Solid indie 2D RPGs?

[Pyabo]

State of the market question...

Aside from Spiderweb, who is making quality 2D RPGs? I've seen lots of half-baked freeware projects that use ripped graphics from SNES games or RPG Maker. I'm not looking for those. Are there any legit RPG developers out there that making solid, quality games? Either in the old PC ultima-esque vein, the more modern "console" style, or maybe even Zelda action/RPG mix.

Please share the links if you've got 'em. Here are the only ones I know of currently:

Zelda Classic (http://www.zeldaclassic.com/)
Excellent games and engine, but obviously derivative and no commercial value.

Dink Smallwood (http://www.rtsoft.com/dink/)
Excellent freeware RPG, but very small scope

Amaranth Games (http://www.amaranthia.com/)
Haven't played yet, but they look good and hey, from a member.

[PoV]

Dink Smallwood (http://www.rtsoft.com/dink/)
Excellent freeware RPG, but very small scope
MrFun is a member too, just he doesn't say much. ;)


If you're looking at the whole market of RPG's, you can't ignore Fate (http://www.fatethegame.com/). Even though it sports a 3D Engine, it plays like Diablo. Weather you pre-render your graphics or do them real time, it's still a competitor.

There's also Morning's Wrath (http://www.morningswrath.com/), which is a pre-rendered isometric. I liked some elements of it, but it didn't do much for me.

Cute Knight (http://www.hanakogames.com/knight.shtml) is a good one, but again, it does things a little differently being a mostly GUI RPG, with underground oldskool 3D dungeon maze scenes.

And an incomplete freebie a good friend of mine made, Fenix Blade (http://www.fenixblade.com).


Now the thing working against most RPG's is the content requirements. As in, maybe there isn't as much code (short of tools), but you've got a lot of art, story, items, and other little bits to be made.

There have been hundreds of these in development, and very few were ever completed. If you do some net digging, you can find the remains of a "scene" of people that spent their time doing 2D RPG's. RPGDX (http://rpgdx.net/) is one of the last remaining communities for these people. You may have heard of the defunct Pixelation, or it's original parent forum the GDR, or it's predecessors. There's a lot of history there, a history of incomplete games mind you. If there's anything to show from all that, it's that cloning a Final Fantasy or Ultima game was never a good idea. It was too much of an undertaking. . (http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/8266/) . (http://www.ntin.net/Zaskoda/Talibah/) . (http://www.interactivitiesink.com/aliensoft/) . (http://www.sykhronics.com/?oldskool.html)

[Uty]

Amaranth's Aveyond was done with RPG Maker. It just seems to be of higher calibur than the others ... just remember ... the finished product matters more than the tools used.

Anyone who has done some research knows that a lot of RPGs are started but not finished. This leads many to believe that an RPG is the hardest game to make. I disagree strongly. Let me point out a possible extraneous variable - that the average RPG enthusiast is more likely to try to make a game than the average <other genre here> enthusiast. A lot of people in the RPG enthusiast community enjoy table top gaming, after all, and that's all about making your own worlds and adventures.

With proper planning I do not think building an RPG from the ground up is as difficult as many people make it out to be. If you want to throw together something similar to 8/16 bit console RPGs you don't have to worry about collision detection or path finding. Building a game with a turn mechanism is easier than building a game that goes forward in real time. When you get down to it, here's what you really need.

- Stats / game mechanics
- Game world
- Characters, NPCs, Bestiary
- Story / script
- Theatre (this refers to making what the player sees show up on the screen)
- Sound
- Items

If you plan all that out in advance and you are used to working on large scale software engineering projects this isn't hard at all. If you dive right in without proper planning (and I suspect most of the RPG enthusiast community does this) your game will fail and it will fail *hard* Some of these projects aren't even object oriented!!

It seems to me that the only really hard part is figuring out the game mechanics. Just how does combat work? How hard is combat? How quickly do characters go up in level? Those questions need to be balanced with monster stats, how much experience/currency they give, and random encounter rate. Furthermore all that needs to be balanced with weapons/armor - the item stats, how often new items become available, and their cost.

I really do think once you figure out the *huge* math problem I've described above making a 2D RPG is easy. If you design the hell out of your game you'll be fine. I started designing my game earlier this month. My goal is to start writing code in April, and to have the game finished by December.

PS - my fave from the 80's is Moraff's Dungeon of the Unforgiven (http://www.classicdosgames.com/rpg.html)

[whisperstorm]

If you want to find literally hundreds of crpgs there's always Gaming World:

http://gamingw.net/

Good (let alone great) indie RPG's on the PC are very hard to find - it seems.

[Hamumu]

Action/RPGs - I made Kid Mystic (http://hamumu.com/game.php?game=MYSTIC) and Loonyland (http://hamumu.com/game.php?game=LLAND). I'm working on Loonyland 2 (http://hamumu.com/sneakpeek.php) right now!

[svero]

Kid mystic and loonyand are both great.. Well worth looking past hamumu's programmer art!

- S

PS : And I even kinda like the art to be honest

[GameStudioD]

The latest version of RPG Maker XP (http://www.enterbrain.co.jp/tkool/RPG_XP/eng/) (released August/September 2005) is no joke. The program comes with a ton of good graphics and music. It uses the scripting language Ruby to allow you to make any kind of RPG you want. Much of the graphics from Aveyond (http://www.amaranthia.com/aveyond) came directly from RPG Maker XP.

RPG Maker will have a big impact on what the number of console style RPGs we see in the freeware/shareware scene.

[Uty]

Not to mention it got 150,000 downloads on download.com in 5 weeks.

Now if that many people are interested in making such a game imagine how many people would be interested in playing such a game.

[soniCron]

...if [150,000] people are interested in making such a game imagine how many people would be interested in playing such a game. And how many of those would be interested in paying for such a game? I suspect that number is rather low.

[Ricardo C]

Now if that many people are interested in making such a game imagine how many people would be interested in playing such a game.

I don't see the connection... RPG Maker XP is a blast to play around with, but you'd have to make something REALLY special with it (I'm talking Crono Trigger-type special) for me to consider reaching for my wallet to buy a game made with it.

[whisperstorm]

I forked over the money for Fate. I'd pay for a great game. I pay almost 50 bux a pop for console rpgs like Grandia III.

[Viridian]

Dunno how good it is, but I wrote a little free RPG as a learning project...it's called Inaria:

http://www.viridiangames.com/inaria.php

Free source, too.

[Uty]

Ricardo, Soni: I think there's more interest in such games than you believe. A remake of Final Fantasy IV is now selling on the Gameboy for 30 bucks. There are multimillion dollar blockbusters of this type on the consoles and they're making returns for the next sequel. There's clearly more interest in the gamer community for this stuff then there is for match-3 clones.

[Hiro_Antagonist]

Ricardo, Soni: I think there's more interest in such games than you believe. A remake of Final Fantasy IV is now selling on the Gameboy for 30 bucks. There are multimillion dollar blockbusters of this type on the consoles and they're making returns for the next sequel. There's clearly more interest in the gamer community for this stuff then there is for match-3 clones.
Looking at the success of FFIV for GBA is insanely misleading. No low-budget ndie title will come anywhere near competing with it, even if you get get your game on GBA and sold at retail. They are entirely different to customers. As I said in another thread, old Final Fantasy games sell well because of retro/nostolgia value, the established name brand, and superior marketing might.

Also, I guess I need clarification. Where exactly are the multimillion dollar blockbusters of this type on consoles? If you mean handhelds (or more specifically, GBA), then okay, but that's where the state of the art is for that platform. And even then, there's no way you'd be able to compete with Final Fantasy, unless you had at least as big a budget and produced a steller gem of a title, which of course wouldn't be done in RPG Maker, even if it somehow worked on GBA.

If you're talking about Xbox/PS2/GC/PC, then I have no idea what you're talking about. There are no games of the RPG-maker type coming out for those platforms. They're all uber-high-budget 3d titles with insane marketing.

I think there's a small niche audience for low-tech RPG's on PC, but it's small and I doubt you could make enough money from your venture to justify your development time (plus any art/sound assets, if you're not using pre-canned.) In fact, I think you'd be lucky to build up a decently-sized community if you gave it out for free. There's just too much competition from bargain-bin titles and the free family of rogue-likes and what-not.

I mean, I can go to the bargain bin and get some premium AAA titles for any platform for $20. How will these RPG-maker games compete with that, except to a very select few who somehow prefer that niche?

-Hiro_Antagonist

[ErikH2000]

Tower of the Sorceror (http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA013374/game/egame0.html)

If you can see beyond the poor graphics, this little RPG is brilliant and unique. The clever game design makes the RPG play like a logic puzzle. You'll barely have enough hit points/keys/whatever to make it to the next part of the game, so you have to choose your actions quite carefully. I've never seen any other game like it.

-Erik

[Uty]

Hiro,

I didn't specifically mean "RPG maker" type ... I'm not going to use that software so I can make something different. ;) But the basic concept is the same - kill monsters with some kind of turn based battle system, get bits and pieces of a story. Off the top of my head in the past year you've got Digital Devil Saga, Grandia III, and Dragon Warrior VIII. Shadow Hearts III is coming out in about a week. Turn based RPGs are alive and well, and I strongly suspect people would be willing to pay for a 2D game so long as the story is cool/unique and the gameplay is somehow innovative.

[Ricardo C]

Uty, the RPG market is very much alive and well, but it's unrealistic to assume that just because the big franchises are doing well, an unknown indie will too.

[terin]

Hiro- Why not ask Amanda how she's doing with Aveyond :)

-Joe

[Hiro_Antagonist]

Hiro- Why not ask Amanda how she's doing with Aveyond :)
I'd be very curious to know, actually. =)

I'm working with the same limited data set we all are. If someone has hard information to demonstrate a point one way or the other, by all means, please provide.

But again, Uty, I'm with Ricardo here. Yeah, the big 3d blockbusters with multi-million-dollar budgets are doing well. But I don't *at all* see a correlation between those and an indie-quality 2d game. The markets are different. The audience is different. The economics are different. The quality is different. It seems completely apples-to-oranges.

If you think there's an underfilled market, then by all means. But I would say the first thing to do is look at products that already fill that niche. (In this case, indie RPG's.) Are they successful? Do they make their money back? Then you have to ask yourself, how will your product be different (design? style? marketing? distibution? price point? etc.) What effect will those changes have on sales? What precidents and research do you have for your decisions?

Of course, I ask these questions rhetorically. They're for any given project manager/producer to answer about their own potential project. But when I look at what I know of the RPG space, I see pretty unattractive answers to those questions. And while I like RPG's a lot and am fairly aware of the space, I wouldn't consider myself an expert on it. So maybe you know something I and the other dissenters don't.

Keep in mind that it's the tendancy of indie devs to overestimate their audience, or at least their ability to reach them and coax them into a buying decision. I'm just trying to be critical and pound on what I see to be the weak areas of the plan, so that you (and the others that are intereted in making an indie RPG) can have the piece of mind of knowing your plan is solid if it really holds up to this scrutiny. That's why you're posting here, right? =)
-Hiro_Antagonist

[nvision]

I've played a few decent indie RPGs, but most of the time they have quite lackluster graphics. I feel this limits the player's ability to really get into the game, and thus enjoy the full experience that the game could offer.

I've been itching to make an RPG myself, for ages, but could never find a coder interested in working with me for the long haul. Even posting FF-esque quality graphics of my own hasn't seemed to attract anyone's attention. Is it simply to large a task for most to initiate, or does something else shy others from developing in the genre?

In regards to RPG-Maker games, I've also been contracted out for quite a few....never, to this date, has anyone completed one of these projects. They always end up informing me they've stopped development for some reason or another, or just drop off the radar. Strange...

[papillon]

Much as I love RPGs, even if you came up to me and said you would do the entire graphics in dandy-sparkly pixel art goodness for me for *free*, I'd hesitate. wouldn't say no, but I wouldn't leap at the chance either. DESPITE that I love the games and would love to play it.

It is the time investment, yes. The time I know it would take to complete a more traditional-style RPG and be satisfied with it... the time required to get it TESTED properly... And most importantly, the time to prepare, because it's not something you can go into without a detailed plan!

I have at times in the past done the typical game making newbie thing of thinking I could whip up an RPG from scratch in no time, starting with no plan at all, diving into it trying to do everything myself, only to collapse in exhaustion and complete deterioration of motivation a few months later, realising that everything I'd made was a mess and would need to be thrown out and done over. Because of lack of planning.

Planning everything ahead of time, building a basic engine, giving myself plenty of time to be certain that I had the engine I wanted before I started making anything resembling a game out of it - this was all very important in keeping Kishi Kawaii a manageable project. I didn't get rolling on it until I *knew* it was doable. I designed around my needs, I wasn't going to get stuck.

I have vague ideas for things I'd like to do in RPGs but as long as they are only vague ideas, I'm not going there. :)

[rioka]

Don't know if you guys noticed but the sales stats for Morning's Wrath (http://www.gameproducer.net/2006/02/24/sales-statistics-mornings-wrath/) is available at GameProducer.net.

I would love to do a traditional RPG one day but it won't be anytime soon. For now, I'd rather make games that I can turn over faster since I'm just starting.

Anyways, I noticed that most of the RPG's mentioned in this thread are for Windows. Maybe striking the Mac crowd may help with sales... :\

[papillon]

Those numbers are a surprise to me, actually - I'd figured they'd be doing as well as me if not better. Perhaps the demo download size is really getting in their way....

(And I took less time and less resources to make mine. Yeah, this definitely isn't encouraging me to leap right into doing a more traditional RPG...)

[MikeRozak]

SpiderWeb software seems to be doing OK, which implies they have a higher sales rate than Morning's Wrath.

The question is: What is SpiderWeb software doing right?

[Ricardo C]

SpiderWeb software seems to be doing OK, which implies they have a higher sales rate than Morning's Wrath.

The question is: What is SpiderWeb software doing right?

I think Spiderweb caters to a market that has grown increasingly ignored in the age of Squareenixfinalfinalnowemeanitfinalfantasy: Traditional CRPG gamers who focus more on stats and dungeon crawling than on flashy visuals and orchestral soundtracks, and there lies the reason for their success: They identified an underserved market, and pretty much cornered it.

Speaking of underserved markets, you know what I'd gladly buy? First-person, party-based RPGs in the Might and Magic vein. M&M VI and VII are my favorite PC games of all time, hands down, and since Jon Van Caneghem no longer owns the property, and Ubisoft seems to have little interest in resurrecting it, I'd love to see someone else pick up the slack and produce similar games. Extra cash to anyone who includes the "You wanna ride high? Ride with me!" character voice :D

[ProgrammingFreak]

There is another program similar to RPG Maker series. It is called the RPG Toolkit. There are many games in development and there are many games that have been made with it. You can check it out here.

http://www.toolkitzone.com

I am also trying to make my own RPG

[Arkadesh]

I think Spiderweb caters to a market that has grown increasingly ignored in the age of Squareenixfinalfinalnowemeanitfinalfantasy: Traditional CRPG gamers who focus more on stats and dungeon crawling than on flashy visuals and orchestral soundtracks, and there lies the reason for their success: They identified an underserved market, and pretty much cornered it.

I think that's the point. I loved the early Ultima games (III-VI) and Spiderweb provided similar experience. Too bad they have changed their style to iso - I cannot get used to it, and their games no longer seem attractive to me. Weird, but true... Seems I'm die hard pure 2d overhead rpg addict :eek:

cheers,
Arkadesh

[terin]

Well I wont tread on Amanda's toes and give away proprietary information, but suffice to say I disagree with the "indie RPGs can't sell" philosophy.

What's wrong with Morning's Wrath? The download size? No, I don't think so. I think the problems there go much deeper into the darkness that is marketability.

I'm not sure the game is convincing enough to draw sales... In the demo I sat down and played I walked away feeling a strange mixture of impressed and totally not interested. The story, it impressed me. The game... it just didn't. Now that is just me.

And the problem goes beyond that as well: It comes down to traffic. How are they getting downloads, what are they doing to get downloads, ect.

It's the first game so they have no prior traffic. The style and size of the game prevents them from gaining access to most portals... so where is this traffic supposed to come from?

It's funny that people look at MW and say "Sounds like a failure." I'm not convinced that it has failed at all; not yet anyway. I think it has to seriously concentrate on building up traffic, but in a few years that game may be selling MUCH stronger than it is now... which is a trend few other games can relate to.

Of course, there are ways in which I could see the growth improved; but 9/10 the battle for all of us is getting traffic. The trick for an RPG is to be so overwhelmingly impressive in SOMETHING that people tell their friends about it. RPGs benefit from word of mouth a lot more than other genres because they are more often discussed than a side scrolling shooter or a match-3 game. I think that Minions of Mirth and Aveyond excel in the right ways that it convinces people to want to talk about it, and they do it in very different ways.

After the demo of MW I can say I can't remember much at all to talk about it, other than I remember I liked the plot idea.

Anyway, RPGs are incredibly risky to create because of the massive time and effort that needs to go into one. If you spend two years on an RPG you have to produce 3x the sales of 3, 8 month casual rip-off games and you have to do it with 1/3rd the publicity (sorta).

[Artinum]

I rather got carried away on another thread about why RPGs don't sell. Rather than repeat it here, I'll just mention the link (http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=6185) and let anyone interested in my ranting take a look themselves...

[whisperstorm]

Regarding Morning's Wrath - is it just me or are the graphics used in the advertisements (cartoon style artwork) more attractive than the prerendered in-game style?

Another example - look at games like Disgaea http://www.atlus.com/dis/
with cutesy artwork on a solid game.

[Ricardo C]

Maybe indie RPG developers should team up and set up an RPG-only portal? Build a community around it, let RPG fans know there's a place where they can get their RPG fix, and who knows? :)

[Hiro_Antagonist]

See, comparing NIS's games to indie games is misleading. Disgaea, La Pucelle Tactics, etc., have very high budgets compared to the people on these forums and in this comunity, and are console releases. They may be small and 'indie' compared to Square/Enix, but they they still do not compare well to indie titles.

These analogies are like an indie film student saying "The Indiana Jones movies did well, so my low-budget indie action-adventure title will do well." We all know that an indie film developer couldn't compare to one of the big boys in terms of production quality and marketing, and any comparisons would be rather absurd. Instead, that indie film maker would have to look for precidents of his own calibur for a more realistic idea of how his product might perform, how he should market/publish/distribute it, and what sort of audience there is for it.

I don't mean to be a broken record of naysaying, but seriously, why do we keep insisting on making inappropriate comparisons in our own field of specialty (games) when I think we'd all agree with the movie analogy?

Besides, the NIS games like Disgaea are actually more strategy/tactics games (think Final Fantasy Tactics) than RPG's, so they're not even the same direct genre...

I think games like the Spiderweb games, Morning's Wrath, Cute Knight, etc., are the right place to be looking if we really care about reaching any truth here...

-Hiro_Antagonist

[whisperstorm]

I guess what I meant by the graphics were the static anime overlays during the dialog parts - not necessarily the 3d graphis (of the NIS games). But if you want to make a movie analogy, look at the indie title Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning. It started out as a garage style project that has really taken off. http://www-fi3.starwreck.com/

But I wasnt really clear on my point ( dumb as it may be) which was that if you have a strong storyline, and attractive artwork (perhaps more cartoonish in the style of casual games like Cute Knight, The Witch's Yarn or Thomas and the Magical Words) you might be able to make some inroads into whatever genre this is --- "Casual RPG"

And dont discount consoles. If you get something compelling on PC why not pitch it to xbox 360 like Outpost Kaloki (which seems to be a good example of taking a relatively complex game mechanic and making it accessible to casual gamers.) Imagine being the first casual RPG for XBOX via download?

Of course this is all typing in the wind. You are right. It's simply very hard to invest so much time and energy into a good RPG to make it worth it. And if you dont spend the time, nobody wants to play it.

Is there any way to have some kind of happy medium? Something that's not completely boring yet not something that would take 80hrs to complete?

I end up at night (I uninstalled Fate - got sick of the spyware) just playing Adventure Quest or some shallow shmup or match 3 game....

[amaranth]

Hi everyone, I would like to add my two cents!

@Pyabo
Are you thinking about making a RPG to sell? What styles do you like?

@UTY
Making an RPG isn't as easy as you may think... Programming is a fraction of the battle. Unlike most casual games, RPGs are text, graphic, and music heavy. For example, my dialog text is over 300 pages long! And it goes on and on... Quests can get quite complex, and each quest may result in many changes to the game environment. Plus, players don't like linear quests, so you have to consider the many threads that a player can follow to finish something. I think the reason most people give up on their RPG projects is the time that it takes to complete them. There are sooooooo many hidden variables that you don't see when you get started on a RPG.

@GameStudioD
You are right about RPG Maker XP. It's completely open and you can use the Ruby scripting editor to access any library that you need outside of the game. You can even rewrite the entire engine if you have the time. I'm using the MSN Messenger SDK to add some cool features to the next version of my game.

One note... 90% of the graphics in my game were custom-made for Aveyond. I did use a couple of templates but only because I ran out of time. After 1 1/2 years, me any my graphic artist friend were tired! ;)

@soniCron
I'm going to release a report in a couple of months to give developers and idea about how much an RPG like Aveyond can pay. My conversion rate is 1.5%, and the download rate has been moderate.

@Hiro_Antagonist
I agree wholeheartedly that the time and effort to build an RPG from the ground is horrendous. That is why I suggest finding a good game engine that someone has already built so you can focus most of your time on the game logic! As for the game, it has averaged 5 direct sales a day. Not great, but not bad. The conversion rate is 1.5%.

@papillon
I totally agree with your planning comment. If you try to make an RPG without a plan, you're going to have lots of problems down the road. I usually create an excel spreadsheet and fill it with the many things I'll need to track. For example, quest lists & affiliations, treasure lists & locations, world history, regional history, time lines, religions, special areas of interest, character profiles & affiliations, yada yada yada...

[soniCron]

I'm going to release a report in a couple of months to give developers and idea about how much an RPG like Aveyond can pay. My conversion rate is 1.5%, and the download rate has been moderate. Well, that is certainly very good to hear, and I know we'll all be waiting with great anticipation! :)

[Midnight Synergy]

Now, whatever happened to PopQuest (Popcap's entry into casual RPGs)? I was really looking forward to that title, but haven't heard a peep in over a year (or more).

Does anyone know?

[rioka]

From the length it's taking them to report any news about it...
1) it's probably gone under
2) they're still working on it, or
3) they're going to give a surprise release when we least expect it.

But anyways, can't wait to see your report, amaranth! I see your game has been added to Arcadetown. Best of luck on that end! =)

[Pyabo]

Thanks for the feedback, Amaranth. I've been thinking for quite a while about doing a "small" RPG. The problem is coming up with something in between the simplicity of Dragon Warrior and the complexity of more recent RPGs. Where is the sweet spot... how simple can I make it and still have a fair amount of sales... Is it possible to do it on my own? Difficult questions to answer!

I asked the original question in this thread because I suspect there is a lack of titles, despite a large market for the games. There is a disparity here that is difficult to explain.

[Mr.Blaub]

When all else fails, tag "Densetsu" onto the end of your product name. I guarantee a worldwide hit :p

[amaranth]

Thanks for the feedback, Amaranth. I've been thinking for quite a while about doing a "small" RPG. The problem is coming up with something in between the simplicity of Dragon Warrior and the complexity of more recent RPGs. Where is the sweet spot... how simple can I make it and still have a fair amount of sales... Is it possible to do it on my own? Difficult questions to answer!

I asked the original question in this thread because I suspect there is a lack of titles, despite a large market for the games. There is a disparity here that is difficult to explain.

Pyabo, I calculate the size of my games by the number of quests I want the user to complete. I think a great experiment would be to put Dragon Warrior and a game like Morrowind side by side, then compare the number of quests available to each of them. This may shed some light. :D

My advice is to start small but with something that you can easily scale with time... maybe a game with 20 quests?