Dear Devs; Environment

[Polraudio 122]

This will be my second article for Dear Devs. If you haven't read my first one please head on over here http://www.gdunlimited.net/forums/topic/11682-dear-devs-demos/

 

Dear Devs:

 

In most RPG's I noticed people don't really think about the environment they are making.

 

Problems:

• Homeless NPC's.
• Super ultra small towns.
• Nature doesn't look natural.
• Doesn't make sense why some things exist or are placed.

Those are just a few things.

 

What should you do?

 

Towns:

To many times I see people having like 40 NPC's in a town and have 2 houses with 2 shops.

When making towns you should make a place to live for every single NPC. Most of all every NPC should have a bed somewhere. EVEN IF YOUR NPC WORKS IN A STORE they should still have a place to live. It should be apparent to the player that every NPC has a home.

 

Every NPC should also have a personality shown in their rooms and dialog.

 

What do I mean by this? Well when you go into someones room/house it should reflect the likes and dislikes of that person. EX: Lisa likes teddy bears so she has teddy bears in her room but she doesnt like carpet so you wont find carpet in her room and maybe her brother knows she likes teddy bears so he has teddy bears in his room with the heads off and maybe her brother also likes carpets and lamps....be creative.

 

With NPC dialog the player should be able to talk to the NPC and have the NPC talk about things they like or maybe even ask the player if they like that stuff also. One important thing is to make sure NPC's don't just have 1 single thing to say. Please use a random number and conditional branch of some type so the NPC will say different things. Also make use of that self switch(if your using rpg maker) to make it so if the NPC asks the player a question the answer gets stored.

 

Another thing to remember when making towns is to make sure the outside matches the inside. So if you make a house that's an L shape make sure the inside is also an L shape and if the outside is a 2 story make sure to make the inside a 2 story....don't make the inside a 2 story when the outside is a 1 story. Also make sure not to make the inside feel bigger than the outside. You don't want the outside of a house to be 4x4 and have the inside be the size of a fricken castle.

 

The little things matter also. Also keep in mind the wealth of the person. you don't want a poor person to have a piano in their house. Also make sure object placement makes sense. If there's just 1 person living in a house don't place 2 tea cups filled with tea on the table.

 

Sure it seems like its alot of work but trust me it will make the game feel so much more alive and not dumb like most RPG's out there now days. Most RPG's feel like they don't put much thought into towns. Follow everything I said and your towns will be far better than most.

 

Nature:

To many people make nature not random or don't add enough details to the world. Nature is a little different than making a town so this will mostly be general guidelines to follow.

 

A simple thing to remember when making nature is to remember that nature is random so be random.

Try not to make land flat and boring. Add some height and different types of shrubs and grass to the area if you are making a forest or some grassy area. One major thing to avoid is making square water, grass, and paths. Sure in some cases its hard with rpg maker because the water is square but I mean by area and not per tile. EX: When making a river you don't want to just have a rectangle of water. Take it to the next level and add little runoff streams and stuff.

 

For the actual nature part with trees and stuff make sure it makes sense. you will rarely ever see trees alive inside water...unless its a jungle. this part is mostly common sense and I shouldn't have to go to much into it as most devs do a good job with this. Just make sure to add little details like flowers, grass, weeds, etc.....

 

Paths are prob the easiest thing to make since they are manmade. When making paths there's 2 types of paths to keep in mind and how they should appear in your game.

Rocky path: Rocky paths are usually things like roads. These paths are usually straight and don't usually have parts of the path scattered around.

Dirt path: These paths are usually things like trails or non main roads going from town to town. Its a good idea to not keep these paths perfectly intact like the roads are. Break the path up sometimes by adding grass in the middle of the path maybe some dirt ended up off the path. Just use your imagination and be sort of random but not very random because its manmade usually.

 

Everything:

Theres 1 thing you should do in every single RPG you make. Examine text! The player should be able to go around and hit the action button on almost everything to see text. EX: I see a crate in someones house. I should be able to examine that crate. *examines crate* Crate: Its just a normal crate filled with condoms.

The little things like examining stuff goes a long way when making an immersive world.

 

Hopefully this has helped you think about what you are doing wrong or doing right. If it has helped you please hit that rep button in the lower right, comment and add to the conversation :thumbsup: .

[dolarmak 23]

While I agree completely with the Towns, people and nature parts, i disagree with the over abundance of text on every object. Not everything needs to display text because after a short while most people just get sick of it. It also makes the player feel like there is nothing to be found in places like drawers and pots when for the empty ones you still get text. it'll some times make the players stop checking things. 

 

what i think is more palatable for players is to make a few findable objects in drawers or pots at the start of the game, and then periodically add findables in other places. Not even ever drawer/pot needs an item and not displaying any text is a quicker way to show the player it's empty.  I think the key is to keep things consistent. don't only have drawers in town X have items and then town Y only the pots have items. 

 

That's my opinion.

[Kitsuki 17]

Nice post, Pol. Agree with pretty much everything. One of the problems with people starting with RPG Maker (even with more experienced users) is that they don't think about the environment they're creating. Which creates a lot of the empty feeling/atmosphere, as well as lack of immersion, I get when I playing newcomers' games.

 

Something that helps me is looking at pictures or floor plans of real, existing buildings. I would suggest doing that for nature too, but that's above my pay grade--it was always more of Germany's thing. So not sure if for nature it helps. But floor plans are amazing. <3

 

Not everything needs to display text because after a short while most people just get sick of it. It also makes the player feel like there is nothing to be found in places like drawers and pots when for the empty ones you still get text. it'll some times make the players stop checking things. 

 

I kind of disagree. Maybe it's because I play games where the creator doesn't care to add anything, but if I don't get text then I automatically assume I'm not getting much from the game. So I stop looking at all. But I see your point... I guess for me it depends on if you overdo it. I don't want ten pages of text when a pot fails to give me some gold.