Resources for RPG code construction and design?

March 11, 2018 10:28 AM

I'd like to get better at Javascript and the browser ecosystem. And I've been promising myself for years that I'd write a game. (About the level of Ultima IV, not Skyrim). I have plenty of time and ideas. Seems like a great opportunity! But when I start trying to tie all the bits and pieces together into an actual design, I get paralyzed by all the possibilities. And google is just pure noise on the subject. Does anyone have favorite resources for principles and structures for RPG's?

I could just spray and pray (You get a class! And you get a class!). But I would really prefer to have at least some idea of where I'm going before I set off.

To calibrate, a couple of resources I've found interesting (and I'm still going through) are Red Blob Games and Game Programming Patterns.

posted by cowcowgrasstree to Technology (3 answers total)

For solo projects, lots of people like to dive into Roguelike games. Procedural generation and using visual and audio art as options (rather than necessities) can really make the task more manageable. Plus Roguelikes are a super fun subclass of RPG. Once people have a little experience, many of them make a whole (small) game each year in seven days, as part of the 7DRL challenge.

To that end, Reddit's /r/roguelikedev has links to tons of good tutorials on the sidebar, and the forum is fairly active with discussion of concepts and implementations. Finally, a lot of RL are open source and you can learn a lot just by perusing the source code for Nethack or DCSS, as well as at the 7DRL link above.

I know this isn't exactly Ultima style, but many of the skills and designs are transferable, e.g. how do weapons work, how do items spawn, how do monsters spawn and behave, etc etc.
posted by SaltySalticid at 10:41 AM on March 11, 2018

Humble Bundle is running a deal right now to pick up a good number of books on writing your own games. It might be worth checking this out to see if some of the books fit your interests:
https://www.humblebundle.com/books/code-your-own-games-books?hmb_source=humble_home&hmb_medium=product_tile&hmb_campaign=mosaic_section_2_layout_index_2_layout_type_twos_tile_index_2
posted by nalyd at 1:15 PM on March 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

RPG Maker is an engine for tile-based RPG games. There are some tutorials here. You'll have to click the box for RPG Maker VX Ace and/or RPG Maker VX. The tutorials lead you through the steps of making a game using RPG Maker, but I think they are valuable just as a guide to the process, even if you're not using RPG Maker.

Gamasutra also has a lot of articles to wade through.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 2:38 PM on March 11, 2018 [1 favorite]