Game Mechanics TopDown Shooter / Visual Novel

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Darktoz

Guest
Hi there, I'm new here and I don't know where to post this request, so I thought I just do it here.

So far, the only gamemaking knowledge I have is with RPG Maker MV, Tyranobuilder and a bit of Ren'Py. In other words, I'm a complete newbie.

I have an idea for a game, a mixture between Topdown Shooter and Visual Novel. Well, not really a mixture, but I would love to use the visual novel style as a dialogue system, meaning whenever you encounter a cutscene, talk to a person or a few other occasions, the visual novel dialogue system appears and choices you make in there can affect the topdown shooter world as well.

I have seen that there are a lot of tutorials out there for creating a topdown shooter in GM2, and there are some interesting visual novel plugins on the marketplace, so my question is if this can be done (combining both) if I put effort into it? Is it easy to do for a newbie like myself and is GM2 the right engine choice for such a game, or should I go for something else?

Thanks for helping me out!
 

The-any-Key

Member
In my experience. Making games never come cheap and is never simple. But if you put a lot of time in effort in something. You can almost do anything.
 
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Darktoz

Guest
That wasn't exactly the answer I was looking for, but thanks for taking your time. I will try to explain what I want to do in a bit more detail:

Let us say I want to use a simple top down shooter mechanic to walk around my created world, like this:

marketplace.yoyogames.com/assets/1968/smooth-top-down-movement

and whenever I want to talk to an NPC, I completed a level or a cutscene triggers, I want to call up that script:

marketplace.yoyogames.com/assets/6083/vngen-visual-novel-engine

Is that easy to do? Or at least: Is this doable? And if so, can variables and switches be shared between these two? Like when you make a decision during the visual novel engine it can affect the top down shooter world...
 
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Darktoz

Guest
Ok, I guess I will just dive right into Gamemaker then...thanks for helping out.
 

Niels

Member
Hi there, I'm new here and I don't know where to post this request, so I thought I just do it here.

So far, the only gamemaking knowledge I have is with RPG Maker MV, Tyranobuilder and a bit of Ren'Py. In other words, I'm a complete newbie.

I have an idea for a game, a mixture between Topdown Shooter and Visual Novel. Well, not really a mixture, but I would love to use the visual novel style as a dialogue system, meaning whenever you encounter a cutscene, talk to a person or a few other occasions, the visual novel dialogue system appears and choices you make in there can affect the topdown shooter world as well.

I have seen that there are a lot of tutorials out there for creating a topdown shooter in GM2, and there are some interesting visual novel plugins on the marketplace, so my question is if this can be done (combining both) if I put effort into it? Is it easy to do for a newbie like myself and is GM2 the right engine choice for such a game, or should I go for something else?

Thanks for helping me out!
something like hotline:miami?
 

Yal

šŸ§ *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
YaruDanmakuEngine has a dialogue system that's kinda Visual Novel-y (and uses scripts+queues in a way that should be both easy to learn and let you add whatever functionality you want), so feel free to check that out. It has both GMS1 and GMS2 source files :3

Self-promotion aside, I kinda like the idea... a lot of TDSes has very little character (you're GENERIC DUDE #2352 shooting zombies! in a generic city level!!) and going VN lets you inject some more character in it. Plus, if you go for traditional anime style, you get an excuse to make the playable characters have colorful hair, and that makes them contrast more from the background and stuff. Also, instead of a zombie setting, you could go magical girl or giant robots and nobody would bat an eye at it - so I'd recommend that too.

TDS mechanics are pretty easy too, so I'm sure you'll be able to wrap your head around that. Focus on movement, rotating stuff in the direction they're facing, and shooting... the rest (e.g. weapon switching) can be added as you're getting more comfortable with how things work. I'd totally recommend looking into how arrays work ASAP, it's the best way to structure up data for easy iteration (to operate on lots of data items at once) and selection (use a selection variable to access different fields in an array). YaruDanmakuEngine has that as well (character selection system and how it affects what attacks you get), and there should be tons of tutorials to dig up.
 
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maru_th_undrtkr

Guest
https://github.com/agincel/VN

https://github.com/SleepySquash/NovelSome.gmx

I saved these links to check them out. One of them looks promising. Not ganna lie tho I just use draw_text and a sprite for the text border, its basic but for more advance visual novel things u kinda need to code it or maybe they have transition packs stand alone, the simple sprite stuff can be done without addons.

As a matter of fact, you can make a SIMPLE visual novel game with just draw_text sprites and alarms. of course i get u want the quality of renpai features. You know someone needs to make a visual novel engine for game maker XD, does the forum have an open source section i dont know about?

anyways long story short it was one of those links im sure of it, it impressed me on how nice it looked, the other link will just give an error so its easy to find which when u download, anyways id kinda like to know if u find something tho, I am a fan of visual novels and was ganna look for the same thing later.
 

NightFrost

Member
Necro thread but anyway: it is my understanding that if one wants to make a VN, time is far better spent on learning to use Ren'py (which is competent and free) rather than making everything from scratch in GMS. (Disclaimer: I've never used Ren'py.)
 

Rayek

Member
Necro thread but anyway: it is my understanding that if one wants to make a VN, time is far better spent on learning to use Ren'py (which is competent and free) rather than making everything from scratch in GMS. (Disclaimer: I've never used Ren'py.)
The OP's original question was about combining both a shoot'm up and a visual novel style dialog system for cut scenes. You can't use Ren'py for that.
 

Genetix

Member
You can absolutely integrate TD & VN mechanics together. Ultimately I would just experiment and built them each separately (in the same project). Get the Top Down engine working very well, and when you need a break from it start designing your visual novel engine. Variable can be shared globally so that you can pass a choice in the dialog onto top down world.

I would ultimately see make each of these things modular and unique to themselves - if you get started in run into any specific coding or design issues we can help if a lot of details are provided!
 
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