5 ms·

Making a Small RPG

243 points by ibobev 1y ago

philipwhiuk 1y ago
See previous discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=jslegenddev.substack.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=jslegenddev.substack....
silveira 1y ago
Awesome. I while ago I was playing around some JS graphic/game engine/frameworks and came across Kaboom (now Kaplay) and it stroke me as a really different approach to the whole thing. I am now again playing with it and it's really impressive and fun. Also, thank you for you tutorials. I have stumbled on some of them too.
JodieBenitez 1y ago
And I thought it was about rockets.
- felineflock 1y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqEMSzFDTLg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqEMSzFDTLg or https://www.military.com/defensetech/2015/10/12/raytheon-displays-new-mini-rocket-for-special-forces-infantry https://www.military.com/defensetech/2015/10/12/raytheon-dis...
  - JodieBenitez 1y ago
    I have spare black powder. Time for a weekend project.
    - AmbroseBierce 1y ago
      I bet "spare black powder" is one of those sentences that automatically puts you in some kind of list at some 3 letter gov agency.
      - JodieBenitez 1y ago
        It's fine, my country only has 4 letters gov agencies ^^
        AmbroseBierce 1y ago
        "Señora Benitez venga con nosotros... Que? A mi no me importa cuántas letras tiene nuestra agencia? Inhalar tanta pólvora a debido de afectarle el cerebro!"
        JodieBenitez 1y ago
        That's funny but nope, not this country either. Anyway my stock is below the legal limit.
- hammock 1y ago
  In my head I had already envisioned a bundle of matchsticks being lit and launched out of a pvc tube !!
- mhd 1y ago
  Next step, programmming and RPG with RPGs in RPG.
goody71 1y ago
Thanks for sharing. Hadn't heard of Kaplay. Loved how you broke-down your process. I also enjoyed your pixel art tips for programmers.
tuzemec 1y ago
Nice! A couple of years ago, I tried something in that direction[1] using Phaser[2], and it was quite fun. I used Tiled Editor[3] to create the map and some pixel art that I purchased from itch.io. [1] - https://story.tuzemec.com https://story.tuzemec.com (not very mobile friendly) [2] - https://phaser.io https://phaser.io [3] - https://www.mapeditor.org/ https://www.mapeditor.org/
- Froztnova 1y ago
  Tiled is really great. I'm using it in a project that I occasionally poke at as well, only with Love2D, and as a sidescroller sort of project. I was impressed by how easy it was to set it up to work with my game in spite of how generic it is. The functionality to export directly to lua source files was a particular treat, though there are probably situations where you'd want to still just use json or one of the other formats supported by Tiled even when working in a lua project.
  - krapp 1y ago
    Anyone trying to implement the Tiled API probably needs to reference this: https://eishiya.com/articles/tiled https://eishiya.com/articles/tiled It's a bit vague in some places (I'm still not exactly sure how parallax is supposed to be implemented) but absolutely worthwhile.
    - Froztnova 1y ago
      I'm not sure if it's the proper method, but I actually did implement parallax in my project, though I just did it by essentially creating a layer which I marked as parallax and then had my game draw it with a parallax offset from the rest of the map depending on the camera position. https://doc.mapeditor.org/en/latest/manual/layers/#parallax-factor https://doc.mapeditor.org/en/latest/manual/layers/#parallax-... These docs do seem to go more in depth about the canonical values related to parallax that Tiled offers though.
- nonethewiser 1y ago
  yo im up here https://i.imgur.com/2wlE1FS.png https://i.imgur.com/2wlE1FS.png
faebi 1y ago
They had us in the first half, not gonna lie.
Tade0 1y ago
For those of you who, like me, have no graphical chops whatsoever, I can't recommend Liberated Pixel Cup assets enough: https://lpc.opengameart.org/ https://lpc.opengameart.org/ There's also a character generator with plenty of options to choose from: https://liberatedpixelcup.github.io/Universal-LPC-Spritesheet-Character-Generator/#sex=male&body=Body_color_light&head=Human_male_light&expression=Neutral_light https://liberatedpixelcup.github.io/Universal-LPC-Spriteshee...
- jamie_ca 1y ago
  I can counter-recommend Kenney's game assets, it's got sprites, buildings, terrain, backgrounds, top-down, side-on, isometric... Lots of variety for different genres and settings, too. https://kenney.itch.io/kenney-game-assets https://kenney.itch.io/kenney-game-assets
  - arjie 1y ago
    Remarkable, they're licensed CC0 https://kenney.nl/support https://kenney.nl/support I always wondered why art is never licensed like software. There is a plethora of free software but I thought very little similarly licensed art. In fact, I think it's just that I wasn't looking. There's lots of it around. Thank you for sharing.
stuckinhell 1y ago
I'd love a 3d version of this
- prewett 1y ago
  I think "3D" and "1-2 month project" are incompatible. 3D is a big mess to do anything, whereas it's easy to blit some sprites.
  - butlike 1y ago
    Yup. Collider/mesh math is where the really esoteric, fun-killing bugs start to be introduced. 3D is cool, but on another level (hehe, literally).
    - Madmallard 1y ago
      Just use spheres
anonymousiam 1y ago
The author should disambiguate his title. I had to click to see if the post was about making a role playing game, or a rocket propelled grenade.
- ASalazarMX 11mo ago
  I was more interested in reading the data structures and tracking of concurrent, interrelated quests, than the graphic assets.
mclau153 1y ago
Anything along the lines of Dragon Quest would be greatly appreciated, Nintendo recently re-mastered Dragon Quest 1 and 2 as the formula is so impressive it still holds up
- christophilus 1y ago
  I never played them, though I played Squaresoft games of that era. What is the formula?
  - ASalazarMX 11mo ago
    If you ever want to play them, jump straight to Dragon Quest 4 on NES. It's the evolutionary perfection of the JRPG formula of its time. Basically what the article describes (turn-based combat, overworld, menus, extensive story, free exploration, no handholding, secrets). The storytelling, even if linear, is the most attractive part of them. If you prefer 16-bit, SNEs has Crono Trigger, still a cult classic (innovator for multiple endings), or the whole Final Fantasy series. Sega Genesis has Phantasy Star IV, also an evolutionary improvement of the series.
boznz 1y ago
I made a small Role playing game for a random game night. No code required, just a printer, a few friends, some beer or wine and the ability to not take things seriously. Highly recommended. [https://rodyne.com/?p=2855 https://rodyne.com/?p=2855]
- nonethewiser 1y ago
  the google docs link is broken i scanned the site and pdf. looks cool
  - boznz 1y ago
    whoops! sometimes I'm my own worst enemy.
ohboyhereitgoes 1y ago
Interesting read, no doubt, but the whole thing seems to be building up to this cool mash-up of concepts from a myriad of RPGs only for it to end up being… Undertale redux. Not a bad job in the slightest, but fairly underwhelming.
rdm0rris 1y ago
Anyone else looking for a rocket propelled grenade guide?
- dudeinjapan 1y ago
  I was expecting an excerpt from the Anarchist Cookbook
BrenBarn 1y ago
> These were by far one of the most time intensive art assets to make for this project but I’m happy with the results. > This was another time intensive task but I’m happy with how they turned out. I kind of read past these comments (and a couple other similar ones) at first but looking back I realized how nice it is to read something like this. It's like, yep, I did something that was kind of hard and took a while, but it was worth it because I feel like I did a good job. I feel like this is something that's sadly getting replaced by "Well, this isn't the greatest because AI did it for me, but who cares, at least it was quick." Fun article!
HugoDz 1y ago
Great! I've made web-based map editor for such web-based games (exporting maps to JSON): https://www.spritefusion.com/ https://www.spritefusion.com/

243 points by ibobev 1y ago

See previous discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=jslegenddev.substack.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=jslegenddev.substack....

silveira 1y ago

Awesome. I while ago I was playing around some JS graphic/game engine/frameworks and came across Kaboom (now Kaplay) and it stroke me as a really different approach to the whole thing. I am now again playing with it and it's really impressive and fun. Also, thank you for you tutorials. I have stumbled on some of them too.

JodieBenitez 1y ago

And I thought it was about rockets.

felineflock 1y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqEMSzFDTLg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqEMSzFDTLg or https://www.military.com/defensetech/2015/10/12/raytheon-displays-new-mini-rocket-for-special-forces-infantry https://www.military.com/defensetech/2015/10/12/raytheon-dis...
- JodieBenitez 1y ago
  I have spare black powder. Time for a weekend project.
  - AmbroseBierce 1y ago
    I bet "spare black powder" is one of those sentences that automatically puts you in some kind of list at some 3 letter gov agency.
    - JodieBenitez 1y ago
      It's fine, my country only has 4 letters gov agencies ^^
      - AmbroseBierce 1y ago
        "Señora Benitez venga con nosotros... Que? A mi no me importa cuántas letras tiene nuestra agencia? Inhalar tanta pólvora a debido de afectarle el cerebro!"
        JodieBenitez 1y ago
        That's funny but nope, not this country either. Anyway my stock is below the legal limit.
hammock 1y ago
In my head I had already envisioned a bundle of matchsticks being lit and launched out of a pvc tube !!
mhd 1y ago
Next step, programmming and RPG with RPGs in RPG.

goody71 1y ago

Thanks for sharing. Hadn't heard of Kaplay. Loved how you broke-down your process. I also enjoyed your pixel art tips for programmers.

tuzemec 1y ago

Nice! A couple of years ago, I tried something in that direction[1] using Phaser[2], and it was quite fun. I used Tiled Editor[3] to create the map and some pixel art that I purchased from itch.io. [1] - https://story.tuzemec.com https://story.tuzemec.com (not very mobile friendly) [2] - https://phaser.io https://phaser.io [3] - https://www.mapeditor.org/ https://www.mapeditor.org/

Froztnova 1y ago
Tiled is really great. I'm using it in a project that I occasionally poke at as well, only with Love2D, and as a sidescroller sort of project. I was impressed by how easy it was to set it up to work with my game in spite of how generic it is. The functionality to export directly to lua source files was a particular treat, though there are probably situations where you'd want to still just use json or one of the other formats supported by Tiled even when working in a lua project.
- krapp 1y ago
  Anyone trying to implement the Tiled API probably needs to reference this: https://eishiya.com/articles/tiled https://eishiya.com/articles/tiled It's a bit vague in some places (I'm still not exactly sure how parallax is supposed to be implemented) but absolutely worthwhile.
  - Froztnova 1y ago
    I'm not sure if it's the proper method, but I actually did implement parallax in my project, though I just did it by essentially creating a layer which I marked as parallax and then had my game draw it with a parallax offset from the rest of the map depending on the camera position. https://doc.mapeditor.org/en/latest/manual/layers/#parallax-factor https://doc.mapeditor.org/en/latest/manual/layers/#parallax-... These docs do seem to go more in depth about the canonical values related to parallax that Tiled offers though.
nonethewiser 1y ago
yo im up here https://i.imgur.com/2wlE1FS.png https://i.imgur.com/2wlE1FS.png

faebi 1y ago

They had us in the first half, not gonna lie.

Tade0 1y ago

For those of you who, like me, have no graphical chops whatsoever, I can't recommend Liberated Pixel Cup assets enough: https://lpc.opengameart.org/ https://lpc.opengameart.org/ There's also a character generator with plenty of options to choose from: https://liberatedpixelcup.github.io/Universal-LPC-Spritesheet-Character-Generator/#sex=male&body=Body_color_light&head=Human_male_light&expression=Neutral_light https://liberatedpixelcup.github.io/Universal-LPC-Spriteshee...

jamie_ca 1y ago
I can counter-recommend Kenney's game assets, it's got sprites, buildings, terrain, backgrounds, top-down, side-on, isometric... Lots of variety for different genres and settings, too. https://kenney.itch.io/kenney-game-assets https://kenney.itch.io/kenney-game-assets
- arjie 1y ago
  Remarkable, they're licensed CC0 https://kenney.nl/support https://kenney.nl/support I always wondered why art is never licensed like software. There is a plethora of free software but I thought very little similarly licensed art. In fact, I think it's just that I wasn't looking. There's lots of it around. Thank you for sharing.

stuckinhell 1y ago

I'd love a 3d version of this

prewett 1y ago
I think "3D" and "1-2 month project" are incompatible. 3D is a big mess to do anything, whereas it's easy to blit some sprites.
- butlike 1y ago
  Yup. Collider/mesh math is where the really esoteric, fun-killing bugs start to be introduced. 3D is cool, but on another level (hehe, literally).
  - Madmallard 1y ago
    Just use spheres

anonymousiam 1y ago

The author should disambiguate his title. I had to click to see if the post was about making a role playing game, or a rocket propelled grenade.

ASalazarMX 11mo ago
I was more interested in reading the data structures and tracking of concurrent, interrelated quests, than the graphic assets.

mclau153 1y ago

Anything along the lines of Dragon Quest would be greatly appreciated, Nintendo recently re-mastered Dragon Quest 1 and 2 as the formula is so impressive it still holds up

christophilus 1y ago
I never played them, though I played Squaresoft games of that era. What is the formula?
- ASalazarMX 11mo ago
  If you ever want to play them, jump straight to Dragon Quest 4 on NES. It's the evolutionary perfection of the JRPG formula of its time. Basically what the article describes (turn-based combat, overworld, menus, extensive story, free exploration, no handholding, secrets). The storytelling, even if linear, is the most attractive part of them. If you prefer 16-bit, SNEs has Crono Trigger, still a cult classic (innovator for multiple endings), or the whole Final Fantasy series. Sega Genesis has Phantasy Star IV, also an evolutionary improvement of the series.

boznz 1y ago

I made a small Role playing game for a random game night. No code required, just a printer, a few friends, some beer or wine and the ability to not take things seriously. Highly recommended. [https://rodyne.com/?p=2855 https://rodyne.com/?p=2855]

nonethewiser 1y ago
the google docs link is broken i scanned the site and pdf. looks cool
- boznz 1y ago
  whoops! sometimes I'm my own worst enemy.

ohboyhereitgoes 1y ago

Interesting read, no doubt, but the whole thing seems to be building up to this cool mash-up of concepts from a myriad of RPGs only for it to end up being… Undertale redux. Not a bad job in the slightest, but fairly underwhelming.

rdm0rris 1y ago

Anyone else looking for a rocket propelled grenade guide?

dudeinjapan 1y ago
I was expecting an excerpt from the Anarchist Cookbook

BrenBarn 1y ago

> These were by far one of the most time intensive art assets to make for this project but I’m happy with the results. > This was another time intensive task but I’m happy with how they turned out. I kind of read past these comments (and a couple other similar ones) at first but looking back I realized how nice it is to read something like this. It's like, yep, I did something that was kind of hard and took a while, but it was worth it because I feel like I did a good job. I feel like this is something that's sadly getting replaced by "Well, this isn't the greatest because AI did it for me, but who cares, at least it was quick." Fun article!

HugoDz 1y ago

Great! I've made web-based map editor for such web-based games (exporting maps to JSON): https://www.spritefusion.com/ https://www.spritefusion.com/