Feedback Graphic Adventure/Turn-based RPG?

[Cande3]

Hello! I'm new to this forum, but I wanted to know what people might think of an idea, who have more experience than I do.

I won't get too into the details, but I've been toying with the idea of a Graphic Adventure style game where you go around talking to people and interacting with shops,
while also having Turn-based combat elements mixed in to certain areas.
I've never had experience with designing either type of games, especially in Gamemaker, but how feasible would this type of game be not only in Gamemaker, but in
general?

 

[Rob]

100% feasible but you should probably become at least somewhat familiar with GML (GameMakers language) first.

 

[Fredrik]

Like the Stoneshard?

 

[Cande3]

Like the Stoneshard?

If I'm being honest, no. The combat I see would lean towards Final Fantasy style combat, and outside of combat would be Graphic Adventure style.

 

[YanBG]

Break it into smaller elements/games. Make first the graphic adventure where you walk around. Then interaction/dialogue system. Last the battle engine. You can have them in separate GM projects.
Keep everything easy to work with and simple to test. Put the code in scripts so that you can later combine the various sytems.

 

[Yal]

GM is made primarily for action games, so to make a turn-based game you need to build a framework that handles the turn system. My personal favorite approach (as can be seen in my Monster Collector Engine) is a recursive state machine: the upper level handles transition between the different steps of a turn ("take player input", "enemy AI", "execute actions" etc) and then each of its states has a state machine for the moment-to-moment gameplay in those conceptual states, like "check the queue of actions for the next action", "spawn effect objects" and "wait for effects to subside before continuing".

Also, data. Make making, handling and reading data easy, because you'll do it a lot - enemy stats, items, NPC dialogue...
If your data handling code has a switch statement that needs a new case per entry, you're doing it wrong. If adding a new stat forces you to update all prior entries, you're doing it wrong. If you can't loop over the data, you're doing it wrong. Mistakes like these will make the game a pain to work on, and chances are you'll drop the project after reaching your pain threshold.