Tile Based RPG

[21Lockdown]

Hello,

Could someone point me in the right direction on how to make a simple tile based RPG using PHP, Javascript etc..

Example -
https://lh4.ggpht.com/keVAaR-Myv4j0S...nE4g6YP6U=h230
https://lh5.ggpht.com/HgCmpkpegzEZ9k...aypStxgic=h230
https://lh4.ggpht.com/k92XOfuQDFfmhj...1zp3qTKtj=h230

^Those examples are from various android games but i hope you get the idea on what i am going on about.

[SirChick]

Almost sure i read this thread some where before =/

Anyway...

This depends if you want to use canvas or not. If you don't know you need to research more about canvas vs non canvas tile based game designs, before even attempting a tile based RPG. Also are you looking to do 2D or 2.5D ? 2.5D is not too much more difficult minus some small mind bending maths regarding mouse position to game position stuff (it confused me for a while).

Canvas is a more exciting prospect (which is the route i took) as it eventually allows you to go to 3D should you learn at an advance level and improve the game over the next few years. Its reasonably easy to get some tiles drawn on a canvas, specially if you have had a bit of C++ or C language experience.

Not much PHP involved with something like this other than calling and inserting data and for verifying data, this involves ajax requests (pretty easy to do) but you have to be careful for people trying to exploit the game and cheat. The rest is all client side. If you don't plan to make you're own engine which seems very likely >.> then look into some of these libraries:

Client side:
JQuery
MooTools
Protocol

Server side:
APE (Ajax Push Engine) this is for long pulling
Also i think Comet is another one.

To produce a reasonably good working basic game for this, will take 2 months maybe, for a game with a decent amount of features how ever more like a year, just so you're prepared. It's quicker if you work with a team. This is before you even start doing graphic design (or you pay some one which is often £10 to £50 per image some times for high quality) The 3 games you listed are quite low quality graphics so you can probably save money there.

Take a look at this:
http://yourgameideaistoobig.com/ tick the boxes you want for you're game design - this shows some accurate cost involve (if you hired some one to do it) and also shows some realistic time scales which was researched for some time.

I'm assuming you want other players to see other players, aka like a live action RPG? In which case you should do some research on JavaScript web-sockets. This caters to a different aspect than long pulling, you need both for different things. But not all support JS web-sockets so you might want to consider flash web-sockets. Web-sockets are rather new to browser world and not fully supported yet.

This then also asks if you want it to work on handheld devices/tablets - which means it needs to support touch screen event handlers.

This was what made me chose canvas: http://www.effectgames.com/demos/canvascycle/ its really awesome and inspired me :P

[SirChick]

Custom engine, MMO, persistant...



Just... no.

And how long do you think you could do it on you're own ?


Create an engine, networking systems, server management, all the graphics, all the sound productions, all the GUIs, player support systems, staff management systems, payment systems. Create all the quests, stories, voice acting, support forum, managing the support forum.

Then there Q&A testing, promoting etc.

Did you think it was that simple :S ?

The research was done by many across many game development sites.

Take Age of Empires 1 for example:
http://www.allgame.com/game.php?id=714&tab=credits

A team of 30+ taking 2 years to make the game, doing it on you're own will take massively longer.

[SirChick]

custom engine, Multiplayer and persistant

You would need alot more fundamentals before those 3 additional things to even have a game that was playable.

AND

In what universe do you count MCcode a graphical game engine ?????????????????? THIS is a graphical game engine: http://www.isogenicengine.com/ this uses JS (but its not free)


MCCode is a TEXT based browser PHP/HTML - perhaps the simplest way to make a computer game on earth these days.

Hes on about an RPG in a graphical sense.... from age of empires to WoW (persistant) - only he wants a basic 2D tiled browser based game - which he could achieve i'd say in 2 months after he's learnt the language sufficiently enough to make one which i would say is another month on top if hes completely new to javascript/PHP

[SirChick]

I'll give that it doesn't mention it .. but thats all i'm giving you :P

Click the "but" link at the bottom of the page it gives plenty of resources regarding graphical games. But the link was setup for graphical games - the maker didn't really specify blame him :P

[21Lockdown]

Thanks for the replies. I'm not looking to make it online were the players can view eachother so that won't be a problem.

A example which is basically what im asking for is this ->
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO-VKbSF09o