RMMV Project Advice Kid's Game

[rages4calm]

Need some advice. First let me say that I'm not that experienced with rpg maker mv (since the last time I used rpg maker was rpg maker xp) I decided since I've owned it for awhile to go ahead and use it since the game I'm doing is a gift for a kid whose birthday is coming up very soon. I'm pretty sure I got most the maps done the way I want them since I tried basing it off the tiny little town we live in. My problem is I lack ideas for the actual game play portion. So far I have it setup to where early in the game he meets his friends and they join his party (again all based off town we live in and his rl friends). I thought about centering the game around the school which I added to the game and the town itself. He is still in a learning to read process so I have to be careful with the adding too much text or making it too confusing. The game won't be a long game it's just something small for him and his friends to play on their tablets / computers.

Sorry for the wall of text but anyone who can give advice or ideas on how to make some fun easy game play for them would be much appreciated. I may not be skilled with rpg maker mv at all but I'm a fast learner.

 

[bgillisp]

I'll put this under Game Ideas and Prototypes as it would be better discussed there.

As to the question, maybe you can do it all with music and speech bubbles with some text? Maybe you can use the text as an option to read to him as he learns too. My parents did that to me with Zork (ok I'm old).

 

[rages4calm]

I'll put this under Game Ideas and Prototypes as it would be better discussed there.

As to the question, maybe you can do it all with music and speech bubbles with some text? Maybe you can use the text as an option to read to him as he learns too. My parents did that to me with Zork (ok I'm old).

Do you mean like some text to speech or record myself reading and putting the sound files in game? Sorry like I said I'm in the process of learning rpg maker mv myself. I already got like 40 hours invested in just doing all the maps trying to make it somewhat like our tiny town.

 

[xoferew]

Here are some ideas: Earn allowance at home by doing chores such as picking vegetables in the garden or cleaning up as the baby throws cereal. Have a dog-walking job going around the block with the neighbor's dog. (Mini-game: Dog runs off. Find/catch dog. Repeat daily.) Make people happy by helping them with their requests or giving them gifts they like. (Example, while walking in the park the kid can find a kind of beetle the science teacher wants. In fact every few days he can find a new one, making the teacher really happy.) Go out at night when the maps are dark and spooky. Go around town playing rock paper scissors or similar with all the kids he meets and each time he wins he gets a token/point/marble/gummy worm. Kids generally like to collect things and work toward high scores. Have certain locations where goodies randomly turn up, maybe something where he has to collect the whole set. The money he earns and the positive relationships he builds open up new options in the game, like buying a scooter to get to farther locations, paying admission to an amusement center, dying his hair various colors, etc. Have a number of events that require teamwork from the friends. (Talent show dance, joining strength to pull a rope or push a rock, holding four corners of a sheet to catch a kitten that's falling from a tree, blocking the exits until the police arrive to catch a shoplifter, etc.)

I think for young kids just have a dozen options of things they can do. If they like doing it once they will probably like doing it 100 times. ^_^

 

[bgillisp]

No I meant you put the text in, then as he plays it you read it live.

 

[Oddball]

Puzzles that involve color/sound?
You could also make various senarios based on play time with them and there friends. Like for example, if they played out a scenario were there was a monster in the laundry room of one of his friends houses, you could have a scenario were that monster shows up in his friends laundry room as a boss fight or something

 

[rages4calm]

Here are some ideas: Earn allowance at home by doing chores such as picking vegetables in the garden or cleaning up as the baby throws cereal. Have a dog-walking job going around the block with the neighbor's dog. (Mini-game: Dog runs off. Find/catch dog. Repeat daily.) Make people happy by helping them with their requests or giving them gifts they like. (Example, while walking in the park the kid can find a kind of beetle the science teacher wants. In fact every few days he can find a new one, making the teacher really happy.) Go out at night when the maps are dark and spooky. Go around town playing rock paper scissors or similar with all the kids he meets and each time he wins he gets a token/point/marble/gummy worm. Kids generally like to collect things and work toward high scores. Have certain locations where goodies randomly turn up, maybe something where he has to collect the whole set. The money he earns and the positive relationships he builds open up new options in the game, like buying a scooter to get to farther locations, paying admission to an amusement center, dying his hair various colors, etc. Have a number of events that require teamwork from the friends. (Talent show dance, joining strength to pull a rope or push a rock, holding four corners of a sheet to catch a kitten that's falling from a tree, blocking the exits until the police arrive to catch a shoplifter, etc.)

I think for young kids just have a dozen options of things they can do. If they like doing it once they will probably like doing it 100 times. ^_^

I like the idea of doing work for allowance (quest etc) i'd have to look up how to script / do all this but I imagine their are tons of tutorials already for making little quest like this that I can just dumb down.

Puzzles that involve color/sound?
You could also make various senarios based on play time with them and there friends. Like for example, if they played out a scenario were there was a monster in the laundry room of one of his friends houses, you could have a scenario were that monster shows up in his friends laundry room as a boss fight or something

Not a bad idea, I had actually thought about in the school map perhaps adding a bully that needed to be taken care of.

 

[Finnuval]

Maybe you could add in some local lore/legend about the town you live in? Perhaps there is a haunted house or other ghost story or such and have them uncover its mistery...
Finding visual clues to simple puzzles, color-coded puzzles, etc.

 

[rages4calm]

Maybe you could add in some local lore/legend about the town you live in? Perhaps there is a haunted house or other ghost story or such and have them uncover its mistery...
Finding visual clues to simple puzzles, color-coded puzzles, etc.

Sadly the only history this town is known for is the old yearly tomato festival which no longer exist. It's a incredibly small town with not much historical related stuff too it. Are some old families here though.

 

[Finnuval]

Ah okay, that's unfortunate... Still you could create your own mystery basedd on that.... Why was the festival canceled, how is it related to the old families, is there a secret ancient rirual related to it, is it truly about tomatoes or iis that Just a front for other red fluids and stuff...?

Sorry, got a wild imagination LOL

But there is always stuff to work with and when grounded in some reality it usually does add a little something

 

[Finnuval]

Or is the town Just a little too 'normal'?

 

[slimmmeiske2]

@Finnuval, please avoid double posting, as it is against the forum rules. You can use the "Edit" function on your posts to add additional information you've forgotten or respond to multiple people. You can review our forum rules here. Thank you.

 

[Finnuval]

@slimmmeiske2 woops! That hasn't happend in a long time. My apologies

 

[rages4calm]

Turns out I don't have as much time to work on this as I thought I would since they changed his birthday party date lol so I'm going to keep it extremely simple. Don't have time to learn how to do all the great quest and other ideas a lot of you had. Instead I'm just going to add some bullies at the school and other really quick and simple stuff that shouldn't take even a newbie like me long to do. I'm surprised RPG Maker MV didn't come with other premade stuff like it did the maps. Such as common events, boss stuff or quest type things.

Thanks everyone who gave advice and tips for this project. I want to learn more about rpg maker mv and maybe down the road make another version of this game for him so if anyone could point me to some tutorials for making quest / boss battles and mini events please toss me some links or videos.

 

[abby2810]

I once made a very simple game, like giving a balloon icon over the NPC's head, when the player clicks the NPC a simple question will appear. On the other occasion I made a simple game collecting garbage in the field because the culture of littering is lacking in my city, maybe you can replace it by collecting tomatoes or collecting toys scattered in his room.
sorry with my language, I'm not good at speaking english

 

[rages4calm]

So wanted to give an update on this. I did finish it in time for his Birthday and he loved it. Now that he has it I can always expand on it in the future. Wanted to thank everyone for the advice since this was my first rpg maker mv project. @xoferew I actually used a ton of your ideas.

I also did the rpg maker mv tutorial on making it work on the android although it installed and worked fine on every device I had access too the one thing I did notice is that google playstore keeps popping up giving warnings about it calling it unsafe. Does anyone know how to get rid of all those warnings so that it installs fine without having to jump through hoops or constantly tell google that it's safe lol. I know there is a tutorial for sticking it on google store but I don't want to do that because some of the sound effects on it are copyrighted content and I only made it for his eyes only. So suggestions are more than welcome.

 

[NinjaKittyProductions]

Unfortunately no. Having used Android Studio, I can tell you that if you have an app that does not go through the Google Playstore, you are going to end up with the Playstore telling you something along the lines of: "The app is unfamiliar or made with a third party program. We cannot guarantee that it is safe."

To get rid of the message, you would have to turn on developer mode on your device, which can have it's own ramifications, or submit the application through the Playstore.