New video: Tactical RPG Camera DemoNothing major in this video. Just demonstrates some of the new smoothed out camera movement and the orthographic projection, along with another musical track courtesy Youtube. Thanks again for the compliments.
As for direction, I have a story I'd like to share and I think this genre is the perfect medium to tell it with. I've played FFT avidly since I got my hands on a PS1, probably replaying it once a year or so. During that time, I've worked on acquiring the knowledge to do the programming, modelling, texturing, etc required to make my own game. I've been aware of this site for a while as well, along with some of the impressive things that have been accomplished by the people here. I've also noticed that the feedback provided is often direct and correct. Based on that, it makes sense to show what I've got and see what users here think.
A "brief", very malleable feature list:
Single Player- Story Driven Campaign
- World Map with towns, shops, etc
- Random Encounters
- Side quests/Multiple paths (lowest priority)
- Allow randomly generated or selected battles to be played/replayed.
- Horde mode - Would be easy to implement and be interesting to me.
MultiplayerThis is generally a big no-no for a lone dev, but I've got some experience in this and have written the engine from the beginning to support this. It'll probably use TCP since the packets don't need to reach the destination in real time, which should simplify things.
- Cooperative - Allow simple battle, story coop and horde mode
- Pvp
- Map selection
- Unit level limitations
- Unit Control
- One person vs. One Person
- One person vs. Multiple - Single controller team vs team of units controlled by multiple people
- Multiple vs. Multiple
Battle SystemI plan on going a similar route as Final Fantasy Tactics with units having a sub job, passives and counter actions. I'd like to add some new elements such as skills related to setting up traps, persistent spell areas, and unit displacement spells. Anything related to actual map deformation is definitely in the pipe dream category, but it could be something I'd revisit. For items/equipment, I would like to add some stat requirements to gear. I probably wouldn't outright deny use of something, but it'd come with severe drawbacks. As in a feeble mage in heavy armor would probably have a movement penalty.
Mod SupportOutside of the 3D models, everything is basically just stored in various XMLs that essentially form a database. The 3D models are all just OBJ files and the images are in PNG format. My own content formats might change, but I plan on supporting these much simpler formats throughout development of the engine. Since I currently use the same methods that a modder would have access to, they could do most anything I could.