Castle Paradox

[Rya.Reisender]

I didn't base my list on nostalgia, I really think the 'good old games' excel any of the newer games except in plotscripting and music. Name me some games you think are better than those I mentioned graphic-wise and length-wise.

Sure there are new games with awesome plotscripting or that use portraits or custom palettes or any of the new OHRRPGCE features, but those games are usually just to "show off what you can do" game-design-wise and not games where a person outside the OHR community would say "man, this game is awesome", because outsiders won't care much if plotscripting was used or not as long as the game is good.

In fact showing what you can do WITHOUT plotscripting seems to be important to me especially in this case. FUABMX is a good example. White Owl hates plotscripting, he didn't use any in v3 and only one single script to raise the walking speed in v4. Yet he managed to make a game I could replay right now and still enjoy it.

(also there is no v5, that's only the shifted naming of the versions people use here, according to White Owl v4 was the last one, unless he released another one in the past years, just to make sure v4 is the one with me as a side-character and with the increased walking speed and the long gameplay, v3 is the one that's extremely hard, it starts off with having to fight a crazy mouse boss and it uses mainly 3D pre-rendered monster graphics, and yes both are completely different games only with a somewhat similar story and the same main characters)

I mean really, how many complete, JRPG-like games with rather good graphics have been released the past years that you could consider a game you would pay for? At least in the categories I mentioned, those old games are still the best ones.

Looking at the more recent games there are some good ones too, but in completely different categories:
- cartoon-comedy-style RPGs, often long or even complete
- average graphics, average music, RPG demos that are fun to play but nothing really special except for their stories (which doesn't help much since it's not complete)
- highly plotscript-intensive games, that are usually not even RPGs, about which an OHRRPGCE member will think "Wow, what he pulled off there is totally amazing." but an outsider will think "Point?"
- hundreds and hundreds of parody games or games that are intentionally bad usually with a sense of humor only OHR members can consider funny
- several epic-promised games of which I never see more than some epic screenshots or a 5-minute demo that doesn't seem that epic at all

Am I wrong?

[msw188]

I agree that a Starter Pack should not include "examples of what not to do", that's something to be discussed on the boards.

To be fair Rya, when you ask about complete JRPG-like games, you casually overlook that Wingedmene was never even close to complete (unless something has occurred lately), and I think a couple others on that list were not completed either... did Royal's graphics end up in a completed game? He was a little before my time.

I forgot to mention before that I was one of the library->floppy->home people up to about four years ago, but that's no longer true of me.
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My first completed OHR game, Tales of the New World:
http://castleparadox.com/gamelist-display.php?game=161

This website link is for my funk/rock band, Euphonic Brew:
www.euphonicbrew.com

[Moogle1]

It's a dying breed.

[Fenrir-Lunaris]

[Rya.Reisender]

[Moogle1]

[Rya.Reisender]

Even if I take out all of my personal preferences, I still would say it's important to show non-OHRRPGCE people a game without plotscripting. It's neither about personal preferences nor about "showing off how good those games are". It should be more of "With that little effort you can do something like this" and "With a little more effort, something like this is possible too". I know you love plotscripting like your own child, but really, I can imagine that most of the game designers that look for an RPG Maker do not want to do additional scripting and for that you need to show them what they can do without it, too.
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Snippy:
"curt or sharp, esp. in a condescending way" (Oxford American Dictionary)
"fault-finding, snappish, sharp" (Concise Oxford Dictionary, UK)
1. short-tempered, snappish, 2. unduly brief or curt (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

[Moogle1]

You're missing the point. They don't know by looking at a game how much plotscripting or anything else is required. To an outsider, FUABMX looks just as hard to program as Timpoline.

More to the point, games have already been suggested that use little or no plotscripting. It's still important that they have polish, and nowadays that might include sound effects, portraits, and more. Looking at FUABMX now, I might wonder why all of the cutscenes are displayed via pictures. Can the engine not handle simple NPC movement? The engine's core feature set -- even excluding plotscripting -- has advanced considerably in the last five years, and those are features you'd want to expose to new potential users.

And it is definitely about "showing off how good those games are." This is my third time saying this, but there is no concept of how difficult it is to make a certain game unless you're already familiar with the engine. Throw plotscripting out of the equation and analyze the games based on their own merits.
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

[Rya.Reisender]

Well you can always include a file that explains why each game was picked as an example and in which area. Then you can simply write something like "This game was made completely without additional coding effort".

Also whether you like pictures in cutscenes more or portraits is mostly a personal taste and you can't say that one thing is bad design and the other isn't.
_________________
Snippy:
"curt or sharp, esp. in a condescending way" (Oxford American Dictionary)
"fault-finding, snappish, sharp" (Concise Oxford Dictionary, UK)
1. short-tempered, snappish, 2. unduly brief or curt (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

[Moogle1]

"Additional coding effort" is probably meaningless to them too.

And your pictures/cutscenes/portraits remark is completely ignoring the larger issue.
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

[Fenrir-Lunaris]

[Rya.Reisender]