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7 Things That Can Make or Break Your Game! 
1. Bad Grammar/Spelling
Even if your audience isn’t a group of grammar Nazis, they can be completely sucked out of a game if there are obvious problems with spelling and grammar. Since RPGs are about 95% story, it is your job as a writer to have a command of the language you are using to tell your tale! This may involve researching rules about the use of punctuation, homophones (words that have the same sound but different meanings such as “to, too and two” or “their, they’re and there”) or anything else pertaining to writing skills.
2. Meaningful Dialogue vs. Random Banter
One of the things that can destroy a game for me is when the characters constantly engage in dialogue that has absolutely NO point. Everything in the game, especially the dialogue, should have a purpose. Even conversations with random townspeople should have some significance. Instead of having people say things like, “Oh, I just love flowers!” or “I’m off to the bakery! See you later!” they could reveal special information about the town that they live in, relationships between main characters, or social/political/economic circumstances about the story’s setting that could enhance the game. Since most of the story in RPGs are revealed through dialogue, take time to make it memorable.
3. The Cliché’d Clichés
A clichéd story, while not optimal, is not a failure either. Pretty much everything under the sun has all ready been written, and let’s face it: if you really could write a fresh, epic and groundbreaking story then you wouldn’t be making this game on RPG Maker. What matters in a story is how you put your own spin on it; the originality doesn’t come from the story itself but rather how you tell it. Some of the most popular Hollywood movies like Boondock Saints, The Dark Knight, John Q, and most Clint Eastwood films are all the same, basic idea: vigilante justice. What distinguishes them is the fact that they are well-written and told so brilliantly, not that they were “original.”
4. Consistent and Coherent Graphics
One of the most surefire ways to make a tacky game is to constantly switch between RTP graphics and originals/rips. It just doesn’t look good to see Aluxes from the XP RTP, Link from the original Zelda, a Chemist from FF Tactics and the female pirate from RPGM 2K3 all walking together in a caterpillar script over a map made from a Chrono Trigger tileset rip. This is one of the things that will really separate an amateur effort from a professional-looking game.
5. Engaging Characters
Boring characters makes for a boring story no matter what the platform. The player experiences your story through the eyes of your characters, so you have to make them interesting and memorable. One good way to flesh out interesting and surprising characters is to juxtapose certain opposing elements of that character to make them more fun. For example, you want to have a smooth-talking, bad-ass thief in your party? Make him a total klutz that always gets caught but somehow finds a way out of prison! Have an older, male priest as your healer? Make him a total horndog that can’t keep his hands off young women (think the Monk from Inuyasha)! Want to have a rebellious princess falling in love with the main character? DON’T! This is neither engaging, nor original.
6. Gameplay, gameplay, gameplay!
OK. So you have creative characters, an engrossing plot with all the twists you could want and original graphics to top it all off. That’s wonderful, but the game can still fail miserably if it isn’t any fun to play. This doesn’t mean that you have to use the Blizz-ABS or XAS battle scripts or anything like that. Actually, I’d encourage you to stay away from them. While novel and impressive (as far as RPG Maker efforts go), they tend to be buggy, lag a lot and end up detracting from the game rather than enhancing it because they are obnoxiously complicated. Good gameplay is all about balance. You have to balance your story-telling with interactivity; with regards to difficulty, you have to keep both amateur and die-hard RPG fans entertained; and the interface must be intuitive and easy to pick up. Even though the Junction system in FF8 was innovative, the learning curve was pretty steep and turned off a lot of people at first.
7. Advertising and Marketing
If you don’t get word out about your game, it doesn’t matter how great it is because no one will play it. That’s why we’re all thankful for RRR and sites like it for building a community for people like us! Use these resources to the maximum and contribute to them to make them better. When advertising your game, keep the synopsis brief but descriptive and don’t give away too much of the story. Also, it’s a good idea to make sure that you have your best screenshots available to show your handiwork and entice your audience to try YOUR game and not the multitude of others out there. Demos are a good way to get the community excited about your game, but they shouldn’t be released until you are about 75% done with your game, and even then only release the first 15-25% in the demo. Closed Beta-testing can be a good idea too if you can find people you trust.
I hope all of these tips have helped! I’ve had to learn most of them the hard way over the years myself. Good luck with all your games and happy RPG Making!
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Details
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Tutorial:
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7 Things That Can Make or Break Your Game! |
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Date Listed:
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Sat, 15 Aug 2009 03:00:57 -0400 |
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Author:
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Shake0615
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Total Hits:
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4005 |
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