It depends on what you're trying to accomplish, but if you mean something like interactive/adaptive audio, C2 already handles this pretty simply. My games have interactive music that changes based on player input or game conditions, and I just run it all off a variable timer and some simple events. You can also apply DSP effects if you want, though it isn't necessary for my games for music. I don't know how effective the analyzer is in C2, but as far as cues, crossfades, swaps, interuptions, flourishes and all that, you can do that with C2's events as they are now with no extra libraries.

Right, what Jayjay said. I have a family and a job. Any time I work on something is a deduction from either of those, so it really needs to be advancing towards a goal. So, logically speaking, if you can replace your job with your hobby of making games, you've now combined those two areas and made a much better use of your time.

That looks nice, SKuirely ! Nice colors!

Hey, great to have someone else! Most of this stuff is under your NDA as part of the program (technical information is as well as procedures, I believe). But your e-mail should have directed you to Nintendo's developer site. There is a handy forum there where all of this can be discussed without fear. We have some informative stuff on there that will help you get started. Unfortunately, though, we can't really discuss much/anything on Scirra's forum.

Thanks for the heads up!

You haven't provided many details, so I'll guess my best. As far as side-scrolling, simply place objects on a layer and restrict movement to horizontal. Possibly consider the platformer behavior if jumping is appropriate. For the turn-based part, you basically just need a way to keep track of what state the game is in and then instructions for what to do during each state. This can be done with a variable, but you may want to use the Dictionary or Array object to store more data and possibly use it to decide the state of the game. My guess is you may have overall modes, too (ie running and exploring and then it shifts to battles). You'll want to include the events for each mode in a group on your event sheet and enable/disable them when you switch.

Possibly give us some more details so we can fill you in. If this is your first game, you may want to try something simpler or a prototype of a few aspects of your game so you can get some good design practices under your belt and familiarize yourself with C2's editor.

Yep, same for me. Surely they've noticed

I've been decently surprised and happy with performance on Wii U from C2--it's totally a neat platform. I do dread making the manual after reading about AnD4D 's manual experience, but developing for the system is quite neat.

Clay.io's plugin works well and handles all this, though you do give up a percentage to them (as with most services)

For PC? Easy.

For mobiles? Possible but it will take an experienced C2 user.

Correct. You may need to do some trickery for effective Z-ordering (perfectly doable), and it will take a ton of time and resources, but C2 is nearly perfect for it. Mobiles, however, might not be and will take a LOT of effort to get it right.

— That looks awesome! You can tell the tons of time you've put into it!

I think I'm further along in my RPG than most (Courier), so I'll give a bit my input. Firstly, my game doesn't have any turn-based battles, so I have nothing to comment there other than do a good job of state management.

The main plugin that has benefited me has been rexrainbow's Z-sorter. The only reason I use it is because you can't pair sprites and tiled backgrounds simultaneously in a family, so the internal C2 method for z-sorting (for each ordered loop, send to front) won't let the player run behind/in front of tiled background objects like fences. I also don't have it sort every tick because it isn't necessary.

The game isn't tile-based, so I can't comment on that stuff, but have reusable resources. Everywhere. I have a bunch of Tiled Backgrounds (and sprites) that I piece together to make everything in the game. This reduces the overall video memory, reduces asset production for you, and has very few disadvantages.

Lighting and shadowing are important. I have a good number of overlay sprites that I use for gradients over objects as well as light halos and other effects. I also have a couple dedicated shadow layers for the cast shadows from objects. These are made of a certain number of primitive shapes, all dark blue, all at 100% opacity. Then just lower the opacity of that layer and the shadows will remain merged and more realistic. I also have shadows cast on the player and world objects by having a second set of shadows set to one of the "source" blend types so it only shows when an object or the player is present.

As for inventory, plan ahead on a creative system that doesn't result in a big, stupid list or something. Perhaps a bunch of boxes or something, but plan this ahead so you can come up with a workable solution (probably in an array) for management of it.

I keep a spreadsheet constantly for myself where I track my reference numbers for every quest, character, item, or object in the game so I can always quickly reference what I need. For quests, I have a cell in my overall array dedicated to each quest. If the value there is 0, the quest is untouched. If it is 1, that quest is active, and if it is 2, that quest is complete. Any other numbers are for multi-step sequenes within that quest. I'm quite happy with this system because it makes tracking things a breeze.

Tween everything! Everything should fade, move, slide, rotate... something! And I'm specifically talking about your UI. This goes a long way in making your game go from looking cheap to looking polished. And it's simple enough to set this stuff up early. Just get in the habit of automatically having something fade in instead of appear, etc.

Interactive music makes a very big difference if you're up to the challenge. If nothing, it solves the problem of endless repetition, but you can really immerse the players in neat, subtle ways that they might not even realize. Plenty of top games do this, but many indies do not. This really applies to a lot of games, but RPGs are well-suited since they are so state and stat-driven.

Spend the extra time getting your 8-direction animations going. People will gripe if you don't, I promise.

For speech, I don't bother with a type-writer effect because it takes more effort and rarely lines up with the player's own reading pace in any way. I opt to fade in each message one at-a-time. I simply set the text that I need, turn the text variable to "on" (which fades in the text), then wait for player input to fade it out again. If it was the end of that message, turn text to off so it stays faded out and fades out the rest of the speech UI. If not, once opacity = 0, change the text to the next block and fade it back in.

There are probably a ton more things I could talk about, but those are some non-standard things that have made a big difference in my RPG development.