Game I'm going to start working on eventually, a Grandia/PMD style weight gain game.

[Mariofan]

Hello! Been a frequenter of these forums for a very long time and in the community even though I normally just enjoyed/supported what everyone else has made, I never really made much myself. Recently I’ve started drawing as a hobby, and now I’m looking to make a game later down the road once my art is a bit better!

The style of game I’ve had on my mind for a long time, way before I started this was a weight gain/inflation game (obviously) but with elements from 2 of my favorite RPGs I played growing up, the gameplay style of the grandia series of games (1,2,3, and xtreme which is my personal favorite) and the mission style of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, where you take missions, go out to accomplish the objective it has, and come back either successful or unsuccessful, and get your (potential) rewards.

The characters that would be in the game, so far I have my own OC that will be the main party leader, and it wouldn’t be a grandia style game without some other people you can choose for the other 2-3 slots of your party, so some of my other character ideas will probably surface later on once I get around to drawing them, but expect some more pokesona style characters to flesh out the roster.

Like I said this is still new to me and I don’t have much to show other than my OC and a few pieces I’ve worked on as a fresh artist who is still learning and improving, but I wanted to post this to maybe just get the idea out there and show that I wanna work on it, half and half to keep me motivated, and to make something people (might) enjoy, even if it ends up only being me. I know this is a little ambitious for someone starting out as well, but it’s a goal I want to reach and I feel like eventually I’ll be able to.

I’ll be posting potential updates here and on my furaffinity profile as I go along with it, probably nothing substantial for a while, but I still feel like it’s the right thing to do. I’m also open to discussion or ideas!

My furaffinity is linked on my profile if you’d like the few examples of some art of I’ve drawn/my OC I had commissioned, there’s not much there right now, but I hope to change that!

If I have this under the wrong category or anything like that let me know, wasn’t 100% where it should go!

[Parnash]

Curious, because I do like the concept on paper - what exactly would you be taking from Grandia as inspiration?

[Mariofan]

Thank you! So here’s a few thoughts I’ve had about the grandia aspect.

1. I would like to incorporate the battle system of grandia with the IP gauge, while I don’t know how to quite yet with the standard systems of RPG maker if I went that route, and the learning curve that would be Gamemaker but would probably give me more flexibility, I would like it to at least be somewhat realized more than just a traditional turn based system, everyone attacks in this set order kinda deal, because the strategy the IP gauge allows in the grandia series is why I still love them as my favorite RPG’s

2. The party system I’d like to carry over, where as you progress (in this sense it would be sorta like PMD, where you have main story missions you can accept, side quests specifically to find a party member maybe, and then just your normal missions you can accept to grind) you can bring 2-3 of the people you have met with you, equip them how you like, and set off.

3. I’d like to incorporate mana eggs somehow, where instead of a character (lets take my OC Zahnelia for example) only getting certain spells and what not specific to her, you can equip any of your party with spells you want them to have by equipping them with mana eggs you can make and combine together to make different ones with different spell sets, some characters being able to equip more mana eggs than others.

4. Leveling up skills with the star system, each character learns skills specific to them, and as you use previous ones, or as you progress, you’ll star them up making them hit harder/go faster, until you max them out, and learn some new ones. good ole x or tenseiken slash as some starting ones as an example. Heck maybe even incorporating the Combination skills, where if 2 party members have learned a certain skill they have on their list, and it’s a sufficient star level, they can do a brand new attack together specific to them.

5. this one I don’t know how I’ll incorporate, or if I even will, but the skill book system, where along with xp monsters would give you skill book xp in different categories to level up scrolls you put in these books, which give you benefits such as increased xp against certain enemy types, increased resistance against certain fattening/inflating attacks, multiple moves in a turn (S class skill for a reason in the game) etc… there’s a lot of em.

6. HP and SP systems - HP obviously being your health, but in this game I’d have it work like your weight/inflation limit, the lower your health the bigger you are (may flip this around to be a capacity kinda HP that goes up instead of down), until eventually your incapacitated not because your unconscious/dead, but because you are just too big, that or the strain of being that big knocked them out. I’m still thinking about the leveling system and have some ideas on some other things such as if you want more health to be able to take more, you’ll have to do other activities, but will let you be able to get bigger (which also feels as a good sense of progression since that means bigger sizes to see!). SP will work just like it does in Grandia Xtreme, where every mission you start at 0/100 (max sp can be increased with those scrolls I mentioned, or equipment if I simply can’t incorporate it.) and attacking as well as just it just increasing naturally during a fight.

That’s a general overview honestly, there’s some other things I may try and incorporate such as the gambling minigame (need a reason to horde all that money you’ll get), and other things, still a lot of time so gonna be thinking on it still for a while, and that is just for the Grandia side of the game.

sorry for the book!

[Parnash]

Seems interesting! Hope it works out - I know there are some RPG Maker plugins that should be able to help replicate most of that.

[HerefortheGoodShit]

I love PMD, Explorers of Sky was the game that really got me into RPGs.
I’ll be watching your project with the utmost interest.

[phoenixfelix101]

As with all games here:

[Mariofan]

Just a minor update after some looking around, and after designing another character who will most likely be in the game as a party member(if you wanna see that artwork it may be going up later today on my FA profile), but I have looked around at some plugins and after some initial glances(I say that because it “looks” like they’ll work or I can spin them to work how I need them too, but I still need to learn the engine in general) here is what I’ve found out.

1. The battle system will probably work, there unfortunately isn’t any plugins specifically to mimic the IP gauge gameplay from Grandia, but with some clever use of the ATB gauge style, and a plugin allowing you to see the enemies ATB gauge as well, I can get something working that’s functionally similar to the IP gauge, just without the…gauge. The only 2 things still up in the air is that A. since there won’t be a 3d battlefield you actually move around on, a key part of it will still be missing since factoring in your movement to the enemy to hit them was a big part in the strategy, but will be gone. It’ll be like if everyone including the enemies had spirit boots equipped and did everything frame 1, which is meh but it’s what I’ve got so far. B. I’m sure there is a plugin floating somewhere that I haven’t found yet, but the purpose of seeing the enemy ATB is purely so you can do CANCELS, either with a critical attack, or some SP skills having it as well. Big boss casting an ability? Just cancel it with a strategized timed critical attack or SP move that can do it (Keeps the first skill you learn relevant as most of the time they all have that cancel ability, and max starring it makes it practically instant).

2. Party system will be a non issue, based on the plugins I’ve found for it, this should be no trouble.

3. Mana Eggs are 50/50 figured out right now, equippable spells from items is something I can add, emulating the crafting system for it isn’t gonna translate well unfortunately as most of what I’ve found for crafting only allows me to hide the outcome of synthesizing two eggs, which I have to specifically have an option for the 2-3 eggs you want to put in since I haven’t found a crafting plugin that just allows you to put whatever you want in freely by choice, and it spits out the result, but I’ll keep looking.

4. Completely doable, there is actually plugins specifically for starring up/mastering skills, learning skills may be a bit different since most plugins I’ve seen only allows you to teach skills that the character can learn somewhere, unlike grandia where you learn them in battle randomly once you meet the criteria the skill needs. I’ve even found a plugin that allows combination attacks once 2-3 party members know the correct skills they can learn.

5.the skill book system might end up being scrapped unfortunately, or reworked to at least keep it in spirit, not much I can say on this one at the moment, if I do find a way to make this work, it’s gonna take a lot more digging as this was the least successful find of the bunch.

6. Not much to say on this one, other RPG maker games like Vale city already accomplished changing the fighter pictures based on values, I just gotta get around to drawing sizes (a few at first, i plan to release in an update fashion, so more sizes for characters may become available as time goes on!) and I can mimic the SP system quite well.

7. This is mainly for the PMD style portion with taking missions and going out into dungeon delving, but I have found quite a few plugins to allow for this style of replayability, and incorporate some roguelike elements into it, so dungeons will be somewhat randomized with different floor layouts everytime you go in.

Just a slight update I know, I’m still designing characters as I would at least like to have an initial demo/first release to be a baseline for gameplay, and to have at least the first 2-3 party members incorporated. I plan to have that end up being a party size of 4, with interchangeable party members before you set off on a mission. I’ve got 2 already so just need to get 1 more for now and we’re off to at least get started, I just need to learn the engine and incorporate everything I’ve found, which won’t be easy, but that’s what this thread is for. Still open for suggestions or discussion!