First, I made a totally sweet and completely insane post HERE and you all have to go look at it before you can reply to this one. The first person to list all the shows I ripped off gets a new and improved Soylent Cookie! No longer made from people! Just Mexicans and the French!

As for the serious part... I've been thinking about the fact that battle engines in Verge seem to be few and far between and to be honest, REALLY HARD TO MAKE! So, instead of making a battle engine I've been thinking about other sorts of player interaction that could be used to replace battle in games. I've had a number of different ideas but I'm not sure if they'd be "fun" and beyond that, I'm not sure if they'd even be possible to implement in any sort of functional way.

One idea I had was to use conversation as a battle of sorts, with branching text that, if used right, would lead to a desired or unwanted outcome. It could be very simple, or incredibly deep and convoluted. Of course I brought this idea up to a friend of mine a while ago and he said "Like what they did in Monkey Island?" To which I replied "Fu** me." So my completely original idea quite quickly became a rip-off of a years old game that I've never even played. [Toot]GOD DAMN IT![/Toot] Either way, the idea still stands.

Another battle system that I had never even considered is the way they handled battles in *inhale* Tingle’s Freshly-Picked Rose-Colored Rupee Land. A system where battle takes place but where the player isn't even actively involved in it. It would GREATLY simplify game play mechanics while at the same time still allow for traditional RPG style level and stat upgrades... if done right.

Most of my other ideas basically revolved around turning the game into more of an adventure ala Zelda or a point-and-click but without the pointing and... um... clicking.

I'm still in the very early stages of developing a scenario, actually several scenarios, which is why I'm putting so much energy into looking at and developing new play style mechanics. The way "battles" are handled will of course play a major role in how the rest of the game is developed. A speech based battle system wouldn't work in a traditional RPG where speaking characters are few and far between. Conversely, a battle system that involves killing wouldn't work in a game scenario where there are only speaking characters who may all be integral to the plot.

Since most everyone seems hell bent on making either traditional 16-bit console RPGs or something so screwy insane that it completely rewrites the Verge engine from the ground up, I thought I'd toss out a few ideas to make things easier for people looking for more of a middle ground. Something to mute the complexity of the most challenging part of game creation, the battle engine, while at the same time still working within the confines of Verge and not requiring massive god-like coding powers to pull off.

Anyone else got any ideas? Anyone think that any of the systems that I listed might actually be possible, let alone fun?

They also did a rather interesting CCG-style conversation system in the MMO Vanguard.

What is this CCG that you speak of? And by the way, thanks for making me feel even more inferior. :p

NO COOKIE FOR YOU!

I, personally, don't feel that combat systems are all that easy to do. I mean, I can program some but I don't have the mad skillz (did I use that right?) to do anything other than get that "Hello World!" thing to work... sometimes.

To put it in terms you can follow, as apparently you didn't read my other post: Fat + Lazy + American = Excuse. I don't want to have to do anything but I still want a fun game. On top of that I think I might actually be burnt out on turn based fighting.

Making all the assets is a huge undertaking, I do grant you that. That's why I'm not looking into making a full game from the outset. I'm looking more at building a demo. Something that might run for a few minutes. Then I'm going to load it down with an inhuman amount of text in order to stretch it out.

Either way I was going to make it very simple, just a few maps reusing the same tile set, and then build from there.

But if I were to build a battle system to go along with that, I might not have anything ready to show for months or even years!

So I want something SIMPLE! and easy to do because, as I've already stated: Fat + La... you get the picture. Which is why I was looking at the idea of a battle system that I can evolve as the game develops and won't have a huge initial infrastructure that I have to design from the outset. Or something that requires anything in the way of real coding ability.

Besides, all those numbers make my head hurt!

I'm not Asian you know.

Parallel 7, my old compo entry is worth digging around in. There might be some incompatibilities, though: I think there's a text wrapping function that is now built into Verge, plus there are probably some variable names that won't compile any more. Still, nothing that isn't glaringly obvious from the error messages you'll get if you try using the latest V3 build.

Hey, I checked out that demo/game/contest entry/anything else I didn't think of. It's actually pretty cool. The dialog is cheesy and the graphics are sub-par... grainy in some instances which really detracts from the overall presentation but still it was enjoyable if viewed with the merits of it it's developmental heritage in mind.

And then I looked at the source code and now I'm blind. Thank-you so much. Now who's going to come over and wipe my butt for me.

I did like the battle system though. It had an almost chess-like feel to it. It made it seem like there was more depth than there actually was. The only problem is again the blindness due to trying to read the demonic chicken scratch that I found in the code files. I swear when I opened the system.vc file Notepad shivered and I heard a Latin choir singing in the distance.

Hold on a sec...

Some guy just came to my door and told me that it wasn't Latin, it was early Sumerian.

EITHER WAY... I still want simple, simple, simple but engaging and fun. If I have to abort that nightmare of code from my terrifying nether regions, which still sends shivers down my now blind back (the code not my nether regions, which is an entirely different conversation all unto itself), it's WAY too complicated for me.

But it was a cool demo though, whoever guy you are out there that made it. Or girl. I mean, I didn't want to sound sexist or anything by implying that you had to be a guy since there are girls who like video games too, I think. I'll just think of you as a she-male or a tranny or something until I know conclusively which sex you are, or at least which one you want to be referred to as. Or, you know, if you want to be a raccoon or something like that, that's cool too. I mean, I'm not one to judge someone's freakish lifestyle. Whatever circle of hell you want to burn in is no interest to me.

Not that I'm implying that you're Christian or Catholic or whatever else smorgasbord of Christy O's © religion that you want to believe in, if any at all.

...

I'm going to stop talking now.