Five Ideas to create a better R.P.G.

This post if for the indie game developers who are just getting started and need a little insight into their own game before they upload a beta or demo for the world to see.

1. Interactive NPC- Nobody wakes up every morning and sees a grumpy old man walking the streets complaining about how children don't listen, or a store clerk that says "hey your shoe is untied dude.." even if your character doesn't have any shoes, boots, sandals etc. equipped every time you talk to the NPC. I have played many games where the NPC continually says the same thing no matter what events have taken place in the game. That is lame. How about an NPC saying "hey your shoe is totally untied dude..." if your character has a foot apparel on, and "hey can't you read the sign... it totally says no shirt! No shoes! no Service.! .. Dude..." and then have the NPC escort the player out of the establishment.

2. Relationships- Yes people are people and monsters are monsters however there is a relationship between the two and each other. Most of the games I have played recently have been a battle to the death RPG e.g. I am human I kill monster.

Example:

Susan is my friend. Mat is Susan's friend. I push Mat.

Shouldn't Susan get mad or even!

Not in the games that I have played recently.

How about this one, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Example:

The bear hates me more than the wolf hates me.

I am too weak to defeat the bear alone and can't defeat the wolf if the bear attacks and, the wolf is in the same position.

Let's compromise. I pair up with the wolf to defeat the bear and in doing so let the wolf live and V.s.

P.s. I would like to see more of this one myself in the future. There is one game that dose a pretty good job of this that comes to mind it is FFXII.

3. Mini games- Perhaps there are not enough pre generated scripts out there for me to see this in many indie games of late. I believe that the mini-games played a big part in the replay value of most RPG games in the past. There where many different mini-games to choose from.

• Guess the #/ Password
  
• Chocobo racing, riding, training
  
• Snow boarding, motorcycle riding, blitz ball, digging, hunting, card games, pets, tournaments
  

Any more there are no mini-games in indie RPG's. Sure there are a lot of side quests but, face it there is only so many times you will want to 'go get the staff of amazing' from the 'cave of scary monsters'.

4. Story Dialogue- Holy Hell!! For the love of what ever god you do or don't believe in please find a better way to tell the story of your game without giving me a 10min. shake down, recap, and foreshadow of the entire game and future sequels yet to be released immediately preceding the first, second, or third, boss battle. (Deep breathe...ah...) This is pretty self explanatory. Just write a better event document perhaps with more that 3 steps. (Start. immediately fight boss. game over.) If you need help here just look up an event template on the web or get one from RPG Revolution, or Yoyo Games. Look under Resources or Make. There are many different indie gaming sites and books out there that will give you access to design docs and templates of all kinds just look them up.

5. Graphics- Lets face it the graphics of an indie game can immediately make or break the game. For example: if the cover of the game looks like it was drawn in crayon you will most likely not get anyone to even beta test your game. However if you have a great cover for your game and teribble in game graphics the person playing your game will most likely not play the game again after turning it off. Notice 'most likely' these statements are not set in stone. If your graphics are so bad that insects die when they pass the screen but the game play is great then you might be ok. However this is highly unlikely. I would like to see some games that do not incorporate the game engines RTP to 100%. How about creating your own character and enemies, how they look, move, and act in the environment.