Separate Storylines

[tjaether]

Hey gang, I was wondering if it is possible to have two separate playable storylines in one game?

Using the same world, could you have two main characters, you pick which one you want to play and you play through the game through their story? 

My idea is that there are these twins, boy and girl. One good, one evil. One of them would start on the main world and play through to defeat the other sibling, or you could pick to play as the second sibling to start in the Underworld and work your way up to the main world to defeat your twin. 

I would want each character to have their own separate quests and events to go through in their story.

Is this asking to much or possible?

Thanks,

TJ

 

[TalalAlgreby]

it is possible !

First make two actors ok? and make one blank actor

you will start with the blank actor

make an event (Autorun) 

and type which character do you want to play as?

Have 2 choices (The name of the girl, and the name of the boy)

if they choose the boy click fade out screen > Change party members > remove (the blank actor)

Do the same process again change party members > Add (the character they chose)

Then Teleport the player to the starting place of the character they chose 

i can explain more if you needed.

EDIT: by the way, that's a very interesting story !

 

[Celianna]

It's as simple as turning a switch ON, and having every event in your game check this switch to determine what should happen differently. Or to make it even more ridiculously simple, you could simply create duplicate maps, and change around the quests for your second main character in the duplicated maps, and when the choice has been made which one the player wants to play, transfer them to that map.

 

[tjaether]

Thank you guys so much!!

<3

 

[Alexander Amnell]

Do you want the choice to be only at the very beginning and to play through that twin's story to the end or to be able to dynamically switch between the two within the same save? If the first it's quite simple, you could have an evented choice at the beginning and then set up the party/transfers dependent upon which twin was chosen, then the game could progress naturally from there.

Having a dynamically changing between the two could be done as well, but you'd need outside scripts to have things like seperate inventories/gold and such. Tsukihime has a set of scripts to this effect; just google himeworks and his site should pop right up.

Either way, the biggest thing to look out for would be to make sure each character doesn't set off the others events on shared maps, easily done by having different versions of each event tagged with the actor[] is in party condition. Definitely doable but it can get tedious since a lot I things would need to be done twice to account for differences between how the two characters are perceived/percieve others.

 

[Diretooth]

It's possible. It will take a lot of eventing, but it is definitely possible.

 

[tjaether]

I'd only want the choice to be at the beginning, no switching characters throughout the game. I like the idea of creating duplicate maps with events for each character specifically.

Would it be a good idea to first create the game from only one character's story and then once that is done, go back and start working on the second character story and duplicate maps/events/etc? 

 

[TalalAlgreby]

I'd only want the choice to be at the beginning, no switching characters throughout the game. I like the idea of creating duplicate maps with events for each character specifically.

Would it be a good idea to first create the game from only one character's story and then once that is done, go back and start working on the second character story and duplicate maps/events/etc? 

Duplicate maps?

why would you do that?

i mean each one has a different world right?

Someone starts Under and one above

so it's different maps right?

 

[tjaether]

Yes but I want there to be one world with and upper and lower parts. Like and Underworld and the Overworld.... sort of like FF2 on SNES. I want both characters to be able to explore both worlds as part of their stories. They will start in one, but will have to travel to the other throughout their journey and face separate quests.

 

[BardicHeart]

This sounds like something similar to something I would like to do.  Let me see if I'm understanding this correctly...

I want to offer a gender choice, and then choice of class, finally a choice of name.

So I set up an autorun event.

Show Choice, Gender

Then say I want 5 classes, I would need to create 10 actors total, 5 male and 5 female (one of each class).

Based on their gender they select from one of the 5 classes.

Then something to change name (not 100% sure on how to do that, but think I saw something on it in another thread)

Then set a variable such as "Class Choice" to ON and a 2nd event page that is blank so this only runs once

And done.

Correct?

Is there any way to create a menu with more than 4 choices?

 

[mlogan]

I would also recommend separate maps. Why? Because otherwise every event containing dialog by the main character is going to have to have a conditional branch on it to determine whether the boy or girl is speaking. With separate maps, you would have Overworld Girl and Overworld Boy, or whatever. The map would be identical except to have differing dialog in the events.

I personally would do it this way as opposed to so many conditional branches. Ultimately you will need to decide what will be easiest for you to keep track of.

 

[BardicHeart]

Thanks for the tip, I hadn't considered that.  As it turns out my script looks something like this

Show Text (explaining need to choose gender)

Show Choice Male or Female

If Male

Show Text (explaining need to choose class)

Set Label 1

First 3 choices simply change character class of Actor 001

Fourth choice is a More option

More opens 2nd set of options

3 More class choices for Actor 001

Back Option, Jumps to Label 1 (so you can loop back through the choices over and over)

If Female

Remove Actor 001

Add Actor 002

This changes the sprite on the map

Similar class choice set up for Actor 002

End branches

Recover All: Entire Party (so they start at full health

Set Switch 001: Character Setup to ON

End

As it turns out I only needed to create 2 actors, not 10, and then the 6 classes.  Seems to work okay.  Now if I wanted to offer the option of being an elf or half orc... ugh... LOL

I had intended to have male or female dialog keyed to whether it was Actor 001 or 002 since I know one is male and the other female.  Would I not need to do duplicate maps for everything in the game if I went that route?  Would be extra work either way, not sure which would be simpler, dupping the maps and altering the scripts or just adding extra scripting.  Probably smaller game size if I use fewer maps I would think.

Still looking for that thread on changing the name, I get that I'll be pretty happy with the option set up.

 

[mlogan]

@Bardic - I apologize, my post was in response to Talal's question. I was on my phone and it was taking a while to reply, so when I did, your post was not there. If it helps you, great, but just wanted to clear up the confusion.

 

[BardicHeart]

No worries, not sure it will help but it does give me something to think about I hadn't considered.  Will file it away for future reference.  Think I have my gender / class option system working now.  So its on to other stuff!