How To Fail At Making An RPG

[@Artindi]

Hey you... yeah you.... Have you ever worn some RPG shoes?? They have dark souls.

[@BigSillyOrangeCat]

what a knee-slapper.

[@chordsofsteel-i4j]

Damn that made me laugh so hard and i fell down

[@CelestialStrawberriesYT]

I am physically wounded by the funni

[@mrfrog0913]

​@@BigSillyOrangeCatshoe slapper

[@m0-m0597]

😐👉🚪

[@mcbadrobotvoice8155]

The best thing to do is make a long, unskipable, cutscene esc opening to the game that puts you on rails for an extended period of time. And then force the players to go through it on each and every single playthrough with no way of bypassing it without mods. Tons of popular “rpg” games do this so it must be a good idea! Why would a player want to quickly jump into a new playthrough with a different build? No they must go through the intro area 500 times to ensure maximum immersion.

[@Artindi]

You're finally awake?

[@artman40]

Just story cutscenes? What about the "You have to watch the same animation every time you open up a shop and for every single item you purchase!"?

[@gearbox8969]

High difficulty bosses that have long unskippable intro, that play everytime you retry the fight. Yes please!

[@generalrubbish9513]

@@Artindi You were trying to re-play the game, right? Walked right into that unskippable cutscene. Same as us, and that NPC over there.

[@MamaTrixxieAsmr]

Even better, don’t put a checkpoint of any kind for like 20 minutes after that cutscene and have it reload to the very beginning, forcing the player to have to watch it again if they die Oh and place some enemies so that they can be forced to restart

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

Don't forget to make the numbers bigger. Just tack a few zeroes onto everything. Losers deal 12 damage. Champs deal 120 billion

[@RuyVuusen]

And the REAL champs deal 1.2 quadrillion.

[@DrClock-il8ij]

I write my damage in factorials. True champs deal 1000!

[@ultimaxkom8728]

120 billion? That's lame. Just make up a string of numbers that stretches off the screen so it'll look cool. Of course, display this number every time you deal damage.

[@lecoutcritique8854]

@@ultimaxkom8728 for commodity's sake offer the player a new "shortenned" way to see their numbers such as new metrics over giga (just use random letters, it's not confusing at all !)

[@RialuCaos]

If you can see something besides damage numbers on the screen, you aren't doing enough damage.

[@brandongordon4019]

I think it's also pretty important to have an equipment system where the coolest things you could wear are pretty much worthless, and the things that actually give you the stats you need look completely ridiculous

[@Bionicbutter43]

I love when games let you use any armor or weapon design while wearing different stuff! A recent example I can think of is Cyberpunk 2077

[@MACKYBOY-41]

@@Bionicbutter43 Miitopia too you can dress your little guys up

[@PhantomOfficial07]

@@MACKYBOY-41 finally miitopia gets love

[@armorvil]

This reminds me that I'm currently playing Ys IX. Not a bad game but something that irks me is that in your home base, at the start of every chapter, an NPC can improve your gear at the cost of gold and materials. I was doing that, until I noticed that the shop next door ALWAYS sold new weapons that were better that your improved stuff, so I was wasting my mats and gold. It's even useless to improve the things you just bought, might as well just wait until the next chapter to buy new weapons. 10/10 game design, thank you game for the useless crafting system until you're absolutely sure that you won't be able to find new swords and stuff anywhere.

[@SavageJarJar]

Terraria lets you look different but have different armor@@Bionicbutter43

[@EdKolis]

Don't forget what RPG stands for: Really Primarily Grinding!

[@olivender420]

I know wtf is a role playing game?

[@lewis9s]

Really Playable Grinding!

[@timothyreinagel3898]

No, it's Ridiculously Prolonged Grinding!

[@on-zm8sg]

Dragon Quest took this advice to heart (still love it tho)

[@EdKolis]

@@on-zm8sg Funny thing, I've been playing DQ11 lately and there's not much grinding required!

[@PabbyPabbles]

A good alternative is tying overall XP to individual weapon or spell levels, so as soon as your player has maxed a thing he likes, instead of enjoying it he basically has to abandon it for another level 0 thing to avoid wasting XP

[@einholzstuhl252]

Warframe!!!!

[@pm_me_ur_gluons]

I genuinely don't see the problem here. How is that wasting? If I'm fine with what I'm using now then why would I to something else just to level up things I don't intend to use anyways? This is less of a game problem and more of a gamer brain problem.

[@molassesman4066]

@@einholzstuhl252ye but in warframe mr5 is all you need so its just a flexstat

[@EggZu_]

​@@pm_me_ur_gluonssay you use one weapon more because you enjoy it more than it gets to max level, but then you get bored and want to swap but now all your other weapons are under levelled, so using them is boring because it takes ages to kill anything at all, so there's no incentive for variety.

[@ItchiestBum]

Only game this works in is Warframe

[@microdavid7098]

amazing. For my idea: if you ever decide to give good game development advice, I'd say call it: how to fail at failure

[@Artindi]

Ha. Nice, a double negative for a positive. I like it. :)

[@GoogleAccount-jn5qb]

2 years later but he actually did this!

[@calvinanderson4245]

2:24 As a Kingdom of Loathing player, having Moxie be associated with Strength instead of Agility activated my fight or flight response.

[@MumflrFumperdink-ev8hw]

Same, except I play West of Loathing. Hearing that word got me itchin’ to go spitoon-divin’.

[@paulgrotebeverborg1119]

Alternatively, you could get rid of any progression system and make all the combat happen through single use items you can carry a limited amount of, with money used to buy more of these items as the only reward for battling, making it more worth it to avoid any enemy encounters because it only costs you what you need for the bosses We call it Paper Mario Sticker Star

[@mercs7849]

Tbh having TOO MUCH choice in making character builds is a burden as well. Like as I get older, I get more and more often stuck with complicated mechanics and an abundance of choice present in games like Pathfinder or Rogue Trader. All the talents, the archetypes, classes, and not only do you have to level up your character, but the entire party as well. Kinda made me appreciate the "take Axe skill = be good at Axes" approach, with a few caveats, ofc.

[@jonaza2105]

Ye and roleplay games give me incredible FOMO too. I want to experience everything the game can offer, without having to replay it multiple times (I don't have the time or attention span for that), so knowing that 1 choice locks me out of another choice permanently will have me Googling pros and cons of each decision for half an hour each time, or make me quit playing.

[@1snivy10]

As cool as building my own character is, I have more fun filling the shoes of an existing role given to me by the game. In Paper Mario, I am Mario, my job is jump and swing a hammer. In Zelda, I am Link, I have a sword and a shield and a bow and a fishing rod. In Final Fantasy 7, I am Cloud, and I have a big fucking sword. There's never any decision paralysis, nor any fear of permanently crippling myself by unknowingly making the "wrong" build. Also, these pre-built characters make it easier for me to get invested in the story.

[@freddyjosemoleroramirez402]

​@@jonaza2105although I understand your point, I believe giving the player the ability to do everything in the same playthrough makes the game less immersive. Take Skyrim as an example. You can be the leader of the companions, the legion, the college of Winterhold, the dark brotherhood and every other faction and be the slave of every daedra for all eternity with a single play. It doesn't really make any sense and I feel like the story loses credibility. What I believe is that there should be limitations based on how much sense it would make for a player to do X and Y in the same story.

[@cynicanal111]

"Instead of Agility, call it Ferocity, and instead of Strength, how about Moxie" Man, this guy really hated Disco Elysium hahaha.

[@cleverman383]

Yeah I'd hate for my game to be as big of a failure as Disco Elysium

[@mattsweet2467]

​@@cleverman383 is this sarcasm or did we not play the same game?

[@cleverman383]

@@mattsweet2467 It's sarcasm. Disco Elysium is one of the greatest RPGs of all time. It's weird that it's called out in a video about failing at making an RPG.

[@codingwizard9024]

Also west of loathing

[@Passw0rdYT]

​@@codingwizard9024tbf, moxie is the dexterity stat in the loathing games, so I think that was just a coincidence

[@eoinbradley6842]

Definitely make sure that all your enimes drop loot that has progressively equal amounts of positive and negative effects so the player spends more time in the inventory screen than the actual game. Also make sure you can only carry five items at a time = )

[@Grimdock]

Dude this art is so simple but fun to watch. I'm currently making a Fire Emblem Romhack; so this is different.

[@Artindi]

Oh nice! A great opertunity for follow my tutorial. Or not I guess, if you want to succeed. ;) Also my art here is simple because most of my time is taken up trying to think of things that can represent vague cconcepts. Hurts my brain sometimes. :)

[@valentinsilva1850]

And don't forget to add extremely tedious Battle with enemies that are damage sponges behind every corner, You don't want them to actually enjoy the Battle system

[@zerotimeleft]

LMAO

[@Irisverse]

Better yet, have the enemies show up completely at random, and have this big elaborate animation that plays out every time you enter the battle screen so every fight takes an extra minute longer!

[@creditsunknown7974]

The Thesasurus part hit me right where it counts 😔- wait hol up. Striked me right where its embodied 😔

[@captainbigos9267]

Struck

[@dibel3669]

𝑷𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒕 𝒊𝒕'𝒔 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒄𝒆

[@TheMamaluigi300]

- If you make an RPG with a classic random encounter system, make the encounter rate either stupidly high, or practically non-existent. That wait the player is either harassed by enemies when they’re low on health, or desperately walking in place for entire minutes as they starve for XP. - If you make players reload the last save when they die, perfect! Losing a half-hour or more of progress like that was sorely missed by players. Even better, don’t put a save point near a boss fight or even remind the player in some fashion to save before they go in. If they accidentally run into the fight and get trapped in it for an assured game over, that’s just a skill issue. Even better, if you *do* remind them to save, sometimes do so in rooms that lead to cutscenes where they *don’t* fight the boss, tricking the player into wasting all of their powerful items they saved up for this very moment. Oh yeah and *now* introduce your autosave feature that is a thing now. Not for any convenience for the player; Make sure the autosaves only trigger whenever it’d screw them over, such as aforementioned tricks to waste the player’s items, or autosaving *right as they die,* meaning they’ll always die upon loading in, bricking their save forever.

[@rockduded8925]

This is amazing, how did you get a hold of Bethesda's game documents?

[@manu_elle_arg]

the bit 'change stats names' with Strenght to Moxie had me dying

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

Even better You can have a substat system, in which the substats make sense (strength, agility) but the stats you actually put points into to determine those are confusing!

[@garchomowner]

They literally use moxie in west of loathing. But it's charisma mix of agility thing. Veery fun little rpg you should trt it

[@user-fe8gx3ie5v]

@@garchomowner Hadn't heard of it. I'll check it out.

[@krossbow789]

Shadows over loathing too.@@garchomowner

[@maglev0789]

​@@aprinnyonbreak1290 This is what Lobotomy Corporation does and it totally does not contribute to that game's overcomplexity issues, nope not at all

[@gegor41311]

2:48 well Lisa sort of does that. but then again even if the choices don't affect the ending, they affect the gameplay. I don't think it's always bad to limit an RPG to one ending, sometimes it's better for the story. In Lisa The Painful's case, the character you play is already on a path to self destruction, you just watch him progress down that path.

[@sacripan4425]

A man of culture I see

[@mightymorphin2472]

Lisa the painful fan spotted time to 👍

[@lordmarshmal_0643]

Even the Paper Mario series lacks any alternate endings and people still praise the first 2 (3 depending on the person) Sticker Star and later flopped for a multitude of reasons (read: Chuggaconroy's series on Sticker Star) and only having one ending is just collateral if anything

[@privatepessleneck]

@@lordmarshmal_0643 the paper mario games, and honestly all mario rpg games are technically more like jrpgs which usually focus on a more linear story with predefined characters that fill select roles.

[@blakethesnake6686]

I disagree, LISA the painful was a bad story!! "Salvation Rangers VS. Blake the Snake" was a wayyy cooler story, LISA even copied it into their own game to try and steal some of it's success! You can tell they ran out of ideas around the Demon X arc of their fake "Salvation Rangers VS. Blake the Snake" because they just gave him infinite in every stat(that part sucked without Blake carrying its story)

[@Davian2073]

"10k skeletons that only two at a time every 20 minutes", the fact I've played RPGs that force me to grind that

[@CheckovStuff]

Always happy to see a new entry in this series!

[@Artindi]

Always happy to make them! :D

[@FDXHOMEDEL]

Whatever you do, just make enemies universally scale with player level so they never feel progression outside of numbers being larger.

[@brianmeans5965]

Don't forget to tack a zero onto enemy health and damage for a proper hardmode experience.

[@duck_entertainment]

Remember to make every region near impossible to progress into unless the player grinds to that region’s level

[@RiptideDev]

Great tutorial! Followed this to make an RPG game on steam and got zero purchases!

[@Artindi]

Glad my tutorial could help! :D

[@mishagaming1075]

You're actually looking at the wrong thing here! You need to wait for there to be a good ratio of purchase/refund to actually make sure you did well on failing.

[@Skeffles]

Neat video. I see a lot of devs attempting to fail at making an RPG and I might end up doing that in the future too!

[@Artindi]

Might as well give your shot at it as well! :D

[@michaelbuckers]

2:30 Pulchritude. Vim. And Imagination, because naming the first two already sapped 100% of it.

[@elcuy3544]

Now make the final boss take up the entire latter half of the playtime, for good measure.

[@bramvanduijn8086]

That's a reference to an animated webcomic, isn't it? What was it called? Super Sleuth? Or Something like that? Edit: It is Problem Sleuth.

[@Known_as_The_Ghost]

Don't forget about having the enemies scale with your level. Basically making leveling up completely pointless, or in some cases, actually detrimental. Yes, I'm looking at you, Final Fantasy 8.

[@KasumiRINA]

FF8 scaling is manageable IF YOU DON'T GRIND, but the Last Remnant is just... Why the game never tells you that lower ranks with higher stats are better?

[@Known_as_The_Ghost]

@@KasumiRINA ff8 doesn't say anything about it, either... But yeah. It's annoying when your entire squad gets one shotted by some guy throwing rocks.

[@mr.pavone9719]

1:24 There's an old TTRPG called Encounter Critical. It was a tongue-in-cheek stab at RPGs but it worked nonetheless. I bring it up at this point because the only way to improve your character's skills was to do something new. Repeating the same action over and over didn't give you any new experiences, just practicing old ones. Mull that over if you want to fail at failing while making your game.

[@BasedIfTrue]

Moxie +1 Ferocity +3 Pinkheadstuff -1

[@kapitankapital6580]

I assume this is intended as a satire of AAA level game design, but as somebody who enjoys playing amateur RPG Maker games I do think there are some legitimate points that can be raised for people looking to create casual indy games. The most important thing in my experience is to keep it simple. It is absolutely okay to be derivative in the bits that you don't want to focus on. Just be aware of what you're doing; chances are you're making a game to tell a story, so don't overstay your welcome with the grind. Focus on doing what you want to do and not getting distracted, players will have a much better time if the content of your game is what you're passionate about rather than you trying to come up with a completely original levelling system that you threw in because someone online told you XP was boring.

[@Nerobyrne]

as wel all know, only the biggest corporations make bad games.

[@andrewponder3855]

In other words, you need to make the game that *you* would want to play. It sounds so obvious when put like that but many who create end up making something they don't like on the gamble that someone somewhere *will* like it.

[@newb.justnewb.8762]

I didn’t realize how much this would be a moment of clarity for me. Thank you.

[@b4ne56]

The main bad guy says to the hero. "Wait for 5 minutes ill be right back" The PC chooses to wait and the bad guy says great ill stop being bad now. Game over.

[@KasumiRINA]

This is unironically what many politicians suggest to do in real life when you're invaded. "Don't fight back, Just negotiate till bad guy stops being bad."

[@counter.123]

Literally Far Cry 4

[@realrealqbok]

Mass Effect was an award winning game tho!

[@davidreeding9176]

We have diverse builds like the sorcerer, who can shoot fireballs! Or the ranger who can shoot arrows! Or the knight who can... shoot swords?

[@funguy398]

Is this a Gauntlet?

[@KasumiRINA]

Zelda did the latter.

[@Auron3991]

To maximize grinding, make sure progression items are low-chance enemy drops. Nothing like having to grind past the next area to access the next area. It can be fixed with level-scaling which far outstrips any character not min-maxed in order to completely destroy any idea of character progress.

[@gldev8191]

incredible, this ended up being a tutorial on how to make an MMORPG

[@Evanz111]

Love this unique take on game development diaries! Easy sub, and I’m going to binge your content now!

[@JacobKinsley]

How to fail at RPGs: "I love making sprites of enemies and forcing my turgid walls of text about how evil people are bad, but I hate programming precise, satisfying gameplay. So I'll just do basic add and subtract calculations, follow an online rpg programming tutorial to the letter, and now I can churn out gameplay like a sausage making machine!"

[@warisheck]

The RPG-7 (Russian: РПГ-7, Ручной Противотанковый Гранатомёт, romanized: Ruchnoy Protivotankovyy Granatomot, lit. 'Handheld anti-tank grenade launcher') is a portable, reusable, unguided, shoulder-launched, anti-tank, rocket-propelled grenade launcher. The RPG-7 and its predecessor, the RPG-2, were designed by the Soviet Union, and are now manufactured by the Russian company Bazalt. The weapon has the GRAU index (Russian armed forces index) 6G3.

[@dementedvillian]

Maybe I’m missing something, but it feels like a lot of this advice focuses on western RPGs. It makes sense, since (shockingly) western RPGs are more popular in the west, but I would like to hear your input on JRPGs and how this advice would apply to it (or if not, what advice you would give).

[@Artindi]

I'll have to look into it. Like you said I'm definitely more familiar with western RPG's, but I know JRPGs are popular, so would be worth researching. Thanks! :)

[@nerthul11]

-Make a plain Turn Battle system with no customized features. -Make all your dungeons as linear as possible. -Apply progression rules from this video (basic XP system with completely unbalanced curves and enemies) -Long, unskippable cutscenes and animations. -Have a ton of characters who do pretty much the same stuff and have nothing unique other than their hair color. -Screw lore, no one cares.

[@amimm7776]

Just copy dragon quest. The first one. The NES version with horrible EXP rates.

[@N12015]

@@amimm7776 Or Sticker Star, the game no one likes except trolls because it makes everything wrong, AND I MEAN everything.

[@TheMamaluigi300]

@@N12015 Or Superstar Saga, because you forgot the objective

[@Daniel_WR_Hart]

2:20 Or better yet, instead of calling it Agility, instead have "Hand Eye Coordination", "Interfacing", and "Savoir Faire" as separate skills with somewhat different descriptions, but they pretty much end up being the same thing in-game

[@KasumiRINA]

I still can't get over games that have BOTH Agility and Dexterity and worse, having Evasion and Avoidance as separate stats, with the most insulting thing being when I Googled the difference ANOTHER game had Avoid/Evade dichotomy BUT the other way around. Whichever stat let you dodge attacks in one game reduced criticals in the other and vice versa.

[@mrszmatan2727]

Don't forget to put into game "umm akshually this game is allegory for depression", so it will be exempt from all the criticisizm since 1. Game is depression story focused so everything except story must be trash 2. If someone points out that your depression story is just trash and can be sumarrised in 1 sentence, then you can call him insensitive.

[@TheMamaluigi300]

Wait a minute, is this Omori?

[@N12015]

I think the best way to make a memorable RPG is to follow exactly what the Sticker Star did. No story but tons of cutscenes, no basic attack, no agency in combat, no way of knowing how the damage you will deal, make movement in the level painfully slow, hidden action commands for the complex moves, that the strongest move makes your finger hurt, make the levels incredibly tedious to navigate, tons of backtracking, scripted boss fights who have cryptic solutions you won't know in the first stage, cryptic keys at the end of the level who will force you to even more backtrack and to replay the whole level a second time, an obnoxious and useless sidekick they force you to feel for when the game desperately needs that hint system, add mandatory secret exits, that one dead loses you up to an hour, hazards who instakill you, remove experience points with no payoff, make combat actually detrimental to engage into, make almost all your jokes bad paper puns, remove recognizable visual elements of all your important characters that have to be recognized, remove dialogue of all your beloved characters if you have those, and to put salt in the wound, make one world and 2-3 sparse levels good so you remind them how good it could have been, as well as your beta being what the public wanted for the most part. ... Yes, Sticker Star is THAT bad, I would say a bottom 5 game for mario and the worst since the Virtual Boy.

[@Kaitou1412Fangirl]

Sticker Star is the anti-rpg.

[@insertobligatoryreferenceh489]

I mean, with all the vitriol I’ve seen toward Sticker Star, perhaps it isn’t so forgettable after all.

[@tortel241]

Most of the times multiple endings isn't the best option for an RPG, every character and the world progression is thought and made to tell a story, that may lose narrative strength if there are many paths to go for

[@KasumiRINA]

IMO the classic way of linear main story but major choices in side quests is good. I don't want to spare Master and his mutants or Enclave in Fallout, I want to see how whichever crime syndicate or mayoral candidate I sided with ruled that small starter town.

[@swipefounddead]

love how these videos tell you how to do it right if you flip over the instructions

[@sublimeade]

You cant give out all of Todd's secrets

[@Bruhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.]

I was 100% expecting there to be a reveal at the end of the video like “this whole time I’ve been talking about a real RPG” lmao

[@87axal]

Parts of this video sound like they're describing the development process of Starfield, not gonna lie.

[@whothoughthandleswereagoodidea]

Bethesda this was IRONIC, not a GUIDE FOR STARFIELD

[@Icomplaintoomuch]

This is the reverse Psychology that I can accept.

[@DaikoruArtwin]

2:10 That's actually funny, I've been struggling with this exactly. For an RPG I'm designing, I want classic strength and intelligence stats for physical and magic damage, but there's a third damage output concept that's kind of unique to my game's universe... And I'm struggling so hard to find a name for it because there's no pre-determined stat that is remotely related to what the concept is, nor am I able to find a good word that accurately explains what it is and would be intuitive for the players. ... So I guess I'll call it Luck. That thing always does different things in every single game and is almost never clearly explained what it actually does, so it will fit riiiiiight in for that stat :V

[@KasumiRINA]

You can try a made up word that explains the concept in lore in some early dialogues and use that as a stat. Think something like the Force in Star Wars, many SW games have a force meter and nobody questions that because the stories explain that well.

[@ne2ve2]

Didn't know Bethesda followed this guide so closely when they were making Starfield. Wait, they're not even an indie developer... Oh well. And you can even make the game worse. Look, they didn't take your advice on not making a progression system, but instead made the upgrades so meaningless that the leveling system itself feels unnecessary.

[@Zyvo2]

Instruction not clear. Now you get XP for Kicking Babies, eating the Dead in front of guards, and launching yourself in the catapault. Also, you need to jump down the Well of No Return to find the witch to spend your XP, and she only sells Levels in the form of Magic Spells that just make the game "harder" around you. to make matters worse, you occasionally get a text box saying "Level Up" in the top corner, but you can only access that menu after you save the game, and log out.

[@badratindiedev8328]

Instead of an RPG, just make a G got me dying 😂

[@Artindi]

Ha ha, yeah, I forgot about that one. :)

[@armorvil]

@@Artindi So true btw, it's exactly what FFXVI did

[@haydenlee8332]

the "XP", "10K grind" "Options? Make them all essentially the same" got me thinking... "uh...Maplestory????"

[@lecoutcritique8854]

You should definitely idle it on top, what's not to love if you can both not play a role AND not play a game in an RPG !

[@ristopoho824]

I have a huge world i have been thinking for most of my life, since i was a kid playing around with gamemaker 4 on win98. It's been developing. Got a lot of lore, haven't written down most of it. Spent a decade not doing gamedev at all, still the story evolved. I may someday put it into use. And it'll be great. Been doing a lot of failing at developing it this far. But it does feel like the start of it may be happening some time soon, maybe in the next coming decade.. Anyway. Scope creep. Yea that one breaks many RPGs. It grows too big to be accomplished by one person. And in that case it's best to put it in backburner. Make something less huge first. If the idea is that awesome, it'll wait. Maybe grow a bit too much in waiting, but no matter, you made something else in the meantime.

[@ristopoho824]

The core mechanic on it is. The world does not move. There is no battles. Time is stopped. You are solving a mystery of why it did and why you exist. That's a free story idea for anyone to "steal", just run away with it and do whatever.

[@werewolfdragon4740]

Why in the coming decade? Start now. sololearn on your phone to practice coding and find a basic game development tutorial to follow along with. Once you finish the tutorial start a slightly harder one in the same engine. Repeat until you have some experience. Try to make something simple on your own now. Keyword: SIMPLE. Make flappy bird if you want, just dont follow a tutorial. Look at the documentation and try to figure it out. Fail/succeed. Do a tutorial on the game you tried to make. See how it differs? Start taking notes, keep all old projects for reference on how you did x or y. Dont aim for your dream game at first. Get a good bit of experience making games first. Make a simple game, make a basic rpg. Make a more advanced rpg. Make a city builder. Then make your dream game. But actually make those practice games, flesh them out. Practicing applying polish is as important as practicing adding basic mechanics. Don’t infodump your stuff aswell. Its cool to have a story planned, but its a game not a book. And even in books, its always: show don’t tell. Dont explain about the tribespeople that they’ll never meet, dont tell them how they built their great structure, show them using those building techniques on something else, show them examples of their culture. Good luck have fun (this is a threat)

[@Shrek_es_mi_pastor]

Sounds good ​@@ristopoho824

[@timetorelaxfocus9642]

You need to release "How To Fail - the video game".

[@Artindi]

Oh, that might be fun, just this art with all my bad ideas all in one game. :) NICE! :D

[@lavrasource]

​@@ArtindiExcept you also have to fail at art, and with your art style, you have already failed at failing

[@TheMamaluigi300]

@@lavrasource Oh that’s easy: just make the first world/whatever have this art style, then every world afterwards have different, clashing art styles

[@lavrasource]

@@TheMamaluigi300 p e r f e c t

[@Mothlord03]

I recall an rpg i wanted to make as a kid with like ZERO planning. And i was gonna try to make it on Scratch of all programs

[@TGVBT640]

as a person who is new to developing RPGs, thanks now i know what to do

[@rmt3589]

2:47 You acedently gave good advice. This is what Toby Fox is doing with DeltaRune.

[@dotdot5906]

Yeah no way. You have a path where everyone dies and a path where everyone doesnt and thats somehow supposed to result in the dame ending?

[@rmt3589]

@@dotdot5906 I have tried so hard to kill everyone, and the only one I can kill is Birdly!!! What path in DeltaRune!? Because I can't find it!

[@dotdot5906]

@@rmt3589 use ice shock on every single enemy in the noelle section. Get the secret ring, use snowgrave on birdly.

[@shreddedcheese8604]

this video explains exactly why west of loathing is a perfect parody

[@LionHeartSamy]

Instructions unclear, made a rocket-propelled grenade

[@guanglaikangyi6054]

The 'unique mechanic' bit is unironically bad advice. You can absolutely make a great game using established mechanics and doing them well.

[@timo4463]

fallout new vegas game mechanics from 3 but done better

[@Artindi]

Oh of course. Just in the competitive world of indie, where often you don't have the time or resources the prove you've done a common mechanic better then all the rest, it can only take a few second long clip to show off a unique mechanic and peak the curiosity of potential players. You are not wrong, but there are major advantages to having a good unique mechanic. :)

[@HexSaber]

even better. You can make the fights absolutely random just with way too many options that change nothing. Tricking the player into thinking there's Strategy!

[@naejimba]

Hmm... I'd imagine much of it is because of how content dependent RPGs are... which either requires a very long time or a lot of people, and either one of those means it costs more. The longer something takes and the more money it costs, the larger the risk. The larger the risk, the less risks you are willing to take in other areas to guarantee profit... not because you don't want to make a good game, but because it is a business that has to turn profits or everyone loses their jobs. If you are part of a large corporation the only goal is to increase profits and they could give a shit if your game is fun. Something like Baldur's Gate 3 is the culmination of many people's careers where they've been making the same genre of game for decades. Each time they've learned something and over a number of projects you are able to experiment through iteration. That kind of experience also means efficiency; I'm sure they have specialized tools that were built over all these years. Efficiency also lowers the cost. From a financial view point, having success means you might be allowed to take a bit more risk, or have a larger scope and budget for the next project, and as a company grows if there is stability the resources/staff will likely increase as well. The big key here is the company KEPT those employees for long periods of time, which makes me assume they compensated them fairly and had a good work environment. Everyone else these days is chasing short term profits over everything else, and the industry is a meat grinder where the average person won't even last a year... even after doing all the work to get to that point. On average they can take their skill set to another industry and get paid more; that is the reality of working in the industry. So oddly enough, if you want a good RPG I think the most necessary step is a company that is run correctly long enough to make it possible.

[@KasumiRINA]

Remember that BG3 spent TONS of time in Early Access and during that time people always talked crap about it, but it used Early Access exactly as it's supposed to be: getting feedback and finishing the game right. On release other devs freaked out saying it's unrealistic standards expecting something like that from them now... Larian is Belgian studio, right? Hard to compare with American or Japanese dev cultures.

[@naejimba]

@@KasumiRINA , this is another fantastic point... it's a combination of a LOT of things going right and when they go wrong in the industry most of the time it is pressure from the top that ties the hands of the people actually making the game. So at least from their perspective it IS unrealistic if the CEO they work under is concerned with short term profits. I'm curious what their leadership is like, because they seem to have LONG TERM goals for the company.

[@maycontainnuts3127]

apparently the team in charge of all the assassins creed RPGs watch this video every day

[@KasumiRINA]

Origins had good pacing even if whatever main character did turned out to be red herring and not mattering (main story is about Amunet but execs decided only male main characters need to exist so you spend 95% of the game on stuff a side character did when the main girl founded the Assassin order OFF SCREEN in Rome).

[@hambo6955]

Instructions unclear, accidentally made RuneScape

[@looksintolasers]

Meanwhile, in an alternate universe, Problem Slueth checks his stats: "Vim, Imagination, and Pulchritude"

[@fist-of-doom487]

I have zero skill in game design but my dream RPG would include a fighting system similar to Yomi Hustle. I’d love to have that sort of skill and maybe one day when I can afford a PC I can begin the process of starting to learn how to make a game

[@logan_wolf]

I mean, it's funny, because half this video perfectly describes modern Bethesda.

[@ballom29]

2:12 league of legends, it's not armor penetration and cooldown reduction anymore, it's lethality and celerity ! Also thoses characters do'nt use mana, they use rage, steam, flow...whatever 2:48 terraria, melee was so problematic they even splited melee into "melee" and "true melee" due to the fact melee lategame was basically as ranged as ranged or magic

[@pointyorb]

the frig is a celerity

[@richardvlasek2445]

"celerity" literally doesn't exist, % armour penetration still exists as a stat but it's been made intentionally rare, rage has been in the game on exactly like two or three characters since 2011 (and it functions literally entirely different to mana) and i have no idea what "steam" and "flow" are supposed to be

[@ballom29]

​@@richardvlasek2445 There is 4 champs with rage : Tryndamere, Renekton, Shyvana and Gnar Steam is Rumble's energy Flow is Yasuo's energy Ah and we can also add grit, wich is Sett's energy Yes thoses, along with rage, function differently from mana, by they could also simply be called energy and functio nas they do, instead of inventing a new ressource because mana and energy is not cool enought for a new champion And mb for celerity, somehow I kept remembering haste as celerity....still... haste, because cooldown reduction is too long I guess ? :)

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

Characters with differently named, identical resources can be cute But not when basic mechanics are so nebulous to begin with.

[@DoctorSpacebar]

​There's some interesting dynamics to be had with resources alone. Give the warrior a rage meter that goes up when he gets hit (and even faster when something cheeses him off with STATUS), and as the story progresses, he might gain rage from an ally taking damage too. Or give the monk a Chi meter that goes between 0% and 100% and is at its best in "balance" at 50%, with different actions raising or lowering the meter. You could give the Wizard runestones or crystals that act as "ammo" for spells a la Runescape- going ham could cost you a lot of gold, but using runes carefully could let you amass a stockpile to bombard a tough boss with. Or let the Ranger befriend whatever animals or critters are living in a dungeon and sic them on the bad guys. In a forest? Befriend unassuming squirrels with sharp, pointy teeth! In the stronghold of a cruel king? He really should've been nicer to his dogs because now they're your dogs. Storming hell? There's gotta be some really ornery flies around somewhere to land status effects on the demons. Want to encourage players to give side quests a look? Give the Cleric more casts of given spell categories based on how many NPCs you've helped in different ways.

[@baalfgames5318]

Honestly, it makes me think of the game I made: Earthquake Warriors RPG. Worldbuilding VS Mechanics: My game is probably latter over former. I wouldn't call my game generic, far from it even, but I kinda just made a game for fans of fatfurs. I can't say I put that much thought into a game about fat animals and monsters who can become a huge, fat bosslike monster with the use of the Gordo Grande gems who also enchounter hostage situations that reward the player for not harming hostages. Like, when fighting the main boss of the game, it's mentioned that if your body is pierced or compromised, you lose the powers of Gordo Grande forever. This is... something I made up as I went. Then again, how seriously should a game about fat monsters turning into fat kaijus be taken? "Role Playing": Being honest, I'd rather like the character than see myself as them, so I tend to focus more on giving the characters cool designs and likeable traits over making them blank slates to see yourself in. The characters in EQWRPG aren't SUPER deep and they don't interact with each other much outside meeting for the first time, but they all have their own dialogue, and the one who does the talking is whoever your lead is. Progression: EXP? What's that!? The level of difficulty does increase throughout the game, but never tremendously, with the main way of "getting stronger" is by obtaining items that teach your normal characters new moves, or by coming across "Huggers" who will give your big, fat teddybear kaijus new moves + a friendly hug. Terminology: Pretty standard. Roles: I admit, I didn't put TOO much thought into this, but the game DOES have different roles, including glass cannon strikers, speedy support types, AOE specialists, etc. Each character has their own unique set of moves, and with 15 to try out, the fun is seeing what each character has to offer. Branching Story: Although EQWRPG is mostly linear, there ARE multiple endings. With one boss, you meet two rhinos who are trying to find their brother and joined the villains to stand up to bullying, though it's implied that their hand in the truly evil actions of the villains are non-existant. Yet, if you choose to fault these two and arrest them, you will end up getting a bad ending. The good ending requires understanding their story and agreeing to help, plus recruiting all the playable characters scattered through the game, which does take some exploration to do. It's not much, but it's something. To be fair, Earthquake Warriors RPG was never meant to be a masterpiece. It's just meant to be a fun little novelty game with a fatfur theme. Still, I have been on and off with this game with a finished 1.0 that I plan on expanding in the future with some new levels to use those 15 characters in.

[@Xebelan]

i disagree about skill trees, they suck and are often organized poorly. a point pool i can buy skills from is always better and provides for more flexible replay and unique character combos

[@bramvanduijn8086]

To me tech trees and skill trees are all just ways to stretch out the game, it artificially keeps the fun bits of the game out of the player's hands for as long as possible.

[@PsyCoffee-g3m]

It's crazy for me how I managed to succeed in all failure categories of this video two years ago. I literally managed to make game so bad I didn't even wanted to test it (which resulted it to be buggy as well). But later I managed to make successful RPG game. But that's another story.

[@solarknight3942]

OKAY, this one HAS to actually be helpful to me.

[@eliescobis9922]

1:02 so it's impossible then since there is no way that you can make mechanics that were *never* seen before

[@creditsunknown7974]

True to some extent, I'd argue that you can still twist some already present mechanics that have been made and try to see how they work together to see what best fits the game you are trying to game (or atleast I hope what I said was true, or else im screwed) For example, Hollow Knights healing, as a base mechanic, isn't original, hitting enemies to regain health arleady existed as a mechanic and the dark souls esque "break time" in which you need to find the best time to heal, yet both of these are melded and twisted together, with some added ideas to best fit the game and genre Hollow knight wanted and is. Tldr, don't just take the mechanics and slap it on with duct tape (though in certain cases, this can also work! Don't take everything the video says as sacrosanct, game design is very complex and sometimes, a mechanic that people know and are accustomed to can work without change) but think about how you can modify those mechanics to best fit your game.

[@KasumiRINA]

Games with very unique mechanics GENERALLY end up received poorly, think Last Remnant or FF8, as close as your game is to FF7 or Baldur's Gate the better it is taken, unironically people want more of the same and why fix what's not broken?

[@eliescobis9922]

games having a gimmick is already a trope itself people are making fun of games that have it in them (especially "horror" games) not every game has to have a unique world changing mechanics team fortress 2 and palworld are a good example of that

[@eliescobis9922]

@@creditsunknown7974 what you are saying is 100% correct but the author of the video specifically said that the mechanic have to be original and "never seen before" otherwise your game is bad

[@ryanator7935]

I think this is a pretty good video but I overall don’t like how you make setting a straight narrative as a bad thing. Yes having a narrative that molds to the players actions is nice but sometimes it’s fine to tell the story that YOU the developer wants to tell. I think that showing games such as Dark Souls in the video is a bit counter intuitive due to the point mentioned above. Dark Souls is amazing when it comes to build variety (it’s part of why I always replay them) with that said though the story is very static with the only change coming from one of two endings. Nothing changes gameplay or storywise due to your actions, it’s you either light the flame or walk away, in the case of DS2 you either take the throne or walk away, DS3 does change it up a little but it is still ultimately the same concept.

[@Artindi]

I actually don't have a problem with linier stories at all, in fact it's probably the better way to tell stories in games, I was mostly making fun of how some games promise that you can change the story with your choices but it turns out not really.

[@ryanator7935]

@@Artindi ahh understandable thank you for clearing up my confusion, apologies.

[@KasumiRINA]

​@@Artindi if you're about Mass Effect, people got exact opposite problem with it: most didn't want other endings and see anything but destroying the Reapers an insult. It's the side quests and companions getting unique epilogues and world changing OUTSIDE the main story that mattered. Big bad must be stopped and there doesn't need to be tacked-on "maybe you side with bad guys or they were good all along" option, KOTOR 1 is infamous at the stupidity of Dark Side path (you do all the same except randomly kill a bunch of your companions for no good reason).

[@scooterberry0605]

Honestly the struggle I've been having is deciding on what style of rpg would fit best with the systems I've been cooking up lol

[@nicolaowoytph]

"Instead of making an RPG, just make a G" My favourite line

[@dragonturtle2703]

You don’t really need to do something new. Hell, there are only so many ways to make a game, and even less that are actually fun, so there is only so much new you can have. You just need to answer the question “why would someone play your game, with all the other options for games, and generally for their time, attention, and money?” Could be you just do it better, or that the individual games lack replayability, but not the type of game. Or even just because it’s been a while since the last really good one and you are confident in your’s quality.

[@JGamin999]

That last piece of advice sounded like a game with a character called “spamt” or something 🤔

[@method2madness]

Damn a starfield video from a year ago?

[@kapifromnevada4697]

Gamefreak has already taken notes before this video 😂

[@NAFProjects]

0/10 not enough quirky Earthbound-inspired RPG with hidden themes of depression and mental illness

[@AllHailMe12431]

Generic xp points? Pffft. Nintendo did something even better than generic xp points. In Paper Mario: sticker star, the progression is a completely self-defeating mechanic. Only progression you get is picking up hearts for extra HP as you trudge through the most remarkably uninteresting version of the Mushroom kingdom to date, more powerful stickers (which are essentially just consumables) as you get into the later areas of the game, as well as more storage space for consumables. Speaking of which, almost every normal battle is made completely pointless because of it, as all you get are coins to buy more consumables, with no option to attack without using up said consumables. Wonderfully terrible RPG game design.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

However, mastery of the game grants its true reward. If you beat Bowser without using Kersti, you can throw them in the trash for the few seconds of playtime you have between the battle and the ending sequence.

[@kouko6677]

you dont even have to fight ANY world bosses to get to the final level of the second to last world. its crazy how much they encourage you to not even give a single SHIT about combat in that game

[@reshawshid]

You could follow all these directions and still make a better RPG than Paper Mario Sticker Star and the games to follow.

[@aone9050]

The only issue with this is the critique of gaining exp by performing actions in the world.. why on earth is that a bad thing? You say you want to favor player choice, but then say to implement essentially dnd's landmark progression if they're "working in their selected roll". Wtf? Seems incredibly restrictive to me.

[@Artindi]

It's not a bad thing. It's only a bad thing if you're trying to succeed. And indent quite know what you mean with the DnD bit, I've never played DnD. But all I was trying to do was make fun of the games that pretend to give you choices but in reality there is no real difference between roles, races, or expertise or abilities.

[@fattcoke4705]

1. Provide a unique environment with good world building. 2. Be sure to balance the amount of effort put into the story and gameplay. 3. Do not over focus on story or gameplay because it will result in the other becoming bad. 4. Do not use the same generic mechanics that RPG's have had for the past 20 years. 5. Definitely do not use generic XP points as a currency to upgrade your character. 6. Make sure the enemies or bosses in areas are not unfairly hard for no reason. 7. Make sure the upgrades have a noticeable effect so that the player feels rewarded upon gaining it. 8. Do not over complicate words that correspond to core game mechanics in the game, keep them simple. (Complex words in things such as dialogue are fine but when they are used in things that are supposed to be taught to the player, it just makes it harder for no reason especially for non-English speakers) 9. Make sure that the player's choice has a visual and/or story effect on the world's environment, game ending and NPCs. 10. Make all builds or loadouts in the game very different from each other. Also can you make a 'How to fail at making a Soulslike'?

[@Artindi]

That's pretty cool, and yeah, eventually I will probably do a soulslike, though some of the more popular genres will likely come first. :)

[@timo4463]

@@Artindi if you do the soulslike video pleeeeease talk about the games making theire mechanics bad on purpose (could also be done for party games) Like Movement Balancing etc

[@KasumiRINA]

5. Is just silly and contradicts 8. Renaming XP to Souls doesn't change much and nobody likes weird Morrowind-like leveling systems, you mean The Last Remnant with its weird leveling sold less than Final Fantasy 7? No way...

[@fattcoke4705]

@@KasumiRINA No I mean having two currencies to level up the player like what Sekiro did by using xp and Sen. I hope this clears things up

[@MikeyCyan]

Why not limit the inventory space so people spend more time sorting in menus? Maybe sell some more to help bypass the problem? Dont forget the durability system too, everyone hates those. Maybe even sell repair kits aswell.

[@qwertyMrJINX]

Incorrect, the best way to fail at a leveling system is to make a perk tree. Nothing will make a player's eyes glaze over quite like seeing a long boring list of mostly useless bonuses, with a few useful abilities tucked away in a corner somewhere.

[@KasumiRINA]

I like perk trees! Fallout and D&D 3 based games were my jam.

[@GoogleAccount-jn5qb]

@@KasumiRINA the perk trees they were referring to are like Path of Exile, or some other game like that. Insanely long list of very small bonuses designed in such a way that when you get one of them, the benefit is nigh impossible to see.

[@whoareyoutoaccuseme6588]

Fear & Hunger and Black Souls made me realize how much I hated grinding for levels, so it was liberating that progression was based on game knowledge. You could beat both of these games without leveling up, and in the case of the former, you don't even level up at all. In the case for Black Souls, you can reach the highest level cap and have the highest tier weapons and armor...and still find yourself getting screwed over by bosses unless you have full knowledge of which equipments, buffs, and items work best for that encounter. And you'd still probably die a dozen times before you actually succeed.

[@passthedonuts]

I think I missed this one the first time around. I'm here now.

[@Artindi]

About time! jk, they're always here... waiting to be watched. :)

[@Heliophanus]

Eh. Good story with tried and tested core mechanism is great in my eyes.

[@KasumiRINA]

Yup. Games that have average gameplay like Final Fantasy 7 or one of D&D based Bioware games always got better rep than quirky unique games where you level health by beating your party members up or lose exp/currency on death.

[@MisterBrick42]

the reasoning switches between "trying to succeed but deeply flawed" and "trying to fail"

[@FizzleFX]

`Bethesda handbook woh and he mentions Skyrim before i could even send the comment XD ha!!!

[@treeeyed8578]

This reminds me a lot of "terrible writing advice"

[@adrixshadow]

I disagree that XP and Leveling are bad mechanics for a RPG game, they are a standard in practically all RPGs for a reason. The alternatives are actually worse and full of exploits.

[@WhereNothingOnceWas]

You didnt bave to do early FF so dirty with this video but you did

[@Bassnerd]

okay but moxie as strength would be iconic

[@Bassnerd]

just make sure to elaborate in your world building that those with a massive amount of swagger and moxie use greatswords; warhammers, maces, etc

[@GimmeMyHandleBack]

The outcome remains the same Deltarune moment

[@crimsonchaos7224]

Of course making grinding for XP completely necessary is the best way to fail at making an RPG. After all, everyone knows that the best way to succeed at making an RPG is making grinding completely unnecessary. Even better, make battling in general be unnecessary. Yep, just have battles give no rewards and have their only purpose is to waste HP, resources, and most importantly, the player’s time. Isn’t that right STICKER STAR?

[@Artindi]

I can't tell if you're playing along or really mad. Lol

[@crimsonchaos7224]

@@Artindi Both. I just can't see how removing any and all point of fighting enemies could be conceived as a good idea for any game/genre, especially a genre where one of its main selling point is the combat, and ESPECIALLY a game from a series that has done XP in the past, and was awesome for it (I may have been watching a lot of Chuggaconroy).

[@Artindi]

Maybe you misunderstood the video, I never said combat should be removed, I only made fun of games with too much grind, or with level up systems that make no sense, or skill trees that don't impact gameplay and combat based on choices or roles. I never said get rid of XP, I just pointed out some of the flawed ways to do it. I think combat and a level up system is vital to an RPG, but both need to be done better then how the half baked, cliché, indie RPG's are doing it today. I'm not saying stop doing these things, I'm saying stop doing them poorly. As well as stop doing them the exact same cliché way everyone else is doing them.

[@crimsonchaos7224]

@@Artindi Oh don't worry, I got that completely. Both extremes are damaging to a game's enjoyment level. Just like with gameplay focus vs lore focus, a good game requires a good balance.