Thoughts about the RPG Maker and some unusual games

After my rant last night, I have a more relaxed and positive post here. It’s about the RPG Maker, a tool for making your own old-school, old-console RPGs. I’ve owned and used the RPG Maker (in various versions) for several years now, having fun with it and, most of the time, getting caught up in figuring out aspects of a new project instead of finishing it.

While you can really make a professional game with the tool (check Amaranth Games for a lot of those), it’s actually cheap enough for a non-professional to buy and easy enough for a non-professional to use. You paint your maps with tiles, add a few events with pre-defined commands (which are pretty straight-forward), and export the whole thing as an installation file you can share with whomever you want. You can add your own tiles (there’s free ones as well as sets to buy in the shop), your own music, your own characters (the ACE, the newest version, even has a character generator), and your own scripts to make the game do something different.

And this is where this post actually starts for me. You can’t just make RPGs with the RPG Maker (although you can surely make those and they can be a lot of fun), you can also make other games, if you can script. I can’t, but I can appreciate those who can.

Three of those other games will feature in this post, two I wrote about before and one I never mentioned so far.

The first one is “Madame Extravaganza’s Monster Emporium” by John Wizard Games. It’s a monster-gathering game of sorts. It has turn-based battles like a regular RPG Maker game, but you buy your monsters from Madame Extravaganza and earn money by going into randomly-generated dungeons and fighting your way through normal monsters and one boss per dungeon. After you won the boss fight, you get rewards (you can also find stuff in the dungeons). There’s different types with different monsters which unlock as you level up (so will your monsters). You can customize your monsters by choosing which attacks they will use and you can exchange members of your group whenever you’re in the town and not in a dungeon (if you have more than 3 monsters, of course). I admit I haven’t finished this game, because I just can’t get two of the orbs I need to unlock the last area and I just can’t get some of the special rooms in the dungeons I need to spot all monsters (you need to fight a monster and defeat it once before you can buy it). That’s the downside of Madame Extravaganza.

The second one is “Our Love Will Grow,” also by John Wizard Games. It’s a game like “Harvest Moon” or “Animal Crossing.” You have your own farm, you start growing crops, you get new seeds in a while, you also can pick stuff in the forest, keep animals (cows, sheep, chicken, bees, and a dog), mine for stones, iron, silver, gold, and gemstones, and find the love of our life. There’s regular parties in town where you can meet several different women whom you can woo. If you manage to get one of them to marry you, you can even have a child. This, of course, requires a top-kept farm and a big farmhouse instead of the small hovel you start with. I haven’t finished that one, either, but I did a lot of farming and I had a lot of fun with it so far. And one of those days, I will get all I need to propose to the girl of my character’s dreams and they will have a kid and live happily forever after on their farm.

The last game is “Fortune’s Tavern” by Michael Flynn (available on Steam). It’s not an RPG and it has some aspects from both games I already mentioned. Like “Madame Extravaganza,” it offers various pets for you to raise and keep. They accompany you into the forest behind the tavern, where you go working on quests (usually ‘find this’ or ‘find out about that’). Your main job, however, is to run and to renovate the tavern itself, so you get more guests and make more money and can do even more for the tavern. There’s three fractions you can cater to, there’s different additional buildings you can rebuild and put to use. On the whole, you can do a lot of stuff in the game and they just added a DLC where you can take over the job of Mayor for the nearby town of Fortune, as well.

All three games are a lot of fun and not the usual RPGs you might expect. And they show that with the ability to use the right scripting language, you can make a lot of different things with a relatively cheap and mundane tool.

Waiting for ... Gaming

This is a post about something I find pretty annoying. About Free-to-Play games (Free-to-Pay games, as I call them) and their most annoying component: waiting.

You see, I really like to buy games and get the full game - to play, to keep. I hate several things about today’s DRMs, but that’s for another post. I like buying games and playing them as I see fit - when I want, where I want, as long as I want, as often as I want. There are games in my casual collection (like the second Dark Parables game, “The Exiled Prince”), which I have played completely four, five, or more times. What I like most about those games? They have a definite end.

I’ve never been one for stories of any kind that never really end. I’m not into soap operas for this reason. Therefore, I don’t really like all those online games, anyway. Not the MMORPGs (even though I like RPGs), not the online action games, and not the Free-to-Play games that have sprung up, either.

After I started playing on iPad, I also played several Free-to-Play games, since they were free and, well, it was new technology, what can I say? I stopped playing those games again soon, because they couldn’t hold my interest.

A little while ago, BFG started offering Free-to-Play games, too. The first ones were casino games and I never had any real interest in those. Gambling definitely isn’t my thing (I prefer spending money on games, books, and DVDs), so I just ignored them. Next were a couple of other games, mostly Hidden Object Games. One of them, “Midnight Castle,” became a favourite at the Challengers forum, though, and a few days ago, I downloaded it against my better judgement.

So, what is my problem with the game? Well, they’re playing the waiting game, very much like all Free-to-Play games do. Let me explain the basic idea behind Free-to-Play first, then I’ll also tell you about the waiting game.

Free-to-Play is the idea that you can play the basic version of a game for free. Yes, for free, for no money, without paying. Now, us grown-ups, we know there’s no such thing as a free lunch, much less a free game without a hook (at least a free game made by a professional developer and published by a professional portal). The hook with Free-to-Play is micro-transactions. Micro-transactions are small transactions within the game, done with real money. No in-game currency you can earn by doing stuff (that exists, too, in those games), but real money you pay for something to make the game easier or speed it up. You can play a Free-to-Play game completely for free - if you have a lot of patience. If you’re prepared to do a lot of grinding for your Free-to-Play RPGs. If you’re prepared to wait a lot. At first, those transactions seem to be pretty easy and not at all expensive. You pay a few dollars, sometimes only a couple of cents, and get something that will speed up building or make your character get more experience and so on.

However, let’s do a little calculation here. “Candy Crush” is a Facebook game where you can either bother your friends for more lives or buy a new life when you run out of them for 99 cents. The game belongs to the genre of the Match 3 games. Not a dying breed at all, there’s loads of them for all platforms, no matter whether it’s the computer or the mobile devices … I’m sure there’s even some around for consoles. If you’re not a member at BFG or Gamehouse, you can buy a full game there for $9.99 (for members, which get fined the price for one game every month for a coupon to use, it’s $6.99). A full game, one you can play without micro-transaction and as long and as often as you like. Those portals (and others I didn’t mention here) have loads of Match 3 games. Some include sweets, others let you match other stuff. And with buying 10 lives less, you’re almost there to buy one game without the micro-transaction hook. But people don’t do that, because they can a) bother their friends at FB until they get some stuff and b) always shell out a few cents for a new life, once all their friends unfriended them.

So, let’s get to the waiting game. If you play a Free-to-Play game for free, if you decide not to use micro-transactions, you have to wait a lot. Buildings in some games take hours of real time to be ready. Plants in some games take hours to grow. “Midnight Castle” has a cool-down time on the search scenes. You need to search each of those often, because they only yield one object on one go and you need a lot of those objects they give you. After playing a scene (knowing you will need more stuff from that one), you either have to wait for the scene to unlock again (can take 30 minutes or more) or you have to shell out on diamonds which unlock it again immediately. How you get diamonds? Well, either by luck in a search scene or for a quest - or for money, real money. Same goes for the in-game currency of gold coins. You earn some in the scenes, but you need a lot of them for crafting and unlocking new scenes and stuff like that. You either work hard for them or you shell out some real money. For me, who will not buy stuff for the game, that means a lot of waiting for the scenes to cool down, so I can get more stuff and earn more gold the hard way.

I’m not saying you should never play a Free-to-Play game, I just want you to remember there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Think about it.

Finally Torchligh Again

It took almost a year longer than planned for Torchlight II to be released. On hindsight, however, it definitely was worth it.

A lot of sites and magazines are comparing Diablo III to Torchlight II or the other way around. Not a question for me, as Battlenet-bound, always-online RPG Diablo III is not an option for me at all. I only wonder whether Torchlight II was worth the wait and will be worth my money. And the answer to both questions is definitely ‘yes.’

I got the first Torchlight a bit late, after it had been through press already, but found it worth every cent I paid for it. The simple formula of fighting-looting-levelling worked out nicely, the game had a nice look, and I liked the character classes and the way the random level design made the game easily re-playable. It was like an updated and improved Diablo, one of my favourite action-oriented RPGs. Well, in many ways it was, I guess, as quite some Diablo developers are part of Runic Games, the Torchlight makers. I loved the idea with the pet which not only fights at the player’s side, but also takes back the loot to the town to sell it alone. I loved the Steampunk-infused look of the game and the characters. I loved the colourful and bright comic graphics and the interesting-to-strange enemies.

When I heard there was going to be a second one (bigger, better, longer, as usual with computer games), I was very happy. Originally it was supposed to be out before Diablo III (which would have made it less of a ‘which is better’ discussion), but the team postponed release several times. They did it for good reason, though, as they wanted to make the game as good as possible before release. They did a lot of balancing between the last official release date (beginning of August) and the final one (20th September). And made the game even better, I’m sure.

I pre-purchased the game at Steam (before the next-to-final release date, actually) and downloaded it right after release to play. I knew about the changes already, of course. The three character classes of the first game (Destroyer, Vanquisher, Alchemist) had been replaced by four new ones (Embermage, Berserker, Engineer, Outlander). Two pets (dog, cat) have been turned into eight (panther, bulldog, cat, chakawary [a lizard-like creature], papillon, ferret, hawk, wolf). The pets and characters are customizable to a certain degree (face/hair/hair colour for character, fur colour for pets). Each character class has a male and a female model (in the first Torchlight only the long-range Vanquisher was female). Changes don’t stop there, of course. The game has three long acts, taking the player from the partially snow-covered tundra to the hot desert to the rain-dripping forests. The final levels are set below the world, in an old dwarf-fortress/factory that leads to the world’s core. Instead of spending all the time underground, only coming up for air when you return to the town for shopping or selling (or finishing a task), you spend a lot of time above ground now, the biggest levels of each area are above ground, with entrances that lead to tombs, caves, towers or other structures for additional fighting and looting. There are quite some sub-quests that are presented to you either in one of the towns (not all necessary are towns as a such, but they are the place where you can go to trade) or on the above-ground maps. Usually they are connected to some of the entrances, even though some also require running around on the above-ground areas to find places.

The core of Torchlight II still is the same that is driving all action-oriented RPGs of the kind: looting, fighting, levelling. There is a lot of loot and, due to the fact that almost all characters can use almost all weapon types, a lot of different equipment. It pays to check the inventory in regular intervals, choose stronger weapons and better armour and hand the remainder to your pet, so it can carry everything into town to sell it. In addition to just selling stuff, the pet can also buy the four basic necessities: healing potions, mana potions, identify scrolls, and waypoint scrolls (they replace the ‘scroll of the town portal’ and create a lasting waypoint that only gets moved when you use the next scroll).

Each of the four character classes has three distinct ability trees to choose from at level-up time. Like this, it is easy enough to customize your character further, optimizing the abilities for your playing style. Besides spending 5 points on the four basic characteristics, you get to spend one point on abilities with every level-up. Increases in fame (which you get by slaying bosses and champions) also give you an additional ability point to spend.

Bosses are everywhere in the game, not only do you have to defeat one at the end of each act (two in the last), every main- and sub-quest in the game has its own boss. They live in the caverns, crypts, and other places everywhere. Bosses are huge, but so are quite some of the normal enemies as well. As a matter of fact, I think over 75% of the enemies in the game are bigger than the player character, which makes you feel rather heroic after slaying them.

As weapon types range from swords and pole arms over bows and guns to staffs of various kinds, there is something for everyone. While the Engineer prefers great weapons (they are slow, but do a terrible lot of damage), the Outlander is partial to all ranged weapons (bows, crossbows, pistols, guns, cannons), the Berserker can do terrible damage with swords, pole arms, maces, and suchlike, and the Embermage not only unleashes deathly spells, but also fights with staffs that do more than just physical damage. For most of the stuff you find in your inventory there is no class restriction (only very few objects I encountered were limited to one class). Restrictions usually are along the lines of minimum level or minimum character stats. In other words: nobody stops your mage from carrying a cannon for all those times when mana is low and enemies are swarming. It’s always nice to have a weapon to fall back to, especially as you can have two weapon sets equipped at all times, so change between close-quarter and ranged fighting is only a pressed key away.

What do I think about Torchlight II, then? I love it, I already spent a whole weekend with it, and I will play it for quite a while, to test out all classes and have fun. Especially considering it’s a lot cheaper than Diablo III (if you want a comparison from me), it’s a must-buy game for every lover of action RPGs for me.

Wandering the North

Eh … long time no see. Well, I figured I am usually rereading stuff at the moment, normally playing either The Sims 3, MineCraft or a casual game during the weekend and normally decide ad hoc what to watch on DVD, so I have stopped doing weekend updates lately. That doesn’t mean I am not doing any stuff. For one thing, I have been sight-seeing in Skyrim (with a little fighting on the side).

I managed to get the game for a good price at a local electronic store and have been playing quite a bit of it … albeit replaying the first few quests quite a few times. Currently I play a Kajit (that’s a race of humanoid cats) and I have been looting everything I could get my hands on … because I want a house and a horse and I need a lot of gold (8,000) for it.

Skyrim is not my first fling with the Elder Scrolls series, I have played Oblivion for quite a while and I also played Morrowind. Yet I have to admit I like the setting for Skyrim best, so far. Morrowind is set in a very swampy place and I am not that much of a swamp fan. Oblivion looks very ‘high fantasy’ and that’s the setting of every second RPG around. Skyrim is the cold, far North of the fantasy world of the Elder Scrolls. Not a setting you get all that often.

The game starts out rather traditionally for an Elder Scrolls game: you start as a prisoner and get the chance to create your character during the prologue. This time, though, it’s not a prison cell – it’s you on your way to execution. I mean that, you know, your head is on the block when all in a sudden a dragon turns up. That’s one kind of deus ex machina you don’t see that often…

Within the next few minutes, you’re climbing a tower, jumping into a partially burning house, run across a village while the dragon sets fire to it and diminishes the soldiers and have to decide on a basic side to settle with: the storm coats or the imperial army. Last time I started out new, I chose the storm coats … why settle with an army that was about to execute me, even though I wasn’t even on the list?

It’s the same first dungeon, the inside of the fortress, you enter, but the enemies you fight depend on which side you are on, of course. Once outside, I was really, seriously amazed. The world looks good (even more so with the new high-definition textures pack you can get for free) and is full of life. Granted, quite some of that life, like the wolves, wants to take a chunk out of your body (or the inventory from your cold, dead hands), but you can basically get something from everything you bring down. If you can bring it down … I do not recommend trying to attack the giants that are ambling around the plains herding their mammoths. Butterflies are fluttering through the air, fishes are jumping out of the wild waters, foxes, rabbits, deer and goats are crossing the paths and running away from you. The world of Skyrim is alive.

Soon afterwards someone asks you to see the Jarl in Whiterun, about protection for a small town on the way. And once you are there, things really get moving. You will enter a tomb full of un-dead (and very annoying) warriors (got me at least 4,500 gold, that place) to search for a stone with strange runes on it. You will learn the first Word of Power there. Once you are back, you will go and fight your first dragon. Yes, there’s a lot of dragons in Skyrim … and you will fight them to devour their souls, because you are Dragonkin and your powers will be direly needed. Isn’t there always a catch like that?

Like every Elder Scrolls game, Skyrim does not really make you do things. You have a vast world to explore, can set your own goals, if you want to. The main quests are a red thread you can follow, but when you go on with it is absolutely up to you. You won’t miss something or completely lose the game, just because you decide to first enter every cave you see and make money, money, money with it. Fighting a lot of additional enemies, is good, of course, because you gain experience that way. But you also get it by trading or doing other stuff.

As every Elder Scrolls game, Skyrim does not make you choose, either. You don’t set a class, only a race and a gender (the rest of the settings at the beginning are merely cosmetics). Races have various good and bad points, both in game mechanics (such as a Norse’s ability to withstand cold better or a Kajit’s better sneaking ability) and in interactions (a Norse will have it easier, because that’s where they all live), but you are not forced to choose a class such as warrior, mage or thief. You train your abilities either by doing stuff (fight a lot with a one-handed weapon to get better with it or use a certain school of magic to improve it) or by finding someone to train you with it. You can craft, too, do alchemy, forge weapons and so on.

On the whole, Skyrim surely is a game you will get a lot of fun and gaming time out of. I know I do and I am still very much at the beginning. I am walking the North of the world of the Elder Scrolls and I am enjoying my stroll so far, that much is for sure.

Weekend Update

Another weekend and once again I am late with my update. There’s not much to update this weekend, though:

• DVD to watch: nothing special planned
• Book to read: reading some free e-books (they’re short)
• Game to play: “Costume Quest”, a nice, Halloween-themed RPG

Tomorrow I’ll be a year older … my, how time flies … nice weekend, though.