, some gameplay elements I would like might be hard to implement, there are some slightly complicated minigames I want to include, and since the world is pretty huge, exploring through buttons rather than actually just walking through it might not be for the best, this is something I will have to ponder a lot.

But I figured, instead of using a visual novel base, I could do the whole "Dust: An Elysian Tale" thing and use a platformer as a game, now that I have 2D graphics within my reach, this is a viable route, but I'm still not convinced, chances are I might have to actually mix and match (use platformer style gameplay for exterior cells, and use dungeon crawler style gameplay for interiors) but I do not think people would like having so many genres packed into one game (<- Developers can never know right) so I will ask myself if I would like it, and I do not think I would because it would lack consistency. I have to choose.

Now a trick I could use perhaps is use platforming for all cell exploration (instead of dungeon crawling) thus making my game a lot more graphical and nice. Don't get me wrong, I'm starting in visual novels one way or another, an I will also probably do some flash minigames for various experimentation purposes.

Now, the problem with using platformer style gameplay for cell exploration would be that I want the combat to be turn based, have you ever heard of TBC Platformer? I have not, and the reason for that is simply that to convert from platformer to turn based combat gameplay, you would usually have to kick the player out of the platformer gameplay into a turn based combat module (such as in final fantasy or the last remnant for an example) the alternative to that I can think of is adding a combat UI on top of the screen and zooming the camera in to a combat simulator styled zoom where you see your character and the NPCs. That would look a lot more dynamic, but that will also probably require me to learn a bit of graphics programming, and that is something to dread since it's known as the hardest form of programming to exist, and I would have to use OpenGL which is not as easy to learn as DirectX (due to poor, but improving documentation)

What I really really really want to do, is Wizardry 8 styled gameplay (as in world exploration and combat, for the most part anyhow, except that in this case you're usually travelling alone, not in a party) but the problem with that is that I do not have access to a 3D Modeler, Animator and a Texturer, and even if I did, they wouldn't make a world as big as what I have planned for free. Not in any decent quality anyways, so this means I would have to do it myself, and while I'm pretty confident I can think of something to generate inanimate objects (such as the ground, and everything that's stuck to it, like buildings and whatnot) the real problem becomes characters, NPCs and Monsters, and what would be hardest of it all, Sex animations, which you may or may not have seen so many 3D games fail at, including Oblivion and Skyrim mods, as well as some Illusion Games (Rapelay, Sexy Beach 3, Artificial Girl.. I think out of these sexy beach did it the best)

In other words, I'm easily confident I can cover the modesls, and with a bit of research and hard work, I'll get textures down too, but what's keeping me from 3D games ultimately is animations and the massively increased amount of sound effects you need in a 3D game compared to a 2D one. But well, this games development is still young, and I will make quite a few prequels before I get around to making the real deal final product, all of which meant to be full blown games in their own right.

I technically do have access to a 3D modeler, Texturer and Animator, my little brother. But the problem with this is that he is like 14, and completely new at it, quality is not acceptable for any full blown game purposes basically.

Anyways, these thoughts are an interesting development, which is why I posted them, I will get my grips on art pretty fast (by the looks of it) but after that, will I get down to programming again like I was before? or will I go nuts and get into 3D modeling and the like?

Quite frankly, I have more reasons to want in on 3D modeling, for one the 3D printers that are becoming so accessible and so popular, 3D modeling + 3D printer = saving a lot of money (I could make my own furniture, even if they'd be made of plastic, I don't give a shit. But I'm waiting a bit before I jump on this train because I want to wait for printers that can print other materials such as metals to become more accessible too. The RepRap looks like it might come a long way if I give it a couple of extra years. The other thing I want to wait for is for improved recycling technology, like the recyclebot which can turn shampoo cans into 3D printing materials. It's gonna be super fun to toy around with this tech when I get my dirty paws on it, chances are my brother will beat me to it. The future is an unclean mess right now, and I cannot predict anything more than "I am going to make this game" and "I will get good at art" as well as "I will get good at 3D Modeling" these are just 3 definites for me, give it 5 years, give it 10 years, or give it 2 years, I can't predict how long this will take, but I know that it is going to happen. I can see the future like that ;)

I've already got a place to start on 3D modeling even.

This is all thats been going on in this games development for now, sorry it's nothing more than thoughts at this stage, apart form this I guess I may have created some nice little characters in my head that would match into my game, and I've had osme crazy ideas like, I could eliminate males from the game and make a world full of girls and futa chicks :D Someone in response might make a game with men with boobs and other men with vaginas, that would be hilarious although I wouldn't play it.

Don't wait for me, my game will come at my pace and right now said pace is turtle speed, I'm trying to change it to race-car level, but it takes time, just stay tuned on my DeviantART non-featured journals to see exactly how well I am doing.

Edit: An extra thought; I could also try to play Wakfu and learn from them, they have like super simple 2D styled graphics, I could probably pull those graphics off and possibly even without using 3D models (although I probably wouldn't, since graphics of that simple level would be easier to do in 3D than 2D) I will definitely have to look into that.