So, I’m working on a game called Thora, pretty much an American J-RPG.
I’m looking at my work thus far, and am about to fully implement player stats. Of course, the player stats are the easy part. What some would think should be easy is how you interact with them.
My one hangup with the J-RPG Main Menu is that in the end it makes you be a glorified warehouse manager; easily the most demanding part of a J-RPG Main Menu is the consumable item interface, where you see all the resources you’ve picked up both from winning battles and looting the heck out of treasure chests and NPCs homes.
Long story short, I’m trying to figure out how to make the Main Menu more ‘fun’, and less invasive to gameplay.
What are the community’s thoughts on J-RPG Main Menus, first?
When you say “Main Menu”, it makes many people think of the first menu - ie, the “Load game, Continue Game, Options” (and it’s related cousin - the “Load/Save/Options/Quit” menu.
I personally have no problem with the standard J-RPG user interface. But I prefer a more western rpg interface - ie, the inventory slots are limited, you are weight limited (so you can carry 99 potions or 1 piece of armor, but both will leave you crawling). Game items that alleviate this are welcome of course (belts of strength = carry more, bag of holding = more slots, etc). I also like games where items take up multiple slots, and you have to figure out how to fit them all in (big things take 4 or six slots, etc).
I’ve always thought it was kind of dumb that you could carry 20 health potions and 20 mana potions, but not 21 health potions.
Honestly, I hate inventory limits at all. They always end up restricting me in stupid ways, and rarely actually solve the original problem: The system becomes unbalanced if you have an infinite amount of certain items.
As for the menus… Maybe you should think about how to make it more context-sensitive. In battle, the ‘items’ list is usually out of order and contains several kinds of items. Some even show items that aren’t useful in combat! Instead, maybe health-related items have their own section, and offense-related in another. (Maybe defense instead of health?) They don’t necessary have to be different menus, but things should be grouped appropriately. And if you’ve got 3 levels of health potion, they should probably be next to each other, instead of in alphabetical order, or the order you picked them up in.
Perhaps a complete redesign of the whole thing is in order.
Maybe there should be Attack, Defend, and Boost on the menu. Attack leads to a menu with physical and magical attacks, including items you can throw, to choose from. Defend has health restoratives and other cures. Boost leads to buffs like magical shields, etc.
Instead of thinking like a programmer and listing things out, try to think like a player and make it quick and easy to do what they want.
You might even consider completely redesigning the menu so that it’s not a menu. Maybe attacks are bound to 1 button, defense another, etc. Maybe let them set up shortcuts for their most common stuff, and only pick from the menu for uncommon stuff.
@Jaimi - As a gamer, I agree - there’s no way someone could carry around a few suits of full plate, some ridiculously oversized swords, a small pharmacy, and various ‘key items’…all in one backpack.
I know some of the older J-RPGs like Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest, as well as Suikoden, had inventory distributed across the party - each member got like 8 inventory slots; there was no communal item pool. Sure, each member now could carry a couple of suits of full plate, three big swords, and two healing herbs…but it was at mentally more feasible for me, at least.
@wccrawford - I agree that a redesign would make more sense. I too feel the gamer pain from having items in battle being so disjointed, especially when I play a Final Fantasy title with an ‘Active’ ATB. Better still, I think it would make more sense in the menu for a division similar to what you described, when reviewing the resources you have at-hand.
The reason I still ask this question is because I see myself thinking like a programmer, because I’m writing code. Yet, I want this game to be fun; fun trumps all. I’ve played many RPGs in the past, though, so I’m used to the accepted ways of doing the main menu…I don’t think the RPG genre can advance until the game’s hunter-gatherer mechanic (items) does not feel like glorified warehouse management.
One of the major criticism made tot the Age of Conan (when it was launched) it was the lack of support for addons that modify the user interface. Vast majority of AoC players were bored WOW players used to change their interface and customize it to their needs and add new functionality that were never foreseen by Blizzard. For example an addon measuring the damage made by each player completely changed the way 5 man groups worked.
Any way, my point is this: as a developer you can only hope your approach to GUI design will satisfy as many players as you can. Adding the possibility to customize action bars for start, will give a bit of freedom to users.
J-RPG refers to console RPGs made in Japan, which feature a rather narrow story development, and as a result a rather small list of cliches associated to them. Final Fantasy, Pokemon, and The Legend of Dragoon are great examples of JRPGs.
Contrast to A-RPGs (American RPGs), which usually provides more choice-driven stories and gameplay, like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.