Looking for help and suggestions for an idea...

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xMightyMatt14x

Guest
So basically I am a beginner with game design. My primary interest is in making top-down rpg's (zelda/pokemon angle, not gta). I've been working on and off on artwork for a while, and I've done enough with gamemaker (a few tutorials) to get the basics of spirtes and objects and basic movement and stuff. But I am still very very green. I have a dream of building an rpg, that doesn't have combat, but is heavily based on puzzles, quest systems, and dialogues where the player still completes missions to level up (puzzle based, or button press/animation missions). This would be animation heavy, and my dream also would involve a very active world with a ton of objects and animations going at any given time as I explore. There would be at least a hundred characters for instance (though obviously not ever on the screen at once), and very complicated quest systems connected to a wide range of characters in different areas of the world.

Here's my basic questions:
1. How many objects and animations can be active on the screen at once in gamemaker? Is it possible to create a heavily animated, living, breathing world where as I explore, tons of animations will be going at any given second? For instance, imagine walking through a town and seeing a neighbor mow his lawn, some kids playing a game in another spot, grandpa sitting on his porch rocking, etc.

2. I also wish I could do day/evening cycles (changing from light to darker) as well, and having the world change accordingly (people going inside in the evening and not finding them outside for instance). Is this possible?

3. Does anyone know a good script, tool, or marketplace quest system that would be great to use for a large number of diverse and complex quests with animations and multiple steps in each?

4. Does anyone know any goods tutorials/classes to learn about top down rpg games and systems with them? Also what are some things to consider learning about before I embark on this to help me avoid some challenges down the line?

Any help would be appreciated!! I am aware this is a years long project ahead of me with lots of growth. Just looking for some help from experienced designers.
 
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kburkhart84

Firehammer Games
1. I can't give you a number, but yes you should be able to make it happen as you would like. There are tricks you can do, including only having certain things active, and having the objects that are far away be temporarily deactivated.

2. This is something that can(and has) been done with Gamemaker before. Once you learn some programming and so some more basic stuff first you will be able to figure things out bit by bit.

3. I don't know of anything directly, but I'm sure you will find some. There are lots of things on the marketplace, though they may not directly fit what you do, though at the least they can serve for you to learn.

3? Same as the other number 3. I'm sure there are plenty of tutorials out there. But you need to learn carefully, making sure you don't just copy tutorials, rather you actually learn from them. Don't bite of more than you can chew at first, take it slowly and learn things the right way so you can better apply them to bigger projects as you progress.
 

TsukaYuriko

☄️
Forum Staff
Moderator
I'll be focusing more on the technical and personal side than the practical side. I believe that there are no "one size fits all" assets and tutorials because every game is unique, and whether something is possible or not is more dependent on the creator than on the tools used.

1. How many objects and animations can be active on the screen at once in gamemaker? Is it possible to create a heavily animated, living, breathing world where as I explore, tons of animations will be going at any given second? For instance, imagine walking through a town and seeing a neighbor mow his lawn, some kids playing a game in another spot, grandpa sitting on his porch rocking, etc.
This entirely depends on how well your code is optimized and your target device's hardware. The main trick is to only process what actually needs to be processed at any given time and to optimize whatever is using the most performance.
The only hard limits you have is that your game can't use more than 2 GB of RAM on 32 bit targets (notably, Windows) and that you can't use more than one CPU core without extensions as there is no multi-threading as of writing.

2. I also wish I could do day/evening cycles (changing from light to darker) as well, and having the world change accordingly (people going inside in the evening and not finding them outside for instance). Is this possible?
Yes. In general, whenever you're considering whether something is possible, the real question is whether you have sufficient experience and skill to implement it, not whether it's possible to do it.

3. Does anyone know a good script, tool, or marketplace quest system that would be great to use for a large number of diverse and complex quests with animations and multiple steps in each?
You stated that you've done "a few tutorials" in GM, so I'll advise against using any such asset unless you fully understand what it does and how it works. It's better to know your limits than diving in head first, somehow managing to make progress and then running into an issue you can't solve on your own because you're already in over your head.

3. Does anyone know any goods tutorials/classes to learn about top down rpg games and systems with them? Also what are some things to consider learning about before I embark on this to help me avoid some challenges down the line?
You wrote 3 twice.
The main thing here would be not to make this game now. The project sounds massive, as you seem to have realized yourself. If you tackle this with your current experience level, you're inevitably going to hit a brick wall when the game reaches a certain level of complexity that you've never encountered in any other project (as you haven't made them first), which can be a rather frustrating and demotivating experience.

If this is a project you'd like to see through until the end, I suggest to focus on developing your skills and gathering experience before even thinking about starting this project. That way, you can start working on it a couple of years down the road when you've already built a solid foundation of game development and how to use GameMaker, and will know how to implement mechanics before even writing a single line of code.
 
X

xMightyMatt14x

Guest
I'll be focusing more on the technical and personal side than the practical side. I believe that there are no "one size fits all" assets and tutorials because every game is unique, and whether something is possible or not is more dependent on the creator than on the tools used.


This entirely depends on how well your code is optimized and your target device's hardware. The main trick is to only process what actually needs to be processed at any given time and to optimize whatever is using the most performance.
The only hard limits you have is that your game can't use more than 2 GB of RAM on 32 bit targets (notably, Windows) and that you can't use more than one CPU core without extensions as there is no multi-threading as of writing.


Yes. In general, whenever you're considering whether something is possible, the real question is whether you have sufficient experience and skill to implement it, not whether it's possible to do it.


You stated that you've done "a few tutorials" in GM, so I'll advise against using any such asset unless you fully understand what it does and how it works. It's better to know your limits than diving in head first, somehow managing to make progress and then running into an issue you can't solve on your own because you're already in over your head.


You wrote 3 twice.
The main thing here would be not to make this game now. The project sounds massive, as you seem to have realized yourself. If you tackle this with your current experience level, you're inevitably going to hit a brick wall when the game reaches a certain level of complexity that you've never encountered in any other project (as you haven't made them first), which can be a rather frustrating and demotivating experience.

If this is a project you'd like to see through until the end, I suggest to focus on developing your skills and gathering experience before even thinking about starting this project. That way, you can start working on it a couple of years down the road when you've already built a solid foundation of game development and how to use GameMaker, and will know how to implement mechanics before even writing a single line of code.
I appreciate the advice!
 
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