JRPG Minigame - Dungeon Video

If you've checked out this blog before, you'll know I'm writing a book called "How To Make An RPG". About creating your very own FF6-like RPG from scratch, the book is divided up into 3 main parts

1. Exploration - maps, characters, dialog, cutscenes
2. Combat - stats, levels, monsters, the party
3. Questing - saving, loading, plot and quests

Each part ends by taking you through a small mini-rpg example game. The video above shows the game at the end of the Exploration part of the book. It's still a little rough in places but should give a good idea of what you'll be able to do by the end of the first part of the book!

I'm currently working my way through the combat section now.

If this post has caught your interest and you'd like to be notified when the book is out, then sign up at the promo site here:

http://www.howtomakeanrpg.com/

A pause

I went to the Develop conference in Brighton

The book hasn't been progressing as rapidly as usual, I suffered from some computer issues and my time is being taken up by contract work :(

To solve my computer problems I've bought a new laptop and I'm now ready to get back to writing the "How To Make An RPG" book. Time issues are going to persist but it's the weekend now, so I'm ready to get things moving!


Develop

Bigyama, the company I cofounded, took a trip down to Brighton to attend the Develop conference (there's only two of us, so the logistics are pretty easy!). This is a game developer conference where there's a lot of drinking and some talks. We attended the "Indie days" because they are significantly cheaper to attend.

If you're an Indie dev, or thinking about becoming one and you've never attended Develop, it's worth going down. If nothing else, you'll probably leave inspired and hungry to start on your next game.

My favourite talk was from Mike Bithell (creator of Thomas was Alone), which basically argued,

1. All mid-sized game developers are moving away from PC and chasing mobile as it's the new hot.
2. The PC market is massive and underserved
3. With the rise of the internet the PC market is so massive and global there's almost certainly a group that will respond well to the game your truly want to make
4. Go and do it

We also met Tom Francis (creator of Gunpoint) later at the Four Door Lemon party and had a drink which was cool. It's nice to meet the developers behind Indie games, if only to confirm they are actually humans and that therefore there's some outside chance that you can, at least in theory, successfully release your own game.

What I'll be working on next

Today I'll be finishing off all the example programs for the first part of the book about Exploration. Exploration deals with loading maps, exploring and interacting with them. It also deals with cutscenes at the moment but that may change in the editing phase!

Here's a sneak peek at the sewer ... I'm pretty sure RPG's are legally obligated to feature a sewer.