DAY 2 - DESIGN PHASE
So continued some more design work and started thinking, albeit loosely, what it might look like to code my game - thinking about what the systems will look like and how they will function, etc.
Phantasy Star 4' skeleton is about exploration, story beats, and combat. You walk around different environments, talking with NPCs, discovering new areas, items, things, and even what kind of creatures inhabit the world. The story beats are moved along by chatting up the NPCs and getting major narrative info. Another way the story beats move forward is by reaching certain areas or interacting with certain characters. Combat is the result of exploring a dangerous world, and encountering dangerous individuals. Combat is cool because it's so immersive and is rewarding on multiple levels. The thing about it is you grow your characters through combat, learn new skills and techniques to try out, discover the dangerous fauna of your world, and strategize how to best approach certain combinations of enemies. You can macro your way through some combat scenarios, which is like automating the decision making process, or you can be more hands on if you so like. Other gameplay rewards are rooted in discovery, management, and collection.
Now, if I were to simplify that skeleton down to an even purer essence, and translate it into a game that's maybe completable in a game jam it would be:
1) Explorable Areas - Instead of navigating the maps with your character, you would point and click on objects of interest and move immediately to that object, with a contextual menu coming up with either dialog or letting you know what you encountered. So, I'd do away with walking and having to animate a world sprite, I can just use a floating head or something to convey the player character.
2) Story beats - Clicking on an NPC or object of interest will move the story forward by telling the story or causing a major combat scene. So this part should retain its essence from the main skeleton. There's not much simplifying I think that needs to be done.
3) Combat - Combat may not change much, except for the presence of fewer choices. So, instead of hitting the COMD button, to then see a list of possible actions such as: Attack, Skill, Tech, Defend, Item, I may just implement ATTACK, DEFEND, RUN. I'll reset health at the end of each battle, and you'll be able to manage items outside of combat. Now, I'm still iffy how much I want to simplify combat because this is a meaty part of the game. But I'm also trying to be cautious and conservative about how much I know I can implement since combat involves a series of data structures talking between each other, crunching numbers, and doing turn orders.
So, the game will feel a little more point & clicky as I've envisioned it. But in essence you'll still be exploring, talking, fighting. I'm just trying to prune the main systems down to their essentials so I can complete them in time. Then I can worry about polishing and increasing the complexity of the features. I'm also still working out if this design is optimal for fun, enjoyment and telling the game story together with the verse. I may take upon a totally different game play structure.
GamesForFun has also given me a good idea which is to use RPG Maker. That will certainly save me time as most of the systems will already be completed, I just need to focus on writing out the story and making some cool art to use for the game. I have less control over the systems however, like if I wanted to change some things, it would not be easy. I would also require some time getting familiar with RPG Maker, having never used it. Decisions, decisions!
Hopefully by today I'll lock down what I want to do, find what my game's about and come up with a name. Stay tuned!