Thanks for at least replying

True that. I decided to start working on a very Earthbound-ish battle system now. My only problem is things like, should I make all the battle screens as seperate scenes and how should I memorize everything between levels. Memorizing includes current party, inventory and stats etc.

And I feel the need to write my rambling here, as my 'real friends' are not that interested in my stuff.

So, I've been writing and planning alot of stuff for my game. It's supposed to tell a story of an over-confident young girl and her taciturn older brother who she drags in quite an adventure after hearing about a 'walking alien spaceship terrorizing the Northern Coast'. But it's not all as it seems. As everything has it's light and dark side, so does this story. From a peaceful innocent town these two travel into big world full of corruption, polluted cities, crime and violence, the young ones come to crossroads where they should make their decision. Whether to understand the reality of our world or chase the alien spaceship.

I think you now get the idea what I'm after. I wrote all this because the final content and storyline will be much different from this, since I like to change things alot depending to my life experiences and how I want the story to evolve and in what direction.

Now the problem came up. I simply do not know what kind of GAME I'd make out of this. My first and strongest idea was to make an RPG with turnbased and versatile battle much like in Mother series (or Earthbound to some), but I simply cannot make myself to work on such complicated system, especially on Construct that is still under work.

Second idea was to a sort of 'action RPG' much like Castleroid games, but after thinking about it longer I realized it was way too silly for such serious yet cartoony game.

My current idea is an interactive novel or whatever those are called. A bit point&click and alot of text&reading with freedom of making decisions. Yet this would restrict my vision so much.

So there you go. I am in horrible whirlwind of failed ideas. Sometimes it feels that I should just write a book or make a comic, as I am experienced 3D artist and making all visuals in 3DS Max. It's just that those two couldn't have sound or interactivity which would completely strangle the last of my vision.

Discuss if you want and by God give me any suggestions, in whatever tone they may be. Also, there is alot of engrish or other horrible errors in my text, I think. Please do understand that english is not my mother's tongue.

Oh my, that sounds easy. Thanks for answering and sorry for late response

Hello there. A new man on board posting, so take heed.

So I've started making a test project, a pretty simple hack and slash side scroller. Now that I make another layout for, say, the second level, I cannot see any enemies or other objects in the Objects list. They are in the first layout, but the second one is completely empty. Does this mean I'd have to set/script/import/animate everything from the beginning just to make another level? I know, this might sound stupid but please, do help a man in need.

Another question for the future: How do I memorize things for second level, such as player's health, items and other personal things?

If anyone could clear me up on these things, I'd be very grateful and it would help me on my quest quite a bit.

Hey, thanks for answering. That cleared my problems nicely

Also, I forgot to ask this.. How would I make a wall that player could go behind and in front? I mean, if the wall is 'higher' than player, the player would get 'under' it, even if he/she is perspective-vice in front of it? I hope that made any sense.. English ain't my main language. Finnsman here

Yello, my first post!

Right, on to my problem: I am an experienced 3D modeller, and I use 3DS Max to do that stuff. I've been planning on this sort of top-down adventure game, but my problem is in making it's graphics. I can model stuff and render it, but there's alot of questions that I'd like answers because I couldn't find much tutorials about actually making levels.

1. What would be the most performance-friendly way to use alot of seperate images? Sprite, Tiled Background etc?

2. Is there an effect to make drop shadows for static sprites, such as houses, fences, trees etc?

3. Are large sprite objects problematic to render? I'm planning on using big sprites that would include a building, ground around it and some small details. This way many areas could look more unique and interesting, rather than recycling same sprites in all places.

Thanks in advance. Scirra for life, darnation!