Right now Inaria is a single-player, top-down, single-character RPG.
It’s that last feature that’s bugging me. When was the last time you played a top-down RPG that only allowed you to control one character?
I think the combat in Inaria is its greatest weakness and I need to do something about it. There are really only two options:
Option 1: Expand the current single-character combat. Make ranged combat more effective and add more spells and abilities.
Pros: Pretty easy to do.
Cons: Still only have one character to control, which means there just aren’t that many tactical options. Players will probably just build up a single ability and use that.
Option 2: Add more characters for the character to control. In non-combat mode, the other characters just follow the lead character. In combat mode, each character is controlled individually.
Pros: Tactical options! Different characters can have different abilities and be individually controlled.
Cons: A huge change to the design of the game, and an invitation to feature creep.
My personal deadline for this project is December 1. On that date, Inaria should go on sale. In order for that to happen I must first:
1. Finish the new main plotline of the game. Right now the game has a beginning, but not a real end. This really just involves doing a little custom coding on the final boss.
2. Fix all the bugs that have popped up as I’ve moved the game from the iPhone back to the PC.
3. Add more sound effects. This is dirt simple, DrPetter’s SFXR is stupendous in this regard.
4. Add music. Which I guess I’ll have to compose myself. I’ve no idea if I can do it or not.
5. Create a new website for ViridianGames.com that serves as a web store. The layout I want is a header, a left sidebar with buttons and a right pane that changes based on what button you press. Not sure how to do this without creating a full page for each button; there’s probably something I can do with php or css or xyz to make the right pane dynamic; if anyone knows how to, a quick clue would be helpful.
6. Set up the actual purchasing system. Dreamhost has one that’s free with my webspace; I’ll start with that one.
Can I do all this and effectively do a complete redesign on the game? I don’t know. Would it be worth it? That’s what I’m asking.
Option 2 sounds a heck of a lot like Ultima 4. Maybe it is just me, but I found that the charm of the “tactical” combat in Ultima 4 wore off real quick when I had to do back to back battles that played out in almost exactly the same way.
I like that Inaria is a single character RPG. You should try to come up with a way to make the single player combat more tactical then adding more characters. Just a thought.
Leave it single character.
Why?
In a single character scenario, you need only micromanage a single character’s equipment.
In a multiple character scenario, you have to micromanage multiple character’s equipment.
Micromanagement of equipment != fun
When I finally decided to make a roguelike, I went with two options for equipping the character – optimize for attack and optimize for defense.
Would it be cool if you had dudes in your party but they took care (intelligently) of their own stuff? Has that been done before?