FF style games is it possible with Torque

#1 Yes, this would be fairly easy, indeed it sounds like a good thing to do to learn the engine actually.

#2 As Ian said, I don't think this would be particulary difficult. However consider the somewhat massive amount of art assets required for this type of game. That probably far suppasses the technical difficulty of the engine.

#3 Thanks Ian and Gareth for the replies. :)

@Ian I got some models I been itching to see come to life. So I got a good bit just sitting on my harddrive. The best way to learn is to at least work on something I really like right.

@Gareth You got that right! But I wouldnt want to start out by going after Square right off anyway heh :) I was thinking more or less like a mini-FF style adventure that can be played by a group of friends 8 or less.

I been asking specfic questions because I know I want my first project to at least include some old-school things I really like. Puzzles and adventure.

I can minimize a lot of art just by changing the texture on a creature and calling it something else. hehe remember the old FF games that's what they did mostly. Green slime, Blue Slimes, Red Slimes etc.,

I think my biggest hurdle will be just duplicating the battle engine. Your walking along and all of suddenly you get pulled into a battle senario. Anyway everything is still paper, model bits, and random thoughts in my head until I can get organized heh.

#4 This would be a lot simpler than you'd think :), especially if you could ensure that you had enough memory to load in a small "battle landscape" or even just have a place set aside on your normal level.

Phil.

#5 Think FF7 style using a small, low-poly character model to walk around the world...you would have a HUGE landscape if your character was teeny. Then when you get into a battle, just do some cool camera tricks ala FF, then warp to a different place in the world and use the high-poly models. I'm going to attempt ASCII art...

______________________________________
| | |
| | |
| | |
| Area A | B |
| | |
| | |
...
| | |
--------------------------------------

Area A would be the teeny-space area of the world and the line between A and B could be an impassable mountain range. Area B could be the battle areas where high res models are used.

Another option could be to stick interiors below the terrain and have battles take place in there.

#6 Thanks Phil for the response.

I thought about it while playing a little bit of Tribes 2.

I would just have to create spawning battle encounters. I could just have foes materialize within a certain fighting range of our heroes.

Since the monsters are pretty much bound by the same attack system. I mean they have a list of attacks they have to pick from as well. (server side heh)

It saves the trouble of loading up a whole new scene within a scene. If the fighting is too slow for some folks to bad. Its not Realm Wars. Heh

But it could all happen on the same playing field. Monsters encounters are based on location and level of player. A high level hero would tigger harder foes, a low level weaker foes.

Anyway my brain is working the coca cola has kicked in heh.

Thanks Phil your right (Keep it Simple See). heh-I know what its suppose to say LOL.

TerrainManager will handle my crazy large world, but just tweaking common engine components could get me my battle system.

Monster encounters can all be trigger by simple parameters. and even reusing creatures and altering attributes. Stronger, weaker, acids attacks, fire attack. I will need some sort of monster array for the engine. Boss creatures would be pretty much hard coded they have to be tough and part of puzzles and goals.

Ok ok I need to buy the SDK and get to work LOL.

#7 Thanks for the reply Pat

Yes, Hidden battle fields sounds great, But I wonder what the switching time would be going from World map to battle map.

And definitly I plan on making the models smaller to futher enchance the World size.

#8 Johnny, I don't think you can literally switch maps, but as far as switching to another part of the world, the transition would be instantanious. All you would have to do would be change the control object from the player (running around in world map) to the battle-camera, the battle camera would be pathed along a spline or something.

I love Final Fantasy, I wanted to do a game like this but I just didn't have the art assets and I thought it would take too much time (not that the current game idea is not taking a lot of time...)

#9 I understand, just switching over to the battle areas and only swapping out the world map chars for they high-poly battle versions. And using the floating battle camera.

That camera just zooms in own whoever is delivering the attack anyway. since all input from the main characters come from the player.

The key areas for me will mostly be Attack animations, which will make use of the fx abilites of Torque.

Attack Power and Defense Power and Life points are the only points that controls if you win or lose.

The key to winning is overcoming either your foe attack strength or defense strength. The result is still the same you lose or keep life points.

The fun is all the cool attacks and defense options at your disposal.

You go into battle with whatever abilities you acquire in your world travels.

You would only need a handful of battle animations. but if the attacks and defense options are varied they will determine if you win the encounter or not.

Yeah Pat I a big fan of RPG's too :) and Anime and Sci-fi.

#10 Sweet. I want to see this come out! Nail the gameplay, nail the story, think finishable. It'd kick ass.

#11 Yes, it would be a great example of Torques flexibility to non-users.

#12 Johnny.. I kind of like your idea to keep the player and the enemies on the main map, but it'd be drawing a lot of stuff that you could possibly safely ignore when in "battle map" mode.

I'd definitely look to have a seperate small map, probably based on a dif rather than a terrain object.

Effectively it'd go something like:

1) Teleport players to battle map
2) Turn off the terrain and all the objects in that zone
3) Bring up battle map mode interface (for attack selections and HP etc).
4) Fight battle
5) Turn on normal map again
6) Teleport back
7) Turn off battle map area :)

It'd be interesting to see how you'd need to set things up so that you could get the two seperated area's to work, maybe there would be a way to set it up so that the terrain would automatically be culled by the portal algo.

Maybe I'll give it a peek, sounds kinda funky!

Phil.

#13 Once again, Phil has a great idea. Damnit, Phil! Some people have an unfair allocation of good ideas and you are one of them!

#14 @Jonathan, Yeah but dont forget FUN for Non-Users too heh

Thanks for all the info Guys, getting my programs together for the smooth transition from actually idea to working project.

Also I will get Torque SDK at the end of this week. :)

Guess I will post more info when it happens and let you read the story I came up with.

My long term goal is to make a RPG maker out of the torque engine. Mr. Donovan mention a while back about a system that will work with the torque engine. Game assets. artwork, logic terrain etc., a all-in-one system. :)))

I would like to design a RPG type editor for my game thats for sure so I can change it or alter it without worrying about code anymore.

Thanks again Phil and Pat for the inputs. Its keeping me focus LOL.