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Hello everyone,
First of all, thank you in advance to anyone that reads all the way through this - I realize it's a lot. Basically, I am hoping that some of the community is able to share some insight around the logic of what I am trying to do; possibly showing me an easier way or confirming that I am on the right track. 75% of this is crafted without plug-ins. While I do understand programming logic, I am not fluent in javascript. I have, however, been playing with events since RPGMaker 2000; so I at least have a pretty good idea of how those work.
To put things in as basic terms as possible, I am attempting to make a game that is very similar to Lufia II's Ancient Cave dungeon, but with roguelike progression.
If you aren't familiar with the Ancient Cave, this is how it works (as I remember it from 15 years ago: )
After Forest is cleared, a new area is rolled. Area 2 can't be Forest again, so a different Tier 1 is selected - Cave.
After Cave is cleared, two areas have now been cleared, moving on to Tier 2. Area 3 is rolled as Swamp.
So here's what I've got so far.
1) Randomly Generated floors & areas:
The first picture shows the "Forest Next Level" common event. This event is used at the end of every floor. When the player chooses to proceed to the next floor, a random number is generated to determine which map to send the player to. Each number is linked to a specific variant of the current area. Every unique area has an "(x) Next Level" event that uses the same contents.
FloorCount: Gets a +1 at the end of every floor. Once it reaches 4 (starts at 0, so this would be on the fifth floor), the player is sent to the boss floor.
NextLevel: Used to select which variant to transfer the player to.
The next common event, "Progression", appears at the end of every area. This event determines which new area the player will be transferred to.
Before any other calculations occur, it resets FloorCount and NextLevel to prepare their use in the next area's "(x) Next Level" common event.
The event first checks to see what the AreaProgression variable is set to, which in turn determines which tier of areas the event will choose from. If it's <2, then a number from 1-3 is rolled and the area linked to that map is chosen. If an area is chosen that the player has already been to, then the event loops and tries again. If it's >2, then the event will choose from the set of three Tier 2 areas. The same would then be true for >4 and Tier 3 areas.
TotalAreaProgression: Counts the number of unique areas cleared.
ForestComplete: A switch that is activated at the end of the Forest area. This signals that this area has already been chosen so that the player will not have to play through the forest area twice - the switch is turned ON after the area's boss is defeated. The same switches are used for each area: CavesComplete, SwampComplete, etc.
AreaChoose: This variable picks which of three areas in a given tier to transfer the player to.
I would assume that, even if it was possible to actually create and randomly generate maps from scratch, it would require some pretty extensive amounts of code.
My solution is to just make several different variants of each floor. All of the Forest 1 maps would be similar in layout, but the entrances, exits, chests, monsters, etc would all be different. There also may be slight variations in the walls/pathways, or a secret passageway that only appears on one version of the map, etc.
This method requires creating a LOT of maps, and is probably the most time consuming portion of the actual creation of the game. One of the reasons for creating this post was to make sure that my logic was sound before I made 300 maps and had to go back and change the same six details in every map.
2) Random encounters:
This event is a single encounter. When the player enters a new floor, the below event, "Monster Generator" is run automatically.
The variable MonsterCount is used to determine which map encounters are active on each floor. The idea behind this it to randomize the number of enemies and enable "rare" encounters. The "less than or equal to" instead of just < is used to ensure that rolling a 6 and getting the "rare" encounter does not also trigger every other encounter on the map.
The encounter event itself is pretty simple: When the player touches the event, the encounter is triggered. If the player wins, the event is erased. If the player loses, game over. Yanfly's Enemy Levels and Enemy Base Parameters plugins are used keep the enemies scaled with the level of the player.
The comment <Move_With_Player> is from Frysning's Event_Mover plugin, a plugin that literally says it makes the monsters move like they do in Lufia II. Thank you for that, Frysning.
As for the Common Event: Monster; it's empty. I put that there because I am hoping that there is a better way to do this, rather than copy/pasting every monster event, changing it's MonsterCount variable and changing which troop is used 5-20 times for each map. Basically, doing this like a billion times (*my math might be a bit off)
3) Character Selection, Unlocking and the Final Bosses:
Here's where I am getting a bit hung up.
I'm currently using Hime's PreTitleEvents for the character selection process - this skips the title entirely and goes straight to a screen that shows the two available characters and asks if the player wants to start a new game or quit.
This works fine, but I am not sure how to actually trigger unlocked characters to be selectable as a saved game is never loaded - thus any previously achieved process would be lost to the void. Is there a way to pull up a loading screen or force the game in the first slot to be loaded?
As for the final boss making appearances in earlier levels: Again, I would probably lay this out using various variables and switches on each map - but the concept seems cumbersome and I feel like there has to be an easier way.
In closing, I will not admit the number of games (I don't remember tbh) that I have started working on and never finished in the past. A hundred thousand things have gotten in the way - whether they be working too much, being too tired from working too much, finally getting some free time but instead wasting it playing some stupid MMORPG which was supposed to be like Ragnarok Online but better but then turned out to be lame so going back to Ragnarok Online again until something else came along and starting all over again and then just being pissed off at yourself because you realize you wasted all this time when you should have been doing something ****ing productive. *deep breath*
Anyway, I have a tendency to dream big. Way too big. For me, this project is smaller - achievable. A stepping stone, practice to help prepare me for the game that I want to make.
I just need some help getting started, so I would love to hear some feedback or suggestions on anything above. Thanks for reading!
First of all, thank you in advance to anyone that reads all the way through this - I realize it's a lot. Basically, I am hoping that some of the community is able to share some insight around the logic of what I am trying to do; possibly showing me an easier way or confirming that I am on the right track. 75% of this is crafted without plug-ins. While I do understand programming logic, I am not fluent in javascript. I have, however, been playing with events since RPGMaker 2000; so I at least have a pretty good idea of how those work.
To put things in as basic terms as possible, I am attempting to make a game that is very similar to Lufia II's Ancient Cave dungeon, but with roguelike progression.
If you aren't familiar with the Ancient Cave, this is how it works (as I remember it from 15 years ago: )
- Every floor is randomly generated - floor layout, monsters, chests, exits, etc.
- Every 10 floors is a boss. Afterwards, you have an option to leave the dungeon or continue to the next 10.
- There are 100 floors total.
- Your party starts at level 1, and the enemies scale with you as you progress.
- Each enemy encounter is represented as a single NPC on the map.
- Enemies only move when your character moves, moving from the current tile to a random adjacent tile.
- You start with one party member and are given a random additional member in each new area.
- You start with two available characters to start as - certain conditions being met in each game unlock additional characters to play as in future games.
- After the boss, you have an option to go to town.
- Every set of floors has a different area theme (forest, cave, etc)
- Each area theme is randomly chosen based on "tiers" - higher tiers becoming available the more areas you clear.
After Forest is cleared, a new area is rolled. Area 2 can't be Forest again, so a different Tier 1 is selected - Cave.
After Cave is cleared, two areas have now been cleared, moving on to Tier 2. Area 3 is rolled as Swamp.
- Every area has a boss unique to that area.
- The final area is chosen based on a dice roll at the beginning of the game, and that area's boss would have player interaction through events in areas leading up to the final area. The idea for this being to develop a story behind that particular boss inside of that play-through.
So here's what I've got so far.
1) Randomly Generated floors & areas:
The first picture shows the "Forest Next Level" common event. This event is used at the end of every floor. When the player chooses to proceed to the next floor, a random number is generated to determine which map to send the player to. Each number is linked to a specific variant of the current area. Every unique area has an "(x) Next Level" event that uses the same contents.
FloorCount: Gets a +1 at the end of every floor. Once it reaches 4 (starts at 0, so this would be on the fifth floor), the player is sent to the boss floor.
NextLevel: Used to select which variant to transfer the player to.
The next common event, "Progression", appears at the end of every area. This event determines which new area the player will be transferred to.
Before any other calculations occur, it resets FloorCount and NextLevel to prepare their use in the next area's "(x) Next Level" common event.
The event first checks to see what the AreaProgression variable is set to, which in turn determines which tier of areas the event will choose from. If it's <2, then a number from 1-3 is rolled and the area linked to that map is chosen. If an area is chosen that the player has already been to, then the event loops and tries again. If it's >2, then the event will choose from the set of three Tier 2 areas. The same would then be true for >4 and Tier 3 areas.
TotalAreaProgression: Counts the number of unique areas cleared.
ForestComplete: A switch that is activated at the end of the Forest area. This signals that this area has already been chosen so that the player will not have to play through the forest area twice - the switch is turned ON after the area's boss is defeated. The same switches are used for each area: CavesComplete, SwampComplete, etc.
AreaChoose: This variable picks which of three areas in a given tier to transfer the player to.
I would assume that, even if it was possible to actually create and randomly generate maps from scratch, it would require some pretty extensive amounts of code.
My solution is to just make several different variants of each floor. All of the Forest 1 maps would be similar in layout, but the entrances, exits, chests, monsters, etc would all be different. There also may be slight variations in the walls/pathways, or a secret passageway that only appears on one version of the map, etc.
This method requires creating a LOT of maps, and is probably the most time consuming portion of the actual creation of the game. One of the reasons for creating this post was to make sure that my logic was sound before I made 300 maps and had to go back and change the same six details in every map.
2) Random encounters:
This event is a single encounter. When the player enters a new floor, the below event, "Monster Generator" is run automatically.
The variable MonsterCount is used to determine which map encounters are active on each floor. The idea behind this it to randomize the number of enemies and enable "rare" encounters. The "less than or equal to" instead of just < is used to ensure that rolling a 6 and getting the "rare" encounter does not also trigger every other encounter on the map.
The encounter event itself is pretty simple: When the player touches the event, the encounter is triggered. If the player wins, the event is erased. If the player loses, game over. Yanfly's Enemy Levels and Enemy Base Parameters plugins are used keep the enemies scaled with the level of the player.
The comment <Move_With_Player> is from Frysning's Event_Mover plugin, a plugin that literally says it makes the monsters move like they do in Lufia II. Thank you for that, Frysning.
As for the Common Event: Monster; it's empty. I put that there because I am hoping that there is a better way to do this, rather than copy/pasting every monster event, changing it's MonsterCount variable and changing which troop is used 5-20 times for each map. Basically, doing this like a billion times (*my math might be a bit off)
3) Character Selection, Unlocking and the Final Bosses:
Here's where I am getting a bit hung up.
I'm currently using Hime's PreTitleEvents for the character selection process - this skips the title entirely and goes straight to a screen that shows the two available characters and asks if the player wants to start a new game or quit.
This works fine, but I am not sure how to actually trigger unlocked characters to be selectable as a saved game is never loaded - thus any previously achieved process would be lost to the void. Is there a way to pull up a loading screen or force the game in the first slot to be loaded?
As for the final boss making appearances in earlier levels: Again, I would probably lay this out using various variables and switches on each map - but the concept seems cumbersome and I feel like there has to be an easier way.
In closing, I will not admit the number of games (I don't remember tbh) that I have started working on and never finished in the past. A hundred thousand things have gotten in the way - whether they be working too much, being too tired from working too much, finally getting some free time but instead wasting it playing some stupid MMORPG which was supposed to be like Ragnarok Online but better but then turned out to be lame so going back to Ragnarok Online again until something else came along and starting all over again and then just being pissed off at yourself because you realize you wasted all this time when you should have been doing something ****ing productive. *deep breath*
Anyway, I have a tendency to dream big. Way too big. For me, this project is smaller - achievable. A stepping stone, practice to help prepare me for the game that I want to make.
I just need some help getting started, so I would love to hear some feedback or suggestions on anything above. Thanks for reading!
Last edited:
. I've only just started, and haven't tried to tackle any of the randomness that such a project requires yet, so I'm afraid I'm not much help yet. I loved the Ancient Cave in Lufia 2, and have always wanted to create a roguelike experience with a similar feel to it! Cool to see that others still remember and enjoyed that part of Lufia 2. I'll have to keep an eye here, since a lot of what I need will probably align with the help you are seeking.
I'm going to devise secret messages now for them because I'm a 
