Only two questions this month, but that's okay because
they're both good ones. Without further ado, let's get down to business.
Do you think plot scripting is absolutely necessary in order for a game to
be good? I know this is one of THE age-old questions of the OHR community, but
I wanted to know your thoughts. Say, the story is great, the presentation is
great, the graphics are great, the game is well balanced, etc. The only thing
the game is lacking is plot scripting. Will that hold the game back to enough
of a degree for the game to be considered mediocre even though all of its
other elements are above-average? I have a stake in this because I suck at
plot scripting, but I think I have a quality game in the works. Will it be
dismissed offhandedly if people know from the get-go that it lacks plot
scripting?
Short answer: No.
Long answer: No, and here's why.
The fundamental principle behind designing a game (and games in general) is
making something that people want to play. You want them to play it,
and have fun.
What kind of game you want to let people play and have fun with is up to you.
I'm guessing you want to make a traditional, FF-style RPG, since that's what
the OHR was originally made for. So consider what you have without
plotscripting, with the plain old "vanilla" OHR engine: map exploration,
dialogue, inventory, and a battle system (which includes; actual battling, use
of items, equipment, and a variety of attacks and spells). That includes sound
effects and music that can be triggered in battle and by text boxes. Text
boxes come complete with customizable colors, borders, and character
portraits. You have a typical limit of 32,768 graphics of each type. That's a
lot of stuff, and it surpasses a lot of 16-bit era RPGs.
Now consider what plotscripting brings to the traditional-RPG party:
cutscenes. Maybe some mini games.
You don't need cutscenes to make a playable game, and frankly, I find that
minigames are distracting, annoying if required, and stupid. You don't even
need all the other stuff I mentioned above. Your game just has to be playable
and fun.
Anyone who dismisses a game because it doesn't have cutscenes or minigames is
a doofus, by the by.
What's
with all the attention crappy games like Yo Ghost get? How does a bad game
get so much "press" when more legitimate games get ignored?
I think whenever a
stupid game gets a lot of attention it's not only because it's stupid, but
it's because its author really gave it a lot of promotion and fanfare
beforehand. It helps if the promotion and fanfare is also totally stupid,
which it almost always is. Your example is basically perfect. Those threads
were ridiculous. Everyone was expecting a ridiculous game. It's basically a
big game of schadenfreude that most forum denizens go through every time;
basically they're waiting for this person to fall flat on their face come
release time, and they almost always do.
There have been
notable exceptions, of course, and a lot of non-crappy new games, but the
bottom line is this: in a creative community, what's perceived as "crappy"
is basically perceived as offensive and garners more attention than what is
considered to be acceptable and good. It's been this way since day one, and
the OHR community has always mixed in encouragement with the scorn, so you
know, it's all good in the end.
