How do I create a party system like in old school RPGs such as Final Fantasy?

I am working on creating a 2D RPG and I want to include a party system in the game. I want this party system to work in the way that other RPGs had their party systems work like in Final Fantasy or Golden Sun where you can recruit party members and adjust their gear, use items, and that they don’t appear in the overworld, except during specific cutscenes maybe or only in battle. I have done research into creating these systems with needing a Party Manager, a place to store party members to access them when viewing them in a party window or loading them into battle. I did come across this post which seemed to be in the direction I am wanting but I’m not exactly certain if it is still ideal given the age of the post.

I do realize that for each game that has a party system that each one will be written in a specific way to fit the needs of the game, I am just wanting guidance on the starting point or direction I need to go in to implement the part system I am going for. If anyone knows any videos or other forums where this is covered, even in a overview style, please let me know. Anything will be of tremendous help right now.

Just think of how you would implement a single character. Then put that character in an array or list and have more of them. :wink:

That’s it from a data perspective. It’s not clear where exactly you need help with here, perhaps you are more interested in the other characters following the main character around without overlapping?

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If you have ever played the Golden Sun games you control a single character and always have a party with you but only ever see the other party members either in battle or in cutscenes. At the moment I am not concerned with cutscenes just getting the other people added to the party then having them “disappear” from the overworld screen and only appear when battles trigger and the game shifts into the battle scene.

I hadn’t considered the idea of the characters following the main character so I might look into that as well as an option.

For games like this - and most games honestly - there really needs to be a distinction between the data and the visuals. A game like the early final fantasy games, should honestly be able to be coded in regular, non-Unity C#, and be able to run entirely in command-line. After which, you can then lump any visuals on top of.

RPG games are just objects and data and numbers. The best advice I can suggest is to jump into perhaps a command line C# project and tackle it head on.

This is a simple matter of activating or deactivating gameobjects as you need them. This is something you’d do all of the time making any sort of complex game.

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