Re: Full-Fledged Audio RPG: Seeking Help
I agree with you in that many of the audio games are quite simplistic. I want to break through the ceiling on that score.
Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger (CT especially) are examples of what I consider good turn-based setups, though FFVI is broken beyond belief in some ways.
Nevertheless, you do make some valid points. The way you knocked your own point down a little is the same way I would knock it down. Personally, I wanted to have at least a few skills/spells given to you via questing, but figured that the fair majority would be earned by level. If you imagine level as a means of gauging how proficient you are in a specific discipline, then in a loose way you could say "Well, veterans of this discipline should know how to x", whatever x happens to be. You're right though, it does get a little boring...or it can get that way, anyhow.
If you look at the community though, you'll see a bit of a sad dynamic. They absolutely lapped up Entombed , which was buggy, unbalanced and had almost no story to speak of. Loads of depth and lots of potential, but most of it wasn't used. Then there's Paladin of the Sky, whose magic system consists of pressing a single button in rhythm within a certain number of microseconds of beeps. There are a couple of basic switch puzzles and a fairly long story, but all of the exploring is done in right-angled passages, the game outputs through only synthetic speech (only very minimal voice acting), the story is definitely a bit on the dodgy side and the press-the-button gimmick gets old really, really fast. Pretty great music though. Anyway, most of us collectively went "[[wow]]!" when that showed up, and I intend if I can to blow that out of the water as far as complexity, tightness in the combat setup and storylines go. It might not be on the same level as, say, a Kingdom Hearts game or World of Warcraft, but if it's a strong step forward from what we've seen, it m ight be worthwhile. I dunno.
I want to say one more thing, by the way. I hope no one who likes, has worked on or is in any way involved with either Entombed or Paladin of the Sky takes offense to what I've said. Both games are potentially worth playing in their own right, and represent firsts in their genre for the audio games community. I just want to learn from their example, help fashion something that is its own creature (so to speak), then make it grow.
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