A Modern Shop

[kj3400]

I'm going to pull the 'new member' card again and apologize in advance if this is in the wrong spot. I took some time thinking about where it would go as it's 1/3 a request and 2/3s a discussion topic, and math told me to put it here

I was working on my RPG when I had a thought. In modern times, shops don't keep everything behind the counter, it's laid out around the store, and you have to pick it up and take it to the cashier to pay for it. I was wondering would it be better to have a shop laid out like that? Would people play a game where the items to buy are laid out like that? Lastly, how would one go about implementing it and would scripts need to be involved?

 

[Aceri]

Do what you want to do, not what you think others want to see. It is your game after all.

But on your question, it all depends. If you're doing a modern style game, you can have product on the floor. I mean a real life shop has products on the floor, but extras of those products in the back room. In the way way way back days, what you saw on a shelf was all the shop had.

If you are doing like an ancient style game, like is typical in most RPG's. You know, the swords and spells thing, then you can just have a shop with items displayed on the floor and that's it.

If you are doing a modern style game, you can add an extra, unusable-by-the-player door to signify a back room with additional supplies.

And scripts are not needed. You can go about doing this one of three ways.

1.) Place your product table on the floor where ever you want it to be, then go over to the Event option and use event mapping to place the items on the table. This works if the item you try to place on the table erases the table. If not, then you can skip the eventing portion. That's two.

2.) Lastly, you can do parallax mapping, which is a little bit advanced for a new user, and it does sort of require a script to work properly. Basically you take a screenshot of your map, then import that screenshot into a image manipulation thing such as like say GIMP or Paint.Net or just basic MS Paint, then import the tileset with the items you have to it as well, then just copy/paste the items on to the table where you want them to be, then save and import that image into your game, jack in the script and do all that the script requires then go through the painstakingly tedious process of setting pass routes on everything which can end up horribly if you don't know what you're doing.

I like the two options in 1.) myself.

 

[Bastrophian]

um...im not sure what you mean. the store layout can be what ever you want it to be, and if your game is set in modern times spreading out the merchandice sounds like a good idea. I dont think building the map in that style will have any baring on the games playability, only that it looks nice.

 

[xein]

Modern shop?

Modern shoppers shop online. XP

In Zettai Hero Project (ZHP) there are shops that randomly generated with items on the map. The player picks an item and brings it to the shopkeeper to pay. They can also leave the area but would be attacked by the shopkeeper and its gang. 

It actually depends. In real world shopping is already a hassle, would you like to do the same in a virtual world when you're supposed to enjoy the game?

 

[kj3400]

Do what you want to do, not what you think others want to see. It is your game after all.


But on your question, it all depends. If you're doing a modern style game, you can have product on the floor. I mean a real life shop has products on the floor, but extras of those products in the back room. In the way way way back days, what you saw on a shelf was all the shop had.


If you are doing like an ancient style game, like is typical in most RPG's. You know, the swords and spells thing, then you can just have a shop with items displayed on the floor and that's it.


If you are doing a modern style game, you can add an extra, unusable-by-the-player door to signify a back room with additional supplies.


And scripts are not needed. You can go about doing this one of three ways.


1.) Place your product table on the floor where ever you want it to be, then go over to the Event option and use event mapping to place the items on the table. This works if the item you try to place on the table erases the table. If not, then you can skip the eventing portion. That's two.


2.) Lastly, you can do parallax mapping, which is a little bit advanced for a new user, and it does sort of require a script to work properly. Basically you take a screenshot of your map, then import that screenshot into a image manipulation thing such as like say GIMP or Paint.Net or just basic MS Paint, then import the tileset with the items you have to it as well, then just copy/paste the items on to the table where you want them to be, then save and import that image into your game, jack in the script and do all that the script requires then go through the painstakingly tedious process of setting pass routes on everything which can end up horribly if you don't know what you're doing.


I like the two options in 1.) myself.

Well, I was just curious what people would think. I was going to probably immediately ignore that opinion but at least then I'd know how people would take it. I do like the way option one sounds as well. Thanks for the info.

um...im not sure what you mean. the store layout can be what ever you want it to be, and if your game is set in modern times spreading out the merchandice sounds like a good idea. I dont think building the map in that style will have any baring on the games playability, only that it looks nice.

 
Well, part of it is in modern times and I figured it would be something different.

Modern shop?


Modern shoppers shop online. XP


In Zettai Hero Project (ZHP) there are shops that randomly generated with items on the map. The player picks an item and brings it to the shopkeeper to pay. They can also leave the area but would be attacked by the shopkeeper and its gang. 


It actually depends. In real world shopping is already a hassle, would you like to do the same in a virtual world when you're supposed to enjoy the game?

That shop setup reminds me of that one shop in Skyward Sword by the Forest Temple, where the shop worked on an honor system and if you didn't pay, the bird at the shop would attack you.


Well, it is a hassle, but it also makes the game a little more relatable to, knowing the characters have to pick up their armor the same way we get our groceries And as for the online thing, I was going to have something like that in the future part of my game. Sort of a virtual shop you can access on the go.

 

[Makio-Kuta]

How often would your player need to be shopping? I can see a system like that getting tedious pretty fast if it only exists to be a little gimmick and lacks any other connection to the game play. ((xein mentioned the store in ZHP and I know this was also a thing in Chocobo Dungeon, another rogue-like. But stores are not everywhere in rogue-likes and there was that "can I escape with this item for free" element there that made that style of shopping connected to the game play))


Anyway, if I was playing the game and the game had me buying potions a lot and I had to actually pick them up, walk to the counter, and then pay I would get sick of the extra walking pretty fast. So I think weighing how often your player is going to need to shop is important. They shouldn't have to spend more time buying their potions then they spent on the rest of the game play.


Though, as a suggestion if you really like this idea and want to use it (which I don't want to encourage with my laziness) maybe you could apply it only to some stores, the ones people are going to be shopping in less frequently. Like armour and weapon shops. Places that sell items that players would have to buy in bulk or rather often, like potions, could be more 'pharmacy' like where you approach the counter and ask for it - like a typical RPG store. : )

 

[Tai_MT]

The Legend of Zelda:  Link's Awakening did exactly this on the Gameboy back in the day.  Pick up the item, bring it to the register, pay for it there.  What else could you do in that game?  Steal those same items.  Harvest Moon also adopted this system, but the purpose of it in that game was that you were racing against a clock the entire game.

In my opinion, if you're going to have your player picking up items and bringing them to the cashier to pay for them, you need to make theft a very real possibility and option for the player.  Otherwise, what is the point of such a system existing?  It essentially becomes extra legwork and may even become tricky if the player can't recall how many potions they picked up or how many swords they're holding.  If would get worse with the extra footwork if a player wanted to put an item back.

I'm not saying it's a bad system to use, I'm saying that if someone were to create it, it needs to have some real merits to existing within the game (as well as being streamlined like crazy) or the context of the story to justify the reason shops were done in that style.  You need to ask yourself, "What purpose is this serving in the game?  Is that purpose good enough to keep it around?  Is it interesting and easy enough to use that players would enjoy the experience instead of be annoyed by it?"

Those three questions are monumentally important whenever you decide to make a large decision about your game and how it works.  They become especially important if they are asked of systems a designer wishes to include or alter.

 

[kj3400]

How often would your player need to be shopping? I can see a system like that getting tedious pretty fast if it only exists to be a little gimmick and lacks any other connection to the game play. ((xein mentioned the store in ZHP and I know this was also a thing in Chocobo Dungeon, another rogue-like. But stores are not everywhere in rogue-likes and there was that "can I escape with this item for free" element there that made that style of shopping connected to the game play))


Anyway, if I was playing the game and the game had me buying potions a lot and I had to actually pick them up, walk to the counter, and then pay I would get sick of the extra walking pretty fast. So I think weighing how often your player is going to need to shop is important. They shouldn't have to spend more time buying their potions then they spent on the rest of the game play.


Though, as a suggestion if you really like this idea and want to use it (which I don't want to encourage with my laziness) maybe you could apply it only to some stores, the ones people are going to be shopping in less frequently. Like armour and weapon shops. Places that sell items that players would have to buy in bulk or rather often, like potions, could be more 'pharmacy' like where you approach the counter and ask for it - like a typical RPG store. : )

 

The Legend of Zelda:  Link's Awakening did exactly this on the Gameboy back in the day.  Pick up the item, bring it to the register, pay for it there.  What else could you do in that game?  Steal those same items.  Harvest Moon also adopted this system, but the purpose of it in that game was that you were racing against a clock the entire game.


In my opinion, if you're going to have your player picking up items and bringing them to the cashier to pay for them, you need to make theft a very real possibility and option for the player.  Otherwise, what is the point of such a system existing?  It essentially becomes extra legwork and may even become tricky if the player can't recall how many potions they picked up or how many swords they're holding.  If would get worse with the extra footwork if a player wanted to put an item back.


I'm not saying it's a bad system to use, I'm saying that if someone were to create it, it needs to have some real merits to existing within the game (as well as being streamlined like crazy) or the context of the story to justify the reason shops were done in that style.  You need to ask yourself, "What purpose is this serving in the game?  Is that purpose good enough to keep it around?  Is it interesting and easy enough to use that players would enjoy the experience instead of be annoyed by it?"


Those three questions are monumentally important whenever you decide to make a large decision about your game and how it works.  They become especially important if they are asked of systems a designer wishes to include or alter.

In response to both of these, I thought about it, and I figured that the reason I would have this is instead of looking at a long list of items (which is very much possible in an RPG), one could go to a shelf that was categorized and pick out from a smaller group of items. As for how many items you've picked up, that could be easily remedied by a item shopping cart on the side of the screen. I hadn't thought about theft, but I figure that could be an interesting and easy feature to add, as you could just leave without paying. I think I might have an interesting idea for what could happen if you do get caught shoplifting as well. I suppose these shops could be rare, say only in big towns and cities, and have villages and other small areas have the normal shop.

 

[Makio-Kuta]

So you would have one or two towns with larger almost department store like shops that sell a variety of objects work in that sort of manner? I think that that is a nice compromise. Of course, execution matters more, but as a ground work that sounds pretty good. ((Some sort of item shopping cart HUB would be a good idea and important too))


If you're going out of your way to implement such a variety of shopping experiences, it would be cute to have the different shop keepers be chatty about their opinions on things. "Oh, those department stores are stealing my business!" "I can't believe they display their wares so recklessly; it's practically an invitation to thieves!" "It's so convenient to be able to buy a new sword and my potions in one stop."


Anyway, good luck!