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Since my last post I've gotten a few maps done and (most?) of the introductory cut-scene done. I've gotten a number of new ideas out of this and I'm really excited to get back to it This map, for example, it what the fort looks like when the player first arrives. Fixing it up (and maybe expanding on it) will be a big part of the game.
One thing I'm struggling with is combat, namely whether or not to use random encounters. On the one hand, I prefer the Chrono Trigger model of being able to see the enemies on the map, but that would require me to place each fight as an event (as far as I know) which in and of itself isn't that big of a deal. Those events are pretty easy to make. One problem is that, for example, I wanted to have the protagonists clear out the old mess hall (that blue roofed building in the middle), but it's just small enough that the player would be able to see pretty much all of the monsters on the map when they enter, which kind of removes any mystery. Another is that I don't know how to represent the enemies on the map. Making sprites for each kind of enemy would be hard and very time consuming as I'm not really an artist. I could go the Persona 5 route of having a generic "monster" on the map that can then lead to some kind of an encounter, but that still doesn't solve the problem of how to place the encounters.
So those are kind of the big things running in the back of my mind while I work out the early part of the game and get the hang of RPG Maker MV.