Changing genres of a game isn't always the easiest. Sometimes, the differences may be so great, that the genre change is more like making a new game really. Replacing every single part of it, till it's no longer recognizable. But what about the change from CINIS Survivor to RPG?

This wasn't quite as difficult, actually! In this blog I'll go through some of the ideas and decisions behind it, and what really helped making it happen.

A strong core

Since I have basically been making a 'mod' for my own game, I knew the game would have a strong core. I save time on making an interaction system, weapon system, enemies, assets, even a stat system.

More importantly, the combat and mechanics of Survivor had already been proved when that game released. Meaning there'd be no need to reinvent this part either. I knew the gunplay was good and felt nice, and that enemies (mostly) felt good to play against.

Starting off with a feature complete game allowed to focus on other, more ambitious elements of an RPG, but keeping the main action loop. It basically equals to if Fromsoftware had made a boss-rush game first, before making Dark Souls, so all the time in development for Dark Souls can be used on level design, world building, and making their extended RPG mechanics, on top of a combat system which works great.

As a nice bonus, I had a considerable asset library consisting of sounds, textures, props, and so on.

This just left what to add...

New additions

RPGs consist of many, many elements, a lot of them can be quite complex too. Inventory systems, dialogue systems, quests, an explorable world, class / character building... All of this coupled with long play times. RPGs can be 30-50 hours easily, and leave room for 100+ hour save files too.

So I knew I couldn't have everything on my first go, as it'd take too long to make. Instead of  aiming for a total play time for the prototype, I restricted myself with physical space: All of the game would have to take place in the default landscape size of Unreal Engine. This limited the amount of areas I could make, and how long each could be. This leads to, on average, spending 12-24 minutes at max in each area. Enough time to learn and explore, but not overstaying its welcome for the prototype.

Other considerations was which mechanics to make, and when to make them. Some mechanics, to me, feel more important than others when it comes to RPG games. An inventory system, currency, stats, and NPCs felt the most important. Bosses were added somewhat quickly, but I knew I needed some way for players to feel progress, and also be tested in skill. So they went on my list too.

But other elements such as: Character customization, classes, enemy / player factions, consumables, item vendors, all of this felt overall less important for the time being, especially as some of these have substitutes in the game already. No character customization, but there is build customization. No large amount of factions, but you have player and enemy. Consumables are taken by the health and ammo pips gained from enemies, and instead of buying gear, it has to be found in the world, creating a focus on exploration for this game.

The other mechanics would maybe still be added later. Other elements, such as more elaborate NPC quests or behaviour, detailed UI, would also be delayed, but acts as improvements on existing additions and elaboration of those mechanics.

By deciding what mechanics are core to the RPG experience, and which ones are niceties, it became much easier to develop. Additionally, weighing importance and effort made it much easier to rank features into tiers. Some would require a lot of effort and feel small to the experience (polished UI for example), and may not be considered for a prototype at all. Others are small and have a huge impact (chests or notes found in the world), and can be implemented immediately.

One feature which is important, but would take quite some effort to implement was saving. It's becoming very apparent now how implementing this ASAP would be the greatest benefit to the prototype going forward, so it's basically at the top of the list now. Doing it later would only make the save feature even harder to build, so I intend on getting this ready to make pretty soon, and I am already designing it!

Reflection

Looking at the process, I actually quite enjoy this way of working. Releasing as small incomplete prototypes allows me to experiment on projects for short periods of time, and get feedback on development throughout the entire development. It also allows to make larger, more complex titles, but one piece at the time, without getting stuck in a development hell of never moving towards a release. It's less pressure, and more useful development.

It has added benefits for my career as well: It bolsters my portfolio, and even forces me to learn certain skills (in this game cinematics and practising more creative writing) which has many benefits, most among all of becoming more familiar with my toolset. If I only worked on combat all the time, I would never get to gain familiarity with quests, NPCs, etc. But now, combat is already made last year, and I can focus on story and progression instead.

I will definitely keep working in this way going forward! It just has many great benefits, and suits my busy life style well too, as I live both as a student and also wish for some recreational off time too.

Closing

So yeah, that's been the process of making CINIS - RPG, and the ideas behind this way of work. I might go more in-depth with other design or technical topics later about the specifics of mechanics and worlds, maybe boss design too, but I may also first tackle those topics when I can better utilize what I've learnt from the initial release, and then improved on it... We'll see!

Thanks for reading this post, drafts of it got very, very long (10k+ characters) so I hope this version isn't too exhausting to read!