This post is a part of the How to make RPG’s series, which shows you the different ways on how to make Role Playing Video Games.
Creating an RPG all by yourself is a huge undertaking. To finish such a project, a lot needs to be done, and that’s probably an understatement. Let’s go over everything:
Welcome to the ultimate guide on how to make your own RPG’s!
Most game developers I know have a game idea for a Role Playing Game. So I assume you do too. But making such a game is a huge task, plus, there are so many possible ways on how to make one. That’s why I’m writing a series of blog posts about the different paths you can take to create an RPG. This way you know what your options are, and which of those fit best with your situation.
As I see it, there are 3 mayor paths you can take to make an RPG:
I will highlight each of them in a separate blog post, starting from next week. So make sure you keep an eye on this blog, or even better, subscribe to our RSS feed!
Our RPG Editor features a tilemap editor with a cool innovative feature. I call it “Tilemap Auto Layering”, and it makes tilemap creation faster and easier. You can see it in action in the video below. I hope you don’t mind my Flemish accent .
Have you heard of EpicWin? It’s an application for the iPhone that turns your todo list into a real life RPG. For every task you complete, you gain XP. This is a brilliant concept! It turns your boring todo list into something fun. Just watch the video below to get the idea.
It’s been a while since I released any news on Koonsolo. That’s because the last few months I was completely focussed on developing our Koonsolo RPG Editor. It’s still far from finished, but currently I can play with some functionality and get some cool results. I will create a video showing off some of that stuff in the near future, so stay tuned!
Last weekend I created a ‘Koonsolo RPG Editor’ web page. That page should give you an idea of what the final program will be able to do. I’m not promoting this page just yet, but I wanted to show it to you anyway . So go and take a look at http://www.koonsolo.com/rpgeditor! If you have questions or remarks, don’t hesitate to mail me at koen@koonsolo.com.
Next time you’ll see some functionality in action ,
Note: I use the term ‘Encapsulation’ as a language mechanism for restricting access to some of the object’s components. Others might call this ‘information hiding’.
Traditional Object Oriented Programming
In every object orientend programming course or book that I know, you get introduced to a concept called encapsulation. Encapsulation is a technique that allows you to protect implementation details while exposing only the interface. The advantage is that the rest of the code can only use the interface, and therefore is not dependent on the hidden implementation.
The thought behind the whole idea of encapsulation is that when implementing a class, you protect it against misuse. You make sure that the user can’t break it. You have total control over your class, and the user can only use that what you allow him to use. Another advantage is that providing a stable interface will protect implementation details that are likely to change, and therefore limiting interdependencies between software components. That is, it forces the users to do so.
Most Object Oriented programmers totally agree with all of the above, and I used to too. But that was until I met python. Read more…
First of all I want to thank everyone who emailed me and wished me luck with my new project. I received some very nice emails and appreciate it very much!
I didn’t provide much details last time, so I hope to clarify some things in this post. The game editor is going to be aimed at creating old school 2D RPG Games like Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger. This RPG Editor will run on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It will be very user friendly, so that anyone is able to create games. You won’t have to know how to program or how to create graphics. But if you’re an artist, you can of course import your own graphics and use them.
Some people asked if the game editor is going to be Open Source, but it won’t. It will be a proprietary product.
The editor will create Flash games, and they will run in any web browser. As a normal user you just click “Play” and the game will be completely generated for you. But if you’re a programmer, you can go into the source code of that game and implement or change anything you want. The game source code will use our Koonsolo Game Library, and that library will be Open Source. I will use the liberal ISC License, which allows you to adapt anything you want and release your games as both commercial or free products.
I’m working together on this with fellow indie game developer Amaranth Games, known for their successful game series Aveyond. Since Amaranth Games creates old school RPG games, they are the ideal partner.
All technical aspects will be handled by Koonsolo, so the game editor and game engine will be programmed by me .
I wanted to share all this info so you know what Koonsolo is up to. Since there hasn’t been any official announcement yet, you are the first to know about the collaboration of Koonsolo with Amaranth Games, and about the details of our upcoming RPG game editor .
Recently I came across this great opportunity, but it forced me to make a tough decision. I hope you will understand, and will keep supporting Koonsolo as you did before.
As you might know I started Koonsolo because I love creating games. Mystic Mine was the first game that I created entirely by myself, and I planned the same for the next one. But doing the programming, graphics and marketing all by myself is very hard and time consuming.
As I was working on my upcoming game, I got a request from another indie game company to work on a project together. This project isn’t a game, but a tool to create games. It will allow anyone without programming or artistic skills to create cool video games. And it’s powerful enough that when you do know how to program, you can write your own code. Or if you are an artist, you can include your own graphics.
I’ve been programming games since I was a kid, so this is the ideal opportunity to share my technical knowledge, and make it available to anyone. Doing this together with another company allows me to focus on the development and the things I’m really good at.
Because this game creation tool is going to be released first, it also means that my next game won’t be released in the near future. I hope you can understand my decision, and I certainly hope that you’re interested in creating your own games using my tool .
If you have any questions or remarks, just leave a comment below.
A lot of myths exist about Linux users and the whole open source community. Because of these wrong assumptions, a lot of game developers still hesitate to support the Linux platform. As both a Linux user and an indie game developer, I want to educate everybody with hard facts about the advantages of supporting Linux. Read more…
I wrote my original article on game loops a few years ago, and it’s nice to see that it’s still popular today. Recently I stumbled upon some game loop lecture slides of Aaron D. Lanterman, and he seems to use my game loop article as a reference . He even has a video of his session online. So if you had a hard time understanding my article, maybe you should check out that video. It might make things more clear.
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