Author: deWiTTERS

“So far no one has noticed that I’m actually a woman.” is the start of a shared game on my platform. It’s a trend that doesn’t surprises me anymore. As far as I can tell, there are more girls creating games on my platform than boys, and I don’t really know why.

But seriously, why?

The RPG Playground team brings you another cool update! This time, the screenplay wizard is extended, so it’s first of all easier to use, and secondly, includes all advanced actions in an easy to use manner. It also includes some extra explanation for each action.

There are some other improvements too, such as the weird coordinate system for walking (which was relative to the actor position), is now an absolute position on the tilemap. The action now uses Actor walks towards … instead of Actor walks to …

Next to that, the selection of Actors has become more user friendly. In most modes, you can just click on an Actor and it will take you to the properties. The cursor will also give an indication that you can click on the actor. All ways to make your experience more user friendly.

So go on, try the new version at https://rpgplayground.com, and start building your story with the easy & advanced screenplays!

Kind regards,

deWiTTERS

Time to add music and ambient sounds to your games!

RPG Playground now includes various songs and a diverse set of ambient background sounds, to improve the atmosphere of your games. Go to the first tab on the project pane, and there you can select which ambient sounds and music to play for each level.

You can also change what’s played with advanced screenplays.

Enjoy! And I’m looking forward to the first games that feature these music and sounds 🙂

New users of RPG Playground are greeted with an empty level. If they want, they can first see a YouTube tutorial video. But afterwards, they end up in this empty project.

However, FierceLiger03 gave me this great idea to start inside a tutorial game. A new user could:

1. learn how to use RPG Playground by following the adventure, in a fun and easy way.
2. get an instant glimpse of the cool stuff you can do in RPG Playground.

Therefore, I now want RPG Playground to start with such a tutorial game, to help new users get started.

I could make this myself. But a lot of you have way better level design and storytelling skill than me. So I thought about organizing a competition for this :).

Since a full tutorial is a really big project, I want it to be built as an Exquisite Corpse (thanks EBMCGames / The Dungeon Master for this idea :)), where each small part will be a separate competition. This means that I will:

1. First do a competition for the 1st part of the tutorial.
2. A winner will be selected.
3. This small tutorial will end up at the start of RPG Playground, and every new user can follow it.
4. A second competition will be done to extend the tutorial, based on the winning entry of the previous competition.

This way we can already have something in the short run, and create a really cool tutorial in the long run.

Some things to consider about this tutorial:

1. Don’t give the player too much freedom. Make it a guided tour where you don’t get lost.
2. Start really easy, with the most basic thing possible. Screenplay actions are already really advanced, and should be in later tutorial levels.
3. Show some cool RPG Playground features early on, so that new users are excited to make their own game.

So without further ado, here is the first contest to make the tutorial game: http://rpgplayground.com/forums/topic/the-challenge-of-the-beginner-tutorial/. The winning tutorial will get played by every new RPG Playground user!

The new version of RPG Playground is online. A bunch of new screenplay actions were added, giving your games way more options. But remark that these new actions are for advanced users only. Therefore they are not added to the “add action” wizard yet. So first make sure you understand the basics of screenplays before using these new actions. A full reference can be found here.

Player can choose options

You can let the player pick out of a list of answers, and change the game accordingly.

thief gives choices for "So give me that ring, or die!"
in case "Sure"
    hero says "Here is the ring."
    hero loses token "ring"
in case "Never!"
    thief says "Then I'll fight you for it!"
in case "Isn't there something else you want?"
    thief says "Maybe a hug? A thief's life is pretty rough you know."
    hero says "Of course... *gives hug to thief*"
    thief says "Thank you, I really needed that. And HA, I stole your ring!"
    hero loses token "ring"
    hero says "Wait what???"

Give the hero a sword

You can enable or disable certain actor components. This can be handy to give or take away the hero sword, or whatever component you want to influence.

if hero swing weapon ability is active
    mom says "I hope that sword comes handy"
else
    mom says "It's time you learned how to fight. Here is your fathers sword, make sure you don't lose it"
    hero swing weapon ability becomes active
    hero health becomes active
    hero says "Thanks mom!"

Hide or show actors

By disabling actors, you can hide them from the game. Some users had a workaround for this by redrawing a whole level, but that is fortunately not necessary anymore.

gandalf says "I have a spell that can help us get rid of these foul creatures.  GUL EST KURU!"
enemy1 becomes inactive
enemy2 becomes inactive

Manipulate health & other properties

You can manipulate health values, and max health values. This way you could upgrade your hero’s max health when he gets a certain item.

merchant says "A fine choice young girl, this leather vest will protect you from evil creatures"
hero health max increases with 10

hero says "*you drink the potion, but suddenly your head starts spinning*"
hero health value decreases with 5
witch says "Haha, you are so naive"

Show quest or goal info text

At the top right of the screen, you can set any text you want.

interface info text becomes "Talk to the mayor"

Store any number, such as gold or karma

The hero can store any number you want, and you can test on this number. Handy for storing things such as gold, karma, or any other number you can think of.

if hero number of "gold" >= 5
    merchant says "Of course you can buy this!"
    hero number of "gold" decreases with 5
    merchant says "Here you go."
else
    merchant says "Sorry, but this item costs 5 gold pieces. Come back when you have the money"

Turn based combat?

Now that we have player choices and health manipulation, I wonder if anyone is able to make some basic turn-based combat out of this :).

In the latest update of RPG Playground, you can include action combat in your game.

Your main hero can wield a sword and fight monsters. Even the toddler knows how to handle this sharp piece of steel. Nobody is “too young” to save the world!

Look at the animation below how easy it is to set up fighting. Drop a few enemies in your world, and your game is ready to go.

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