A few tips for your next RPG project…

Once upon a time, video game development was a fantasy entertained by few people because it was a power held only by computer programming wizards , practised by teams of those wizards, and difficult to learn.

A computer programming wizard

Now, game programming is no longer exclusive. There are many platforms to develop on (pc, mobile), numerous game engines for different programming language platforms e.g AndEngine for Android. There are also lots of books on game programming, and even ‘game maker’ software like Construct-2 for HTML5 games. It is clear that the entry barrier for game development has been destroyed.

A ruined portal

There are now so many video games and video game developers that the only way to distinguish them is the quality of their work – and the size of the development team.

RPGs

A very popular genre of video games is RPGs – or role-playing games.

An online RPG

RPGs are not as easy to develop as the other game genres but there are still lots of RPGs on all gaming platforms. So how do you make your RPG stand out? Below is a list of features that, hopefully, may make your next RPG project quite interesting and unique:

Not-so-common RPG features

1. Forging / Alchemy / Cooking

While this feature is not rare, it is also not common. Forging allows a gamer to craft his/her own weapons, armor, and accessories. This adds a mode of customization (in addition to character traits) that could spawn new items to be collected and character classes. The developer could limit forging and alchemy to certain classes such as the Alchemist class or Blacksmith class. The developer could also create hidden recipes that produce powerful items and make them quest rewards.

I’ll post more tips next week. Thanks for reading.