WIP "Tetris Attack" but it's an RPG

[Yakibomb]

What if Tetris Attack wasn't a puzzle game? What would it look like if it was an RPG instead?

Brief Overview

• This is a concept I'm running by this community in hopes to cultivate ideas and spark interest.
  
• I'm hoping to make at least a prototype of this game before I start building the main game. That's what this thread's for.
  
• You might be shocked to hear this is being built in TGF1 (The Games Factory 1). This is because I'm bold, and probably weird. (Actually most definitely weird)
  

Concept Gameplay

Spoiler

These are fake screen shots built to get a better idea of how the game will look, feel and play.


Development Philosphy

My general direction for this game is to utilize a handful of variables that leave the most impact.
These variables are things can be customized by the player.

1. These variables should give the player a different experience each time they play the game.
   
2. These variables should not leave the player feeling overwhelmed or confused.
   

In cooking terms, I've been cooking down a rue by constantly stirring with the heat on simmer. In other words, boiling down to the essence of what I need. (I guess they're both cooking terms!)

A straight-foward way to explain the game is:

1. Choose character to keep permanently.
   
2. Recruit party members by befriending them. Or dismiss them, whichever.
   
3. Play as those friends (in groups of 3) by taking them into various story-based levels based on this game's cast members.
   
4. Levels can be played in any order, due to linearity of stats and not being able to level up.
   
5. Along the way, find items that can be held by your party. These items are essential in that you have to choose to hold only 2 per character. They can be taken outside levels and stored, but they cannot be exchanged until exiting back to the overworld. Otherwise, they must be dropped or consumed.
   
6. Complete all levels to unlock the story's final levels.
   

So the experience is essentially a mixed bag. I'm taking a lot of inspiration from unexpected sources on how to develop this. Including:
Kirby: From a developer point of view, the variables lie in the levels and the way the player can use or not use those variables to their advantage. This makes the gameplay able to be created on a whim.
Final Fantasy: Mainly the Tactics series. The grid-based geometry is heavily inspired by this game, as well as various ways of customization.
Zelda: The first one, to be specific. The camera focuses in on room to room action, as well as leaving the world very open, with very few hard-locks (i.e. needing an item to get from Point A to B) and more soft-locks (i.e. Skill-based gameplay).
Megaman: Main staple of the series (except maybe 7) is you can enter any robot master's lair immediately upon booting the game.
Mario: Super Mario Bros. 2 and Super Mario Bros. 3. The former for the character stats (using three stats) and holding items mid-game. The latter for the item and power-up capabilities to plan strategically for levels. Also, Super Mario RPG. (Should be expected)


Phew!


Here are the more specific things I plan to implement:

Characters
> Total Characters Cast = 13.
> Total Palettes = 3 per character.
> Story-Mode Variants = 1
> Total Customizability = 52 characters

Stats
> There are three main stats: HP, Power, Speed.
> Each character has a different combination that gives them a unique feel.
> Each palette swap has different combinations (usually to compensate for what the other colors lack)
> Story-mode variant characters are based off the normal character, though have better stats.

Skills
> Each character will have two abilities: Their "Primary" function (which is always an attack) and a "Secondary" function (their special utility)
>> (Maybe) These won't change when switching palettes.
> For example, Lakitu's Primary ability will throw Spinies two panels in the direction it's facing. Their Secondary ability will allow them to float higher for a short period of time.

"Friends" System
> To increase replay-ability, each character that completes a level is given "Friend" status of that trio.
> Example: I take Yoshi, Lakitu and Froggy into a level. I complete that level. Yoshi then gains "Friend" status for Lakitu and Froggy... Lakitu gains "Friend" status for Yoshi and Froggy... and Froggy gains "Friend" status for Lakitu, and Yoshi.
> Characters who share the "Friend" status with each other will have some sort of advantage... unclear what that is yet!

Story-Mode
> Each of Yoshi's friends has their own level.
> On the character select screen, you can choose a main character you want to keep for the rest of the game. This one you can't discard. (implying you can decide which friends stay or go)
> When you start, you must play through that character's level until you access home worlds of other characters (Yoshi through Raphael).
> When all are said and done with, the story's final levels (i.e. Bowser and his goons) will unlock.
> Each story-level is balanced, similar to how Megaman works. You can't really mess up because it's not like an RPG where you level up.


Control Scheme
> This game uses 12 buttons. These can be mapped to anything you choose (TGF1 has 6 configurable buttons per player. I'm using two players to do this!)

When you're in the level, these are the keys used:
> 4 directional keys (movement)
> "Shift" to Select, or generic action key. Use to interact or select options in menus.
> "Ctrl" to Cancel in menus.
> "Z" to use primary attack,
>> Holding "C" will change this button to use Item 1.
> "X" to use special move,
>> Holding "C" will change this button to use Item 2.
> "1" "2" "3" to switch party members to leader


Here is brief history behind the idea

You don't have to read this.

Spoiler

I've wanted to make something like this long, long ago. It starts with a dream... "Yoshi's Pal, Raphael the Raven, stands on a grid ready for a command by the player." That's pretty much the dream, a single moment captured in a flash of memory.

So I wanted to expand on it. My hopes for sharing this is to keep the ball rolling to flesh out a concept. Also, to make this community more active.

(I'm assuming you guys know what an RPG is, you know Mario, so I'm not going to be super specific, so please ask if you need clarification.)

That's the blueprint. I hope you enjoy, thanks for reading.

[VinnyVideo]

I would totally play this.

Course clear! You got a card.

[Yakibomb]

Thank you! But you got no foresight?? Who knows it could be really bad!!

I decided to take the time to whip up a tech demo (not a prototype) of the graphic style for the game. It helped organize the way the final game will look, so there's that.

It's actually run in the TGF1 application! You're welcome to play it (it's this post's attached file).

Have fun!


  Concept for TA but it's an RPG.zip (Size: 662.45 KB / Downloads: 10)

( I'm gonna go work on the OP now... )

In case you don't want to play the download:

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

My Twitter | My YouTube | Find me on Discord: Yakibomb#0890

[Yakibomb]

Hey, so for those subscribing I updated the concept to reflect a more current weather for the game.

I'm still working out the essentials (like screen scrolling and monsters appearing) but it's coming along nicely.

If you have any feedback on the tech demo, you can tell me about it. It interests me greatly to know what ya'll think!

My Twitter | My YouTube | Find me on Discord: Yakibomb#0890

[Yakibomb]

Just a quick update--I've implemented a few new things.

• A simple dialogue system where you can talk to NPCs.
  
• A way to scroll to new rooms by exiting off a boundary of a screen.
  

(GIF)

Spoiler

My Twitter | My YouTube | Find me on Discord: Yakibomb#0890

[RetroRespecter]

Where is the Tetris Attack part?

[Yakibomb]

Where is the Tetris Attack part?

What I mean is "What if Tetris Attack was an RPG instead of a puzzle game?"

I wasn't clear in the opening post, so I'll edit it in.

My Twitter | My YouTube | Find me on Discord: Yakibomb#0890

[Yakibomb]

Sorry for the double post. I have discovered several new limitations in TGF1.

• Active Objects only have 32 flags (0-31).
  

After 31, it loops back to 0. (i.e. Setting flag 32 actually sets flag 0, or 33 sets flag 1... etc.)

• When the game is running, a frame can only contain 261 Active Objects.
  

However, it seems you can put as many Backdrops Object as you like.

• The game itself runs at about 40 FPS. Each frame updates at 0.025ms (or 1/40th of a second).
  

There is an event that lets you trigger something every 0.01 second, which is actually less time it takes to display a frame.
If you wanted to update something every frame, you couldn't set the timer to 0.025, you would need to set it to 0.03... Which is actually a problem when creating a boot-up system for auto-generating enemy collisions... more on that in a second.



I couldn't do this every 0.01 second as I would like, because the game updates only when the frame updates I guess? Which means if there were two "E" enemy collision objects on screen, it would only consider the last one created, not the first one at all. In this case, the first one would "mirror" the last one created...

• So yeah. If you have any other limitations I think I should know about, please do share.
  

EDIT:

• Seems I can't have global events that create objects or have sounds / music...
  

My Twitter | My YouTube | Find me on Discord: Yakibomb#0890

[Yakibomb]

Alright, another quick update... This is a gif of the basic enemy movement, and how most enemies will move about in-game.

Definitely not flawless though. You can see Gargantua Blargg disappearing in the bottom right, and enemies should probably bump into each other...

My Twitter | My YouTube | Find me on Discord: Yakibomb#0890

[Yakibomb]

Some more things.

[Character Select Screen]

Spoiler

[Enemies Moving at Different Speeds]

Spoiler

[Lakitu Throwing Spinies]

Spoiler

[Yakibomb]

Alright! Update Time~

This post is more for me to document my progress than to show anything interesting. It's mostly rambling.

So far, I've completed most of the enemy specific thingies. Enemies move smoothly and at different rates depending on what stats they begin with.

The stats are pulled from a table, which is actually a Text Object with each string being a number. The game pulls the number from the string, then converts it to a set of flags. It works kind of like a bitmask, emphasizing "kind of". Each stat uses 3 flags to get up to the number 8. The three flags, in order, represent the numbers 1, 2, and 4. Then basically, I set flags on and off based on the number I want.

You'll notice that you can't get 8 with 1+2+4... Each character has at least 1 on their stat, so there is an invisible "1" there you have to add each time!

This doesn't include all the event mishaps to get this all to work. I'm not explaining that.

---

If that wasn't a lot of steps, take a look at this beaut'.

Spoiler

This is the game in action. Technically speaking, a lot of doing! It looks like this under the surface:

Spoiler

Yea. There is a collision box and a hit-box.

The collision box puts itself in the space the enemy is going to move. If it collides with a backdrop or another room, it turns around and moves back, while moving the character in the other direction.

The hit-box works as you expect: Only damaging things (like Lakitu's Spinies) that land on the square hurt that particular enemy, and subtract from their personal storage value. It's just one event that makes it follow the character: Collision between "enemy" and "enemy hitbox" and it just re-positions to X+Y of the enemy.

This all works because I used animations to isolate and trigger specific events. Basically, when the yellow collision block flashes, it move the character you actually see. For the red hit-box, it flashes black when the counter drops to 0, and when that animation runs while it collides with the yellow collision block, it destroys that one as well as the character it's attached to.

It all works for some reason, and I'm happy.

---

EDIT:
I also made a public Trello page! See where I am with my progress board here: https://trello.com/b/KvvwvHeX/tetris-attack-rpg

[Yakibomb]

M'kay. Since the last update, I've been burnt out from working on this, so I sought out advice online.

(I'm going to make this easy for myself and make bullet points.)

These are the bad things I've been doing:

• Planning scope is too ambitious
  
• Not specific in what I want to design
  
• Too much random filler stuff. Yeah, I decided to add four (?) more characters.
  

- Burt the Bashful
- Crazee Dayzee

I know it sounds really cool to have 13+4 character... all with two unique abilities... all with their own unique stages... it's overwhelming, and generally not feasible (for some solo dev like myself). And probably not in The Games Factory from 1996, to boot!

I'm going to be able to remedy this. To do that, I want to pick some content that will be a staple throughout the game. I don't really know quite yet what that is.

To be continued...

My Twitter | My YouTube | Find me on Discord: Yakibomb#0890

[VinnyVideo]

Yeah, scope creep is a really common challenge when making software - especially games!

I'm not sure exactly how you should remedy this particular problem, but I will say that I love that you're adding Crazee Dayzee, Sluggy, Burt, and Lantern Ghost - those would be great YI characters to have in a Tetris Attack-related thing.

Course clear! You got a card.

[Yakibomb]

@VinnyVideo Yeah, totally. I'm really still trying to figure out something, so let me just add that to the rest of this post...

Please read on.

---

I got lost what I was doing with this game, so I went back to revise my approach.

My first intention for this game was, quite literally, "about using a party or group of characters in an RPG setting."

I had a fun idea I want to explore! This is a good first step.

However...

This can go ok or spell disaster depending on the next step, which is actually a very important that I skipped...
Q: "Do I have a mechanic that I want to explore?"
A: >

Spoiler

Really. I did not have a solid mechanic I wanted to explore before I started implementing the characters.

( I mean, I do have a really cool character select screen...

Spoiler

but that's not a game!)

This was a huge, glaring, "I'm stabbing you right in the side and you don't even notice" issue. (Maybe that's a little much, needless to say it was obvious) My approach was "fill in the blanks later" before having a solid foundation.

So what does this mean? I started on the prototype about 5-6 weeks ago, and I'm realizing most of it was just designing a cool character select screen and some movement on a grid-based movement system.

I think I can salvage some of my work... but I think I'll have to scrap Lakitu's throwing things (which took a week or two blast)

---

The light on the other side of the tunnel! The last thing I want to mention is I'm going to focus on my strengths for this project; As a spriter, and as a number-loving logic-hound. (mm don't ask where hound comes from!)

I'll be hammering away at some sort of model to work off of in the next few days before MFGG's Game Jam.

Best Wishes!

My Twitter | My YouTube | Find me on Discord: Yakibomb#0890