Nervous about posting about my ideas, plot, characters etc

[Diarist]

Hi there everyone. As you can see I'm really really new to this forum. While I'm not entirely new to RPGmaker (I made a fan game waaay back in the day in VX, it wasn't very good. But sometimes I boot it up and play it from time to time 'cus its still endearing to me, being something I made when I was much younger), I'm very very new to this community. I've never interacted with anyone here before.

Anyway, I wanna make a game that retells events from an old RP group I was a part of. I have some friends who've encouraged me to retell it through a fan game, most of them suggesting I take to RPGmaker again. And while I'm happy to at the very least try, a lot of what I'd need done (sprites and very few enemies mainly) would need to be custom made, and obviously no one's gonna wanna accept a commission for a project they know nothing about. However I'm incredibly nervous about posting my ideas and stuff here, since I know it won't appeal to a lot of people.

So I guess I wanted to ask a few questions to maybe hopefully clear my head:

1. How are fan games treated here? And I don't mean strictly, someone wants to make a Pokemon fan game and it plays almost like every other Pokemon game. It could be something that just takes place in that universe. Or hell, Star Wars or whatever IP. Fan game in the broader sense, basically. But I don't wanna post my idea so I can find an artist, and then get made fun of/ripped apart for making a game that isn't my own IP per se.

2. The game I'm making really isn't going to have much fighting in it, especially early on. The way the story had played out in our group there really wasn't much fighting going on until the end, and every fight was character vs. character anyway. There weren't any minions or goons or what have you. While I don't really plan on sharing this game publicly, I was wondering how folks felt about something like this? Moreso puzzle solving, mystery solving, talking to people, etc with boss fights here and there, with more and more of them towards the end.

3. Not sure if this is even the appropriate place to ask so if not feel free to ignore this, but generally speaking (obviously it varies from artist to artist, I'm a former commission artist myself) how much would a character sheet cost typically? Or a custom enemy? Spriting is very hard work, something I could never do. So I was wondering if anyone who has commissioned work before could throw an average at me for things like sprite sheets, battlers, possibly even portraits (I might do the portraits myself though if I can get myself to pick up the tablet again, though I dunno if my style is what I want for them anyway). This is really really broad of a question so again, feel free to just ignore this one. I just wanna kinda gauge what I should expect to be spending average if possible.

Thank you for anyone who bothers to read my terrible thread \o /

 

[Milennin]

1. Fan games aren't very common, but there's no bias against them, as long as it doesn't use ripped resources from official material. It does lower chances of getting an audience for your game, because people will see it's a fangame, and if they aren't familiar with the IP, they'll likely not bother.
2. Not too uncommon of an idea.

 

[Diarist]

1. Fan games aren't very common, but there's no bias against them, as long as it doesn't use ripped resources from official material. It does lower chances of getting an audience for your game, because people will see it's a fangame, and if they aren't familiar with the IP, they'll likely not bother.
2. Not too uncommon of an idea.

I'm not really looking to get an audience. It's literally just for a few friends of mine and myself. It was moreso for trying to find artists. Hope that makes sense.

 

[Uzuki]

You might want to avoid double-posting if you want to add on you can add to your post you can use the edit option. As for your other stuff, fangames are always welcome as long as you're not using rips from other games. And non-violent games are perfectly fine, do what makes you happy! As for commissions, it depends on the artist: Some work hourly, others use a flat fee. You'll have to shop around and see who is offering what.

 

[Shaz]

Once you have 30 posts here (excluding posts in the Intros forum), you'll get access to the Classifieds area where you can see who's offering to work on a commission basis. Then you'll be able to look at their "shop" threads and get an idea of their styles and costs, and approach someone about getting something done.

 

[Poryg]

1. Fan games are treated okay. We're generally not firebreathing dragons and even though some rules of the forum may seem too strict, it's because this is a corporate forum and has to abide by different rules compared to standard personal forums.
The only thing you can't use are ripped resources. If your game uses ripped resources, you can't show screenshots or share links here.
2. If you're going to make a game that won't be released publicly, then there's no need to know our opinion. Not to mention, in the end it doesn't really matter what are the technical aspects of a game. It can be awful even if it copies top games and it can be great even with something totally weird. In other words it is important how well are these technical aspects made and how well they work together. For example if you want to make a game with small amount of combat, put an emphasis on story and make the combat tied to the story.
3. Character sheet can cost $5-50 per character. It depends on too many things, for example a redraw vs. draw from scratch, the amount of detail requested and of course the author's personal pricing.

 

[Diarist]

1. Fan games are treated okay. We're generally not firebreathing dragons and even though some rules of the forum may seem too strict, it's because this is a corporate forum and has to abide by different rules compared to standard personal forums.
The only thing you can't use are ripped resources. If your game uses ripped resources, you can't show screenshots or share links here.
2. If you're going to make a game that won't be released publicly, then there's no need to know our opinion. Not to mention, in the end it doesn't really matter what are the technical aspects of a game. It can be awful even if it copies top games and it can be great even with something totally weird. In other words it is important how well are these technical aspects made and how well they work together. For example if you want to make a game with small amount of combat, put an emphasis on story and make the combat tied to the story.
3. Character sheet can cost $5-50 per character. It depends on too many things, for example a redraw vs. draw from scratch, the amount of detail requested and of course the author's personal pricing.

Thank you very much for addressing these! Especially point 3, that's very helpful!

As for 1 and 2, no ripped resources considering I'd need everything custom made anyway. And yeah I suppose that's true, but it's still nerve wracking for me. Hard to explain. I feel like it'd be easier for me to pitch it to someone one on one here and maybe they could help me make a pitch thread that doesn't sound like crap. I'm pretty bad at those things on my own.

 

[Finnuval]

I'm pretty bad at those things on my own.

well you're managing this thread rather well so far so I wouldn't worry to much

 

[gstv87]

I wanna make a game that retells events from an old RP group I was a part of

heh.
kids these days got the craziest ideas.....




(quietly looks over to own RP game in the making... )

 

[bgillisp]

@Poryg : Well, maybe YOU aren't a fire breathing dragon. Bow before the mighty bgillisp, terror of the....internet board? Ok, it needs work.

The only thing to keep in mind is if you make a fan game and the company that owns the rights to it orders it taken down, we have to take it down. And as stated, no using rips of sprites or music from other games either.

 

[Poryg]

@bgillisp That's why I said 'generally'. I excluded you and me.

 

[Kupotepo]

@Diarist, I do not mine a fan game. It is self-evident a lot of non-commercial fan games exist. However, if you worried about the company will request to take down or sue you , you could just call the fan company if it is allowed you do a fan game. It will answer yes or no.

About creative stuff, go for what you want to make. Do not worried about popularity contest.

 

[Diarist]

Well, I posted a thread, currently awaiting moderation so yeah... Hopefully it goes better than I'm expecting it to aha. Definitely super super scary but I'm mentally prepared to be ripped apart so, we'll see.

 

[Lornsteyn]

Well, I think fangames are fine, too.
But serious in the internet you always should be prepared to be ripped apart, even for no reason.^^