{"author_name":"Viridian","cat":"LD #11 - Minimalist - 2008","comments":[],"epoch":1208611320,"likes":0,"metadata":{"p_key":"75237","p_author":"Viridian","p_authorkey":"507322","p_urlkey":"111069","p_title":"I\u2019m Ready!","p_cat":"LD #11 - Minimalist - 2008","p_event":"LD11","p_time":"1208611320","p_likes":"0","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"507322","us_name":"Viridian","us_username":"Viridian","event_start":"1208476800","event_key":"87","event_name":"LD11"},"text":"

Okay, finally got something I like. When the Minimalist theme was announced my first idea was a minimalist RPG, like a Roguelike<\/a>. And I\u2019d been thinking about writing a Roguelike for a while\u2026but I don\u2019t think I could write a good Roguelike in two days.<\/p>\n

After getting some sleep I thought of a very simple action game – top-down, 2D. You start in the center of a room and must avoid enemies until a weapon spawns, at which point you can pick it up and kill them. Unfortunately this is almost exactly what MrFun is doing\u2026and he\u2019s actually a good way into making his game.<\/p>\n

So I came back to thinking about the minimalist RPG idea, and of course of the first games I thought of was the original Legend of Zelda<\/a>. (Except that some people claim that Zelda isn\u2019t an RPG at all. Why? Because there are no stats to improve. You don\u2019t level up and gain abilities; all your abilities come from things you find in the world. Want more health? Find a heart container. Want do to more damage? Find a better sword, etc. I can see their point, but I don\u2019t think I agree with it.)<\/p>\n

And then I remembered a game I played a long time ago called Castle Adventure<\/a>. It was a very good real-time RPG similar to Zelda, where you picked up items that gave you new abilities and allowed you to explore (and ultimately escape) the castle. Combat was a bit lame, however – it had Roguelike combat, where you just ran into an enemy and whoever was tougher won. I liked that there were a lot of puzzles in the game, though. You used treasures you\u2019d already found to access new areas of the castle and get more treasures.<\/p>\n

Both of these games seem to strip the concept of the RPG down to its roots. So I\u2019m going to write a game similar to them, but adding improvements of my own. It\u2019ll have Zelda-style action combat but it\u2019ll also have Castle Adventure-style treasure collecting and puzzle solving.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019ll be in text mode \":)\"<\/p>","time":"April 19th, 2008 8:22 am","title":"I\u2019m Ready!"}