Action RPG Demo

EDIT 29/09/13!

I am no longer supporting this demo. I had abandoned it ages ago in favor of developing in Construct 2 for a million and one reasons. I may share some of my code for my upcoming game, or at least describe a few ways I went about the upcoming ARPG. I expect to show something off in the near future, possibly late Fall for that, but it will be in an entirely new thread separate from this.

I no longer have the original cap file this post describes below. I am leaving this post up more as a testament that I had created an engine at one point, and that it is in fact possible with Construct Classic, but I honestly recommend upgrading to Construct 2. It's come to the point where Construct 2 is much much MUCH more fully featured and stable than Construct Classic. Do yourselves a favor.

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So a lot of new folks come in asking if Construct can make RPGs, and a lot of old folks sayin' "Yea, it can" and then there's the whole "Well, where are they?" and then you get the thing about "Well they're really really hard to make and take forever!"

All of the above is true, and as an added bonus you get a few migraines along with your RPG!

BAM!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20459682/action%20rpg%20demo.zip

This is my Action RPG game that I'm working on. I included an exe, a cap, and a couple text files that show you just how I keep track of all those darned variables and formulas! (Hint: haphazardly!)

Engine Features:

* your standard 8 way top down player navigation

* support for changing player characters

* extensive menu system

* branching message system

* inventory / spells

* equipment

* combat / enemies

* leveling and stat growth

* map transfers

* customizable controls

* fullscreen / windowed modes, and aspect ratio changing

* save system

Engine To-Do:

* finish ally system (need to give them field representation and AI)

* damage display

* UI tweaks (some text display and sprite positioning stuff)

* area map menu

* music playing (still have to compose something first)

I do use a number of third party plugins. These plugins have SAVED MY LIFE!:

*Linkman's Magicam

*Lucid's Spritefont

*sglorz's Input System

and a number of other plugins from Ashley and David that came with Construct Classic.

I also owe R0J0hound and Tulamide, and a number of the other Construct vets my life as well. Many a time I came onto the forums with a problem, and then you guys come running in with a bag of enlightenment. Expect an NPC tribute some time down the road. <img src="smileys/smiley2.gif" border="0" align="middle">

I felt like posting the cap in case people wanted a peek at how I did something (I know a lot of people ask how to do fullscreen while maintaining ratios on here). I wouldn't recommend doing things exactly how I did them, especially since so many systems are dependent on one another, but it might give some of you a step in the right direction.

Oh, yea, by the way, Construct Classic can make complicated RPGs!

BAM!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20459682/action%20rpg%20demo.zip

Oh, by the by! You press ESC to do a quick shutdown, and F1 will reset. I plan to make those customizable, too.

Right now, when you go into the in game main menu, a party member is added. This isn't a bug; it's for debugging purposes really, but I left it in to show that you can switch between heroes in the equip and status menus and have Hero specific equipment. Also that you can select to use items on specific heroes.

I don't have the actual spells implemented, but they're essentially the same as item use except they use Rune Charge (RC) as energy.

That yellow bar below your health meter is your stamina. Your attack power is also based on what percentage of that stamina you have when you attack, to a minimum of 1 damage (because I don't want to completely block those persistent players from doing things they shouldn't).

And that enemy is supposed to be a pain in the butt. Most enemies will be immobilized while attacking, making them easier to hit. He's still got some special boss code on him making him try to dodge your attacks.

I just spent a few minutes messing with this and WOW..it is very impressive. The menu system is awesome and looks very clean.

Hey, that's lookin' pretty neat! Either the combat is a bit clunky or I blow at it, but it's definitely got a good start. This looks like it could shape up nicely with some (more) love and care. Great work so far!

I tried your Action Rpg Demo and BAM!! Yust a black screen with graphical glitches <img src="smileys/smiley36.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

How sad. It happened to a pal of mine too, though he got it to work in a short time. Never told me how he did it, but I think he tried running in Windows XP compatibility. Not sure why that would help though, since it runs just fine on my Windows 7 system.

What kinds of graphical glitches? Got a screenshot?

I managed to get the game working by pressing the left "Ctrl" key when I get the black screen.

I managed to get the game working by pressing the left "Ctrl" key when I get the black screen.

Me too. Great work by the way!

This games sick! Good Job!

This is going to help so much. I've been wanting example files for the action rpg I'm making instead of always fighting with it, this is a godsend.

EDIT: The cap needs the color overlay effect which I can't find anymore. Any chance someone can upload that so I can take a peek under the hood?

i need color overlay effect

There is a whole thread devoted to effects, if you had tried searching. It's HERE.

It was renamed Color Fusion. Download and just rename it.

Sorry about that. I did use Color Overlay on the hero and enemy sprites, but I got rid of it since it'll be better to use the Color Fusion that I also have. I am not using either right now though (they had no in-game function yet).

Anyway, I updated the download to the current cap file. It has in it an early but functioning version of the save system, and features numerous tweaks to the UI. I still need to work out a few kinks in the Save System (if you have multiple save files and delete a save file in the middle, you can't save over the later save files, but you can still open them). It's just a matter of tweaking some numbers in the save menu, not a big deal. It does save and load properly though.

Yea, main post updated.

Link appears to be dead?

Not dead, just mistyped. <img src="smileys/smiley9.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Post updated with the proper links.