Lands of Adventure: An Old-School Style CRPG

I'm considering pursuing funding again. Unfortunately, I have no idea what to offer people at different levels of funding at this point…or how much to ask for. I need to keep the funding low enough to be realistic, but high enough to get the job done to enhance the game.

I'm only thinking about this now because I've reached a point where I'm starting to work on the combat system, and there are multiple avenues I can take, but some of them cost money…money I don't have…to pull off effectively. So, I'm kind of stuck trying to figure out what to do.

Good advice from Daveyd, I think. Also look at John Ree's Liege and Craig Stern's Telepath Tactics (2nd time lucky) for some good examples of successful low level Kickstarters. Also check out the many recent failed KS attempts that unrealistically promise to remake Skyrim on a shoe string... and don't do what they did.

Like Daveyd, I can't yet get a feel as to whether you have a good idea that will be worth supporting, is realistic in scope, and is practically realizable given your limited resources. You would need to explain how you can make a viable RPG for just a few K that will be worth buying for $15 on Steam, when others are struggling with much larger budgets.

TBH your first KS attempt was *very* far off the mark. r u really, really sure you can do a whole load better than that right now?
 
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Thanks for the advice. If I pursue a Kickstarter or other funding at this point, it would only be for assets. I'm releasing the game for free when it's done. That was my original intention, and I never should have gotten away from it.

In addition, I have received permission to use the Basic Fantasy RPG system as the game's main system. (More information about the system can be found at: http://www.basicfantasy.org). For those of you that don't know, the system is basically a remake of Basic D&D using the OGL with some modern conveniences thrown in from 3.5 (like ascending armor classes, for example).

Here are some updated screenshots showing the new RPG system in place:
 

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first time I've seen Basic Fantasy. I've had my eye out for open gaming and what kind of licensing can be got for computers. Wizards obviously locked there's up for computer use and so did Pathfinder. Is there any stipulation with them regarding computer development? I mean, you did get permission but did you need to ask for it? Do you have to provide your code?
 
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Basic Fantasy uses the OGL. It doesn't use any proprietary information from Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder. The rules are spelled out in the FAQ involving the OGL:

Q: I want to distribute computer software using the OGL. Is that possible?

A: Yes, it's certainly possible. The most significant thing that will impact your effort is that you have to give all the recipients the right to extract and use any Open Game Content you've included in your application, and you have to clearly identify what part of the software is Open Game Content.

One way is to design your application so that all the Open Game Content resides in files that are human-readable (that is, in a format that can be opened and understood by a reasonable person). Another is to have all the data used by the program viewable somehow while the program runs.

Distributing the source code not an acceptable method of compliance. First off, most programming languages are not easy to understand if the user hasnÍt studied the language. Second, the source code is a separate entity from the executable file. The user must have access to the actual Open Content used.


In other words, you can use the Open Content in a video game providing that you follow the rules. There have been many video games made that have included the Open Content (for example, "Knights of the Chalice").
 
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And then, as quickly as it began, it ends. I've gone back to my home brew RPG system instead of using the Basic Fantasy RPG system to power the game. A lot of it has to do with the tricky parts of the OGL and the fact that it's probably going to be easier to power this game with a system built specifically for it rather than trying to shoehorn a system on top of it.

So, even though it would have been cool to have a game with a semi-D&D-like system, in the end it just wasn't worth the stress.

On the plus side, development continues. So, there's that.
 
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keep in mind that game rules (as you might already know) aren't protected by any sort of copyright, so you're free to pick and choose any system you want as look as you don't plagiarize or use any protected assets. You'll note SW:KotOR. I've shocked a few people by pointing out there's no d20 on the box anywhere even though a popular d20 pnp was developed. The Pathfinder folks are aware of this.

A fascinating story on this involves a challenge to Parker Brothers monopoly :rolleyes: of the game starting in 1976

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histor...un_Group.2C_Inc._court_case_1976.E2.80.931985

http://www.adena.com/adena/mo/
 
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The OGL was only a part of the issue. It's the part that people seem to focus on, but there were reasons why the rules ended up not being a good match for this game. I would have spent a lot of time implementing things to work exactly as you might expect when they weren't even necessary.

As an example, every D&D-type game I've ever played has a "Magic Missile" spell, and an expectation of how it works. In order to keep up with this expectation, I would need to take a lot of time to make sure that I recreated the spell in a way that would be familiar and that worked as it should have. (And yes, I know "Magic Missile" isn't the toughest spell in the bunch, I'm just using it as an example). This means that it would have to look like a "Magic Missile," and act like a "Magic Missile" (including the ability to split at higher levels of play). Now, multiply that times 100 or so different spells (and this doesn't take into account other systems in the game...this is just spells).

That's a lot of work. And it would likely lead to burn-out, especially when I ran into things that weren't easy to implement.

Or, I could develop my own spells that work the way that I want them to. Doing that takes away the expectation of how they work. If my game has a spell called "Mystical Flame," you have no expectation for what that spell does or how it should work; because, it isn't based on anything that already exists. You will learn it as you use it.

The less time I have to put into trying to shoehorn existing systems into the game, the more time I can spend on developing features and story.
 
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I know exactly what you mean as I had the exact same problem. I had a lot of decisions to make on how to implement "Missile" in my own game and one of the decisions I made was to not have it split up into multiple arrows the way its traditionally implemented; instead using it as a low cost magic replacement for a sword.

What it sounds like is you're experiencing the dilemmas faced of implementing an entire system and facing the consequences of how they are intended to react. What they don't tell you is how to interpret the rules and adapt them for a video game. Few people realize that its an adaption like how a movie is made from a novel.

One of the things I think of doing for my next project is start with a core set of rules, implement them, and work out how they are interpreted at the front end. The core rules would be modular in fashion be algorithms that the front end (the GUI, game, or HUD) could interpret at its will. And I would like to make this public so anyone could use them as they wish.

My concern for anyone else's system is the arbitrary rules the can put on in doing this. One of the reasons Torvalds went with GNU is because he wanted the flexibility of allowing his kernel to be sold commercially. I wouldn't want a company to feel restricted in giving out their source code or their changes to my code that they feel is necessary.
 
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Implementing a well-known set of rules can be a problem. It isn't impossible, but a lot of people will nitpick parts of it to death or ask why their favorite thing was left out. You don't have that issue with your own system. It is what it is, and there are no preconceived notions about what should be included.

As an example, the most common question I've seen asked about "Knights of the Chalice," which uses the OGL, is why there are only three classes (and why there isn't at least a Rogue class). I'm sure that comes from the fact that people already know how D&D works. If it had been built upon its own system, no one would have probably noticed the difference.
 
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Stick to your vision! It's great that people want to give input and suggestions, and if it improves your vision, great! But if it takes away from it, it's no good to you. I remember a famous writer once said (can't remember which one) there's no such thing as writers block. If you end a chapter and don't know what to write next, then your passion wasn't invested properly in the previous chapter. Keep your vision, it fuels your passion.

I can tell by your blog that you are a perfectionist. You want to do it right the first time and don't like to cut corners. I can especially tell by how important the symmetry is by your interface designs. This and your passion for the game shows that it will be a good game. I'm looking forward to it. But there's no rush. And don't let your perfectionism (is that word?) consume you.
 
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Thanks for the feedback.

I think perfectionism is a word. It probably applies to me, I don't know. Never really thought about it too much. I just know that when I work on something for other people to enjoy, I try to make it the best that I possibly can.
 
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Here's an updated screenshot, which includes some great borders created by a Codex user named Alchemist. If you compare this to the original screens from back in 2012, you can see the game has come really, really far:

2012:
3D+Dungeon+exploration.jpg



2014:
4-3.jpg
 
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Another update.

The game now has a working event system, an old-school font reminiscent of the Gold-Box games themselves and is coming along great. I'm currently working on the inventory systems (rebuilding them from the previous build anyway).

Here's a current screenshot:

EventScreen.jpg
 
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Wow! Looks great! Can't wait to see more!
 
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The old-style font didn't work out as well as I would have liked, so I rolled it back to the original font. That being said, the game is still moving forward. Here's a screenshot of the portrait selections available for the characters in the game:

OriginalFont.jpg
 
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For those who are still interested in this project, I have recently started working on it again after spending the last five months studying and passing a database certification test. I realized that the above screenshots don't account for the fact that I had to go back to the previous version due to a corruption error.

However, the project is not dead…it's just been asleep over the holidays.

This is what the game currently looks like (it's a work in progress, naturally):
LOA-NewUI.jpg


Here's another screenshot of the inventory screen:
ItemComparison.jpg
 
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For those that are interested, I have posted a video of the alternate version of the game (the "Gold-Box" inspired version) on my blog. It's short, so don't expect a lot from it. It was just an old video I had floating around. The terrible video quality is due to the codec used by the site and not the video iteself.

You can view it here: http://landsadventure.blogspot.com/
 
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The Gold-Box inspired version of the game (which is similar to the original version of the game I posted about when this thread started) has been getting some positive feedback. So, I've returned to that version. That required me to wipe out some serious corruption issues that forced me to abandon it some time ago and rebuild the inventory system.

That's been done, and progress continues to push forward. For a bit of nostalgia, here's a screenshot of the main exploration screen. I've taken a lot of cues from how the Gold-Box games did things, and have even made it so that the health and mana points change color whenever a character is below their maximum value. In addition, the "Armor Rating (AR)" score is also shown on the main screen.

UpdateMain1024.jpg



When I started this project, there weren't a lot of retro games. Since those days, Kickstarter has come along and there are a ton of retro RPGs out there. But, I haven't seen anyone doing a Gold-Box inspired game. Even though my combat engine may be slightly different (based more on Phantasie than Gold-Box just due to time constraints), I think it might hit the right note with Gold-Box fans when it's done.

For those who might wonder why I have changed which version I have been working on, it has a lot to do with following the original intention of the game. The other version is very pretty, but isn't really what I wanted. And I only went back to it when I thought the Gold-Box style version wasn't going to be able to be fixed. Glad I was wrong about that.
 
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