Remember Originality?

[WeissRaben]

Let's say it in this way: I'm not a scripter, nor a pixel artist. That's it. It doesn't mean that I just said "ok, meh cant do eet" and sat back: I tried to study both, but I just seem to be incapable of advanced scripting. Modding, yes. Whole-body-scripting or pixelling, you are dreaming. XD

I'm a writer, though. I love my stories to come alive. And I have a terrible pride, so I want to be a one-man-team. Poccil's SK allows me that. I can concentrate on what's important to me (story, character development, and creating no more than a dozen pokemon), and nothing else. If you want to say that I'm not original, or that I'm going to be another brick in the wall of the Game's Development's Forum...oh, well. Think that way, if it pleases you, but this is my choice.

Just my 50 cents. =]

 

[Krazy_Meerkat]

I don't think that originality is dead, although I do agree that the starter kit spawned a lot of generic un-inspired games.. But we had the same discussion about making a public release of rm2k3 cbs, you have to modify and customize certain aspects of the starter kit or you just end up with a "default" set of systems that doesn't change from game to game.
Rom hacking isn't that bad, I mean those guys are working within the constraints of hex editing a gba cartridge and still producing some very interesting original games (one of the first rom hacks I ever played was a hack of pokemon red, making it into dbz yeah :D).. But they still suffer from the same thing which is pre-made tools, making it possible for a large number of games which already have a thread before someone thinks whether it was a good idea to start making it in the first place..
That being said, pre-made tools (eg. the starter kit) are not all bad, but please bring back the old etiquette of making games first and threads second, The plots and story ideas sub-section is where games with no demo should go.. A demo used to be a test to see who really was able to make their game and it was really good at filtering out those generic spawns that appeared in recent months..
But nobody should feel bad if they did make a piece of crap that doesn't look fun to play, just keep working on it and making it custom enough to stand apart from other games.. Sometimes this does mean learning to script, but why not google some free tutorials and use the help file plz.. Also remember the help and request thread will help you with small problems. And if you don't choose to script then for god's sake do something interesting with the events, otherwise your game is nothing, just a map-viewer with some cloned add-ons..
I am keeping an eye on some games in the showcase section, but they all seem to have no demo.. Grr... Anyway originality is still alive at these forums but it appears to be flopping around like a dying magicarp, I am sure that it will flourish again but I do consider it to be a "work-in-progress" atm..
Hey Dawson long time btw :) I agree with you completely on one point.. I've also been coming back here for the past couple of weeks to gain some inspirational motivation for my project, but it's slim pickin's. Btw the old community pwned originality
Ahh look at the time, got to go to work..

 

[Waudby]

Well I've been sifting through the starter kits code quite thoroughly recently, and I've got to say it's put together pretty well. It's clear that a lot of work went into it. What surprises me most was that poccil didn't just create his own fan game using it and after finishing his, wait a few months and then release the starter kit.

I think having all the key aspects there for you in the beginning is a very bad thing, I mean, people aren't even learning the basics from the starter kit, they just use it and ask for help as soon as they run into a problem.

Now I've never coded in RGSS before, and only know small amounts of ruby, but yet I was still able to go through the code knowing what it does, because i've learn a slightly similar language - I know the basic syntax.

The one thing here that is now blocking creativity is not that people use the starter kit, it's that people are too lazy to extend it's use. They just think, well what's the point in coding my own version of a system to be creative when there's a fully working version here.

 

[Neo-Dragon]

The one thing here that is now blocking creativity is not that people use the starter kit, it's that people are too lazy to extend it's use.

That was well put. I think that pretty much sums up the argument.

 

[Waudby]

That was well put. I think that pretty much sums up the argument.

Thanks, well it is true.

To learn the basics of any language you need to be willing to try. A lot of the people here who use the Starter Kit couldn't tell you the difference between a variable, an array, and a constant, let alone the different types of variable as well.

And that's a great shame. Before the starter kit many people HAD to learn these things to get anywhere. I'm considering make a topic that will help teach beginners a basic introductions to ruby and javascript. So that they have the option of Rmxp or Sphere.

I'd like to see more games here take risks of being unique, how about some brand new ideas?

I've got a few to show off when they are finished, but the one that I really like i'll share with you now and I'll wait to see how many people try and use it or use something very similar.

One of the new fun things to do in Pokémon Odyssey is travel to the Houndour Race Track. Where you can put bets on to see which Houndour will win the race. It's very similar to real life dog racing. You can stand to win good money prizes from the bets that you put on.

I can't say that I've seen that done anywhere else yet so it's a fairly unique idea.

Hopefully I'll post screenshots of that system when it's done.

So come on guys, surely you can think of more creative ideas?

 

[Krazy_Meerkat]

A really old one that I was working on about 2 years ago is the furniture system, furniture is able to be placed and moved around the hero's room.. I was gonna add rotation too but I ended up giving up that project, I did have to use a lot of hash arrays to store the x and y positions.
Hmm.. Another idea I had was a tv system similar to that in gta:iv but not so in-depth.. I simply took some sprite comics from right here at these forums (giving credit mind you) and cut them up into a size that would fit the tv screen image.
Well, there's two freebies, I doubt many people would be able to do the first one but geez be more creative people..

 

[Dawson]

One of the new fun things to do in Pokémon Odyssey is travel to the Houndour Race Track. Where you can put bets on to see which Houndour will win the race. It's very similar to real life dog racing. You can stand to win good money prizes from the bets that you put on.

Haha, damn. I had roughly the same idea, but with Ponyta and Rapidash. You enter your own Ponyta/Rapidash into the race, and it has a set of stats specific to the race (speed, stamina, strength and agility) that would affect its performance in the race. The higher the stats, the more chance it has of winning. And you increase the stats through levelling up and feeding stat-ups (protein, iron etc). Although there weren't any bets, just prizes.

I'm also working on a series of other Pokémon-specific minigames, as well as several different systems. Some of them I've thought of by myself, others I've taken from other commercial games.

Seriously, I have a notepad that is half full of ideas and system possibilities. Some of them aren't usable (well, won't really fit into the game that I'm building) and others have been fleshed out so much that I've actually pre-planned the code in the notepad file too.

Just use your imaginations, people. We're here to create games, not replicas.

Yo, Krazy. It really has been a looong time. Glad to hear you're working on a new project, I'll be sure to keep an eye out for it. All we need now is for DM31 to return with a game too, eh? :P

 

[Neo-Dragon]

All we need now is for DM31 to return with a game too, eh? :P

Haha. That would be crazy.