You guys think a beat-them-up would be easier to create than an RPG?

[Grandy]

Just wondering. I think one of the reasons most Charas games never were finished is because RPGs are, by nature, complicated. Oh, sure, the gameplay is just menus, but because the gameplay is so simple, people expect tons of stuff into it; a character can't have just a combo and one special move, he's got to have hundreds! And enemies must be unique to each dungeon! And there better be enough dialogue and NPCs and whatnot!


A Beat Them Up, on the other hand, seems much simpler in theory.

[Meiscool]

I'd say rpgs take more work overall. Prob more so than any other genre.

[fruckert]

Games are hard.
RPGs the most so, unless it's like a roguelike.

[Felix-0]

ABS games also takes quite awhile if you're managing multiple party members in any manner. If you're just by yourself. That's fine.

[Meiscool]

ABS games also takes quite awhile if you're managing multiple party members in any manner. If you're just by yourself. That's fine.

So... many... poses...

[DragonBlaze]

Pretty much any game is hard and complicated to make. There's a great movie called "Indie Game" that covers this. No matter what, you need to create graphics, music, and levels. RPGs have the added complexity of pretty much requiring a great story, which pretty much requires more levels and a more lengthy story. Other game types usually don't require as many levels or as much as a story to be good, but there's no general "maker" that takes care of the hard part of programming the engine/system. In short we have two options, spend lots of time designing a lengthy rpg with the awesome story we want to bring to life, or spend a **** ton of time creating a different game type, and THEN creating the levels and story for that game type. I found that either way, making a game by yourself is incredibly difficult or just takes a tremendous amount of time.

In the end, I view game making not as an endpoint, but as a hobby that is just fun to do.

[Prpl_Mage]

Ed made that Bout game some time back, it was more of a fighter though. Looked great, didn't work on my computer for some reason though.

I think the biggest problem with beat 'em ups is that you need tons of animations and poses and stuff to make it look good and interesting. Also, people kinda expect more of the enemies than an RPG, if we are facing a gelatinous beast with high resistance to magic - we're absolutely fine. But if we just keep on fighting enemies that walk right towards us and use 1 melee attack, it's gonna get a bit dull unless the player have tons of flashy skills.
My biggest concern as always is gravity, it's friggin hard to get that thing working right.

Which is why Sprite till you Die kinda ended up like it did (y'know, that game I made? with a link in my sig?) I wanted to make something more beat 'em up - fighting like. I worked a bunch with it and concluded that I couldn't get any sort of gravity or flashy controls done in RPGM, decided upon a turn based system 1vs1, where you do some combos and then the enemy attack you and you have to input the right command to take less damage from the attacks they make. All done with pictures in the end rather than neat fluent sprites though.

Could be done of course, do you have a plan?

[Bluhman]

Beat-em-ups are like as hard as you can get them. Especially if you consider something like streets of rage/final fight:

• Faux 3 dimensions - Characters can move both vertically and horizontally on the ground, as well as jump. Traditional fighters (Street Fighter 2, etc) don't have this problem, with only the ability to move left, move right, duck, and jump.
• Animations - Each character has a rich set of sprites, usually large enough to enable players to be able to tell what a character is doing
• Design - Characters need to have their moves balanced. Not just in how much damage they do, but also in how far they reach, how quickly they come out, and what sorts of controls need to be put in to move it.
• AI - It's not as simple as just scanning a player's HP/MP balance or anything like that. Really good AI's, particularly ones that use similar characters as the player, will need to take a lot of courses of action into account.
• Control and Timing - Trying to make a fighter work really well with a keyboard aside, you'll need to encode some sort of input system that's responsive and robust enough to enable a player to use their character's moves reliably.

So yeah, stick with RPGs.

[SaiKar]

I would imagine it's relatively simple to make a functional beat-em-up engine, and relatively HARD AS HELL to make it balanced and fun enough to be worth playing.

[Felix-0]

I think with RPG maker 2k3.
ABS or RPGs are the way to go.
Even though you need many poses for an ABS. (even an RPG if you're going for flashy animated skills.)

[Dr. Ace]

I'd say rpgs take more work overall. Prob more so than any other genre.

Games are hard.
RPGs the most so, unless it's like a roguelike.

Neither of these is true. Really depends on your design depending on which is more advanced. You can design a really simple beat 'em up that can be programmed in a weekend or you can make a really advanced one that requires a lot of specialised code. The same with RPGs, you can do a simple RPG or a really advanced one. Just keep in mind, with any full game you make it will cost a lot of time to make something you'll be proud of.

Edit:

Adding this one to the not true:

Beat-em-ups are like as hard as you can get them.

And this is somewhat true.

I would imagine it's relatively simple to make a functional beat-em-up engine, and relatively HARD AS HELL to make it balanced and fun enough to be worth playing.

It's not that I disagree with Sai'kar, it is difficult to make a game balanced. But this is definitely not limited to the beat 'em up genre, and a functional beat 'em up engine can take just as much time as making it balanced depending on your game design.

[Meiscool]

Not to be rude, but duh?

Of course a simple rpg isn't going to take as much effort as a highly complex and advanced design for a game of a different genre lol. That didn't even need to be mentioned.

[Dr. Ace]

Not to be rude, but duh?

Of course a simple rpg isn't going to take as much effort as a highly complex and advanced design for a game of a different genre lol. That didn't even need to be mentioned.

Then don't claim rpgs take more work overall.

[SaiKar]

Well, the thing with an RPG is that it's essentially three major things in one - exploration, combat, and a story. If you fail at making the battles fun, but the storyline is good and it's fun to run around and see the corners of the world, then the game can still be playable in a way. But a fighting game is all fighting. Nobody is there for anything other than the fighting. So you really have to polish the hell out of that or it's a huge waste of everyones' time.

[Dr. Ace]

Well, the thing with an RPG is that it's essentially three major things in one - exploration, combat, and a story. If you fail at making the battles fun, but the storyline is good and it's fun to run around and see the corners of the world, then the game can still be playable in a way. But a fighting game is all fighting. Nobody is there for anything other than the fighting. So you really have to polish the hell out of that or it's a huge waste of everyones' time.

I still don't entirely agree. Again, I agree that polishing takes a lot of time and any developer should not forget this stage of the development, but as an RPG can be broken up the beat 'em up genre can be as well. You can have an excellent fighting system, with mediocre enemies and bland levels and people will still play it. You can also have an extremely basic fighting system but advanced enemy AI and interesting levels to get people interested. It all depends on your selling point. If you make an RPG with the selling point of an excellent story then of course people will forgive a little bland combat system if the story is really well done. The same goes for any game from any genre, you have to deliver what you're selling, the rest might be forgiven.