RPG game questionare for summer break game

Hi,
It would really help us if you filled in this questionare, it won't take long and will help us greatly. We have summer break ahead of us and we thought that we could create a game. We decided to do a RPG game and got some cool ideas, but before we start with building it, We would love to hear your feedback on a few things, so we can make this game as good as possible. We're not ready yet to say anything about it but we have some really interesting things in store and I am not saying that just because I want you to answer our questionare Thank you, every opinion counts.

>>QUESTIONARE<<

 

Don't do an RPG game for a summer break game. I'm working on a RPG game, and it's a lot of work. You won't be able to get it done in three months.

 

It's good that we have 4 months I have done few games in Unity so I am not completely now into this. I know it"s not that much time but I think we can do it in like 2 months. I have experimented with several things previously so I have almost complete combat system and AI already. It's a bit different from usual RPGs. Just trust me that I have thought about that . But thanks for the tip.

 

Seconded. The smartest thing you can do right now is lower your expectations. In fact just drop your expectations on the floor and don't pick them back up. Unless you are using RPGMaker or RPGToolkit, or some framework in unity, you'll be spending all summer making systems.

Even if you spend all summer just making content (and not systems), you will still have a bare-bones husk of an RPG.

 

I'm about a year into my rpg. It's not the usual rpg. I am 6 months from release.

There's a huge difference between "some random rpg systems" and a good game.

If you want to make a crappy mostly functional rpg in 4 months, you can.

If you want to make a fun rpg that someone might actually enjoy playing, you're going to be revising your core systems past the 4 month mark unless its super generic.

For reference, I've been a developer for almost 20 years. And I'm a very good one.

Secondary reference: I had a functional combat system hand written in under a week. A pretty complete one with camera controls, audio, hud, stat bars, pathfinding, ai, etc.

There is just a tremendous gap between functional and fun.

 

Thanks for your feedback. It's nice to hear from senior developers that crush our dreams on making RPGs in just a few weeks and even if I don't like it, you're right. I didn't mean we can ship it after 4 months. You had me thinking about what we have to do to make our game playable and I still think, it can be in a state where we can play it and enjoy it in two months.

The answers to our questionare already helped us to figure out what we should be aiming for and focus on to keep players entertained.

Once we have something to show I will remember to post a demo or something in here, so you can see how right or wrong were you about us. Once again, thanks for feedback, we really appreciate it.

 

It also really depends on the definition and goals. RPG can really mean a lot of different things.

More positive advice:
- Figure out the play length you're shooting for early and be realistic. Scope out content and stuff.
- Figure out the level of quality you can reach given time, skill, resources.

To do a good job:
- You should have something feature complete in about a month and fully playable.
- You should start getting feedback from people at this point.

Keep in mind, the revision/polish process dwarfs the 'get it to work' process by miles.

 

Thanks, I think the length at start for us is something around 2hrs of good content and if it plays well, we'll add more. We decided not to invest our time in graphics atm, if the game plays well, we want to start a campaign to earn so money, so we can buy models from asset store. The graphics are not really important to see if the game plays well. We wanted to make some videos from the game on more or less regular bases, when we get closer to the first playable version.

The feedback we've gathered so far already helped us to improve few things in our concept. Thank you.

 

It's possible to "make an RPG" -- a fun one, even -- over a summer. It would be extremely difficult to design and code all the systems from scratch over a summer, though, just as it would be difficult to model, texture, and animate all the art assets. But if your goal is to produce a game, rather than build a system (which is its own kind of fun), you can use one of the excellent kits on the Asset Store such as ORK Framework. You could have a fun, playable, single-level prototype in 1-2 weeks with ORK Framework and a bunch of art assets from the Asset Store. Having just spent a couple weeks with ORK Framework, it's practically click-and-go, and it comes with all the systems an RPG needs. Then it's just a matter of fleshing it out with your own quests, conversations, special events, and art.

You can get started with a handful of free art on the Asset Store, but you'll eventually need to model or buy the rest. Running a funding campaign is its own job. You'll need more than a summer just to run the campaign, apart from working on your game. If you want to fund Asset Store purchases, you'll be much better off getting a part-time summer job instead.

 

Listen to me, I am making a RPG game. Since 2012. With 2D graphics. In RPG Maker (which as the name suggests is tailored specifically towards RPGs and has most of the systems already in place). With Unity you'll most likely have to make custom battle system, enemy AI, etc. all while trying to develop a story. Even with assets from Turbosquid or something like this and CC'd music, it'll be still lots of work. You won't be able to do this unless you'll be satisfied with releasing something on par with most Atari Jaguar games or Big Rigs in terms of quality.

Make something easier, like a shooter or a racing game (still lots of work, but you should have basic thing done in 4 months with few maps/tracks - racing games or shooters don't require much of a story anyway).

 

Thanks for the feedback, but I want to remind you that I am not new to Unity. I have already made a multiplayer game with AI, 3rd person spell casting system (including AOE), day-night cycle with weather, events and some more stuff around that. I know what it takes to make these systems and I already have core functionality figured out for most of them.

I would say that we are creating something closer to Diablo 2/3.. But it's still quite different in many ways. The quests dialogues will work like in wow, because it is easy to make and meets the purpose.

I wanted to get some feedback on several parts of the game, thats why the questionare. I didn't want to say anything about the game, because I wanted to see the answers for what you image is RPG. I am happy, that most of our initial designs were close to what most of you written in questionare and that only 1 person decided to troll in it