Regional Map for Turn-Based RPG Video Game

[masterea10]

Introduction
Good day, I am a video game developer that is working on creating a demo for a game idea I have. I started the project back in April of this year and have steadily made progress on finding team members and completing the demo. My end goal is to have a demo with the core mechanics of the game and then send it off to publishers who will hopefully provide funding and aid to finish it and get it on PC and consoles. The game will ultimately be for sale on these platforms. So far, the team includes a character artist, a writer, a VFX artist, a UI artist, a background artist and me as the programmer. I am not an artist but have done very, very minor sprite edits. All members besides myself are paid for their work. I have a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering and am currently in school full-time for a master’s in the same field. I’ve been programming since the start of my bachelor’s degree back in 2016. As for game development, I have participated in a few small game jams here and there starting from 2016-17. After my first game jam, I met some people that brought me onto their game development project. I’ve been working with them since and that has been my main focus outside of school. The project provided a lot of good experience but development has slowed to a snail’s pace and I have ideas I want to pursue.

Game
The game is a dating sim turn based RPG with dungeon crawling. The premise is you’re playing a VR MMO with a dating system. The game will match you with one of five partners. Afterwards, you’ll explore the world, dungeons and complete quests while building your relationship. Each route will have a unique storyline and each character a problem they must solve with the aid of the player. I have a lot more planned out with the writer and can go more in depth if inquired about. I can also provide screenshots and recordings.

Project Scope
The project is entirely focused on the development of the demo and establishing the necessary work flows. I want to have the full team in place that could complete the full game before sending it off to a publisher. The demo would cover the first town and the surrounding forest area. I have nothing planned as far as the layout of the area. I tried creating a map using some software I found, but juggling programming and the other things required, I don’t think I have time to learn how to make a good map. I recently found a way to alter the colors of parts of characters, but I’d need to cut up the sprites. Given how detailed some characters are, this is a painstaking task.

Once the demo is complete, there will be some downtime to find a publisher and to decide where to go from there. Once a publisher is found, work will pick back up and become more consistent till the game is released. I cannot say for certain how long development will be for the full game, but I’d like to estimate a year to a year and a half. If the game has a publisher before I graduate, once I do, it will take up 100% of my time.

Setting
The setting of the game is medieval fantasy, but it skirts the line with some of the character designs. One character is a samurai and another wears an oni mask.

Design Concept
I was inspired by maps like, Genshin Impact’s, Breath of the Wild’s and One Piece World Seeker’s. Here is the Genshin Impact map for reference: https://genshin-impact-map.appsample.com/#/. The main thing I like about these maps are the clearly defined roads and the bird eye perspective. These two things were a source of inspiration for some game mechanic ideas that I would like to implement. One of the ideas was making it so random battle encounters were less frequent the closer the player was to a road, but if they explored away from the road, they had a chance to find a treasure cache. All of this would occur on the world map and the player would be represented by a cursor controlled with the WASD or arrow keys.

My main concern for the map is ensuring that it matches with the aesthetic created by the artist’s already on the team, and that is allows for the game mechanics I envisioned so there is leeway in how detailed it needs to be. The aesthetic of the game is anime. I am also looking for consultation to see the best way to implement my gameplay ideas.

Number of Maps
For the demo, I would only require one map. The first town and some of the surrounding area. The main dungeon of the demo is forest themed. The first town is medieval themed with Tudor houses and the background for both have already been completed.

If the game progresses from there and enters full development, I would like to modularly expand the world till the full map is complete so I can’t say for certain how big the final map will be.

Technical
The map can at most be 2048x2048 pixels. That is the limitation I’ve set for all the image files within the game.

Copyright
I would require exclusive rights to the map for commercial purposes. My main concern with copyright is ensuring that I can use the map/world for future commercial projects if so desired.

Deadline
There is no hard deadline, but I set a personal goal to have the demo completed by the end of the year. Past that, I have a semester left in the Spring of next year and I’d like to have the demo sent out a few months before I graduate.

Payment
Price is negotiable. I originally intended to pay the background artist $500 for it but he was unable to create it. Payment will be through paypal.

Prior to sending the demo out to publishers, I will talk with everyone on the team to get price estimates and create a general budget. If picked up by a publisher, they would handle the rest of the payments.

Contact
Erick Akins
Please use the subject line VN VR MMO World Map
erickakins98 ( at ) gmail ( dot ) com

Thank you for reading my post. If there is anything that is unclear or I missed a key detail please let me know. If you have an input for me as a fledgling game developer, please let me know.

[masterea10]

I'd like to expand on my original post a bit with some screenshots of some key screens.

The first screenshot is of the complete dialogue UI. It is hard to show with screenshots, but the scene is taking place in a 3D space. The background is a cube surrounding the player and the character on screen is a plane. Characters can rotate in place and move around and the camera can rotate in place and rotate around characters.

The second screenshot is of the world map screen using the Genshin Impact map as place holder. I wanted to test if applying my ideas for mechanics could work with it and was satisfied with the results.

The third screenshot is of the battle UI. I am still in the process of porting it into the game. This was a sample created by the UI artist. The character pictured in it is not related to the game.

The final screenshot shows off a bit of the forest background and more of the characters created for the demo.

I hope I was able to provide better detail on the project. If there are any questions regarding the game, please let me know.