Looking for input about a game mechanic.

[Vashey~]

I've got this idea for a game mechanic, it's nothing new but I wanted some input on it. Basically you would have a character that would likely be the main character because of this ability, and that character for whatever reason is fighting some kind of demons or evil entities, or even just enemies in general. Afterwards you would receive masks from these characters. Then you would equip the mask in order to gain a new set of skills, such as healing abilities or a new elemental typing, or just a new set of stronger, yet themed skills. For example, if you had death as a mask and you had a scythe slash that did medium physical damage, but that was upgraded to a Knight's cleave which did heavy physical damage when you obtain the mask of a fallen paladin, which would probably be more of a helmet to be honest. (I know that's pretty backwards in terms of what you'd expect damage wise, but I wrote them in the order I thought of them) I think it's necessary to note that the character likely wouldn't wear the masks often, as when using the mask it would summon a shadow that would burst forth from the mask. If it was worn it would likely have to be take off and thrown. Could maybe have some masks meant to be worn that would enhance defensive capabilities that would be represented as the shadow taking the form of armor. Or maybe you'd even transform into that defeated opponent to use the skills, making wearing the mask more feasible, you know, Majora's Mask style. Maybe supported by something story-wise like that wearing the mask allows that person to become the vessel for the enemy to take form again. Why the enemy wouldn't just turn on the party is another question entirely. It's just a rough idea that I'm rolling around in my head, and I wanted to know what other people thought about it.

Here's an example sketch of what a defeated enemies shadow would look like (sorry ignore the sketches at the top, I draw all my concept stuff clumped together on "relief" pages :T):

[Vashey~]

Currently attempting to feasibly program this into rpg maker vx ace so I can provide some kind of prototype. I feel like having elemental type skills may be out of my reach because I can't make equipment changes mid battle work right, I'm going to keep working at it but if i can't get the equipment to change properly I'll have to forgo any kind of elemental skills ... I don't know, I'm still thinking, I'm pretty tired so maybe after I sleep some I'll be able to sort this out. Searching through scripts is not very fun .

[Vashey~]

Oh wow, okay, literally just got it to work. Masks are now interchangeable, however I'm encountering a glitch that is kind of odd, it's conditional but it's still pretty weird, might be able to bypass it by removing a certain menu option and adding it somewhere else, but I don't know how to do that currently. Gonna give it a look and bring it up if I can't repair it. There's a poster up in my math teacher's class room that I think about a lot, now that I'm messing around with "coding" I understand this more than ever. :

[dawnpelt]

If you have problems with coding, you could post the relevant part of the script and I could take a look at it.

[Vashey~]

I've started my long long journey down the road of learning to make stuff in game maker. We'll be lucky if I can get a box to move across the screen without the game crashing by the end of the summer .

Ps - Here's an example of what a mask collector could look like in the future, note that while it looks like death, it may not technically be death. It's just an example. Still don't know any of the specifics about how this or these, depending on how many mask collectors there are, would be, whether their masks summon shadows or bestow trans formative properties to the wearer.

[Vashey~]

Ugh, I'm not sure but I'm relatively certain that just about all of the game maker tutorials that they provided are outdated. I'll have to search the web for some more recent instructions >:T.

[Vashey~]

I got a square to walk across the screen My current project is recreating pac man, it's going ... okayish, it probably won't be done for 3 or 4 more days. I'm gonna try to get a grip on progaming an attack, that'll take a day or two, or more if it's that difficult, you never know when you're working directly in code rather than manipulating already existing code. once i can get attacks working, I'm going to work on getting a sprite to walk across the screen proparly, and then I'll maaaybe i'll be able to create a prototype of some sort that has these elements in play in a 2d platforming way rather than an rpg way, whether or not this works? no idea, we'll just have to wait and see.

[Vashey~]

I just got attack animations and hit boxes to work :T. Going faster than I expected tbh XD. Let's see what else did I say I had to do ... oh, that's right, I need to make a sprite walk across the room. Well, The longest part of that is just drawing the sprite pretty much, then I've already do the programing to make the character face the right way because of the pac man clone I'm making, so that shouldn't take to long, wish meh luck .

[Vashey~]

On second thought, I'm probably just going to download a sprite sheet off the internet and make sure i can get it to reflect properly with my code, i don't really feel like i need to draw all that just for this one part.

[Vashey~]

Got that to work as well ... welp, here we go i guess :T Hope i don't need to make the sprites to large, then I'll have to learn to make the camera work XD i just don't wanna right now eue.

[Vashey~]

Ugh, animatiooooooonnnnnnnn, not goooooooood, not right size, sooooo mannyyyy pictureeeeeeessssssss. *Dies* Looks like I'm about to learn how to make windows so i can make something that actually looks decent, and is the right size, I don't even know man .-.

[Vashey~]

So I've actually got something decent finally. Just a note, if you move off the screen you'll have to restart, I forgot to add any borders and you'll fall infinitely. www.mediafire.com/?m8tp4mgdlauvhy3

[Icestar]

Looks good so far!

[Vashey~]

@the five of ya's that have been interested enough to download the first test version, there's going to be an update on the test version soon, lots of new stuff will be added .

[Vashey~]

Alright so the reason I hadn't yet uploaded this was because it's honestly in a state that I didn't want to release it in. That being said, it doesn't mean it's broken or anything, I had just hoped to have some kind of semi functional AI for the enemy but it's being more than a little difficult . That combined with the fact that I'll have limited internet access for the next week starting sunday led me to decide to put out a version that has the enemy functioning, but without functioning AI so it'll only function once, so don't worry about turning around and attacking it e-e.

Be sure to check the desktop shortcut option in the installer or you'll have to search for the exe in your local directory. The "demo" is over once you kill the enemy, so feel free to just quit out .

www.mediafire.com/download/134wk4a84ajd48l/Vashey%27s_sprite_test_V.3.exe

[DimStar]

Hey, This looks pretty cool right now man Keep up the good work

[Vashey~]

Tenk u very much /)ouo(\ *vibrates intensely*