Cmon AP lets not waste thread space you wanna talk this game over somewhere? I got like an hour before I have to do other stuff.

OK, use Goofans IRC.

Mmm I just sketched these real fast, please take a look:

character ideas?
http://i52.tinypic.com/f3w8lt.png

random drawing that has to do with this
http://i56.tinypic.com/2ahe43o.png

edit:

added another:
http://i53.tinypic.com/2ez0dw6.png
based on #3

AP u just disappeared?

My internet just TOTALLY crashed, got it back now. Sorry.

If you're still there, come back on IRC.

I r backz,

im doing other things at the moment, so it takes a while before i read messages unless something is going on.

Wait around like 10 minutes for a reply. After that, I'm probably gone.

Okay, new puzzle ideas...

- The player needs to make sulfuric.nitric/muriatic/hydrochloric acid to melt through a steel grate.
- A potion to improve strength, required to lift a heavy statue off a trapdoor.

Okay:
potions
lighting
spells
melee
character customization?

Keep em' coming.

Wait, I'm not very good with XNA. I'll use SDL. (@MOM4EVR: Does SFDL support DevIL?)

With melee, maybe we could use a D&D style system? The player chooses one weapon to train with when starting. Different weapons have different amounts of thrown and melee damage. They all have the same chance of hitting (a bit of randomness built in) except the trained one, which gets a bonus.

With ranged, you need to use the arrow keys to choose an aim vector. Then it's physically simulated in two dimensions.

Meh. Why not just make it simple attack and defense? You will start out with maybe like a stick or club, and after the tutorial rooms, you'll be rewarded with sword or other weapon.

Okay then:
Attack and defense scores (determined by you at the beginning, affected by armor and the like) affect your chance of being hit by an attack. But there's still a little bit of randomness. Then the weapon determines the form the damage takes, ie, how it affects the enemy.
I still want to have the aim vectors for ranged, though.

How about for stats we have:

HP
MP?
GP (gold)
Attack
Defense
Luck (for determining probability of not missing, criticals, getting hit, etc.)
Accuracy (closer this number is to Lv# * 3 the easier it is to use a bow.)

Wow, I've missed out a lot.

Howitz's pictures are awesome, I especially like numbers 1 & 2. Apart from that I agree with everything we've come up with until now.

I'll see if I can get a kind of general storyline started soon, and maybe the tutorial quest.

So AP likes #2 and #3, Puggsoy 1 and 2... anyone else?

About combat... lets figure out how it actually WORKS. Forget the stats for now, we don't even know what to press to attack, nor how to attack, etc.

Here are all the 2D combat forms that may fit our needs:

uses 2 keys + arrow keys to attack

uses 1 key + arrow keys(to aim) to attack

Uses 2 buttons + (basically arrow keys) to attack

Maybe you have an inventory ("backpack" or similar?) and a hotbar, you can put items in the hotbar to use them in a battle, then scroll between them with a scroll mouse or hotkeys and trigger them with a click? Kind of like Minecraft?

A hotbar? Maybe. An inventory? Obviously.

Do you think the inventory should be weight-based, or item-based? I'm personally leaning toward weight-based, I had an idea for some code that would work great for limiting the slots.

I like weight-based, it kind of bothers me that 15 leaves take up as much space as 15 large, bigger than your character dragon heads.

I do not agree with a "hot bar". Instead, here:
http://i55.tinypic.com/4iolrl.png

How it works:
Press a key to activate the item in place
Scroll using two other keys
Only use-able items are shown on the list.
I am assuming:
No item spam
We are not traveling merchants or alchemists

Though if we were alchemists, I doubt we would have to use like 10 different kinds of potions simultaneously.

I also suggest the main player stats be (not including money):

Power: +Damage

Vitality: +HP

Energy: +MP

Why only these three? These stats should be to help the player build towards their play style. You either want to deal more damage, survive longer, or be able to act more often. When you have things like luck, agility, intelligence, they become abused to the point where there really is no diversity. Its one or the other, or you will be seriously underpowered. With these 3 simple stats that increase as you level or something, it becomes much more balanced:

-You can become balanced in all 3
-You can be a powerhouse and deal massive burst damage, but die quickly and not be able to maintain attacks for a long time
-You can be a god, but deal not as much damage and also you still won't be able to keep up the attacks as much
-You can be a siege tank that mashes enemies with attack after attack, but you aren't durable and your attacks do not deal a lot of damage, but in the long run, you can deal more damage than someone who went to be a powerhouse
-If you split most of your stats into 2 branches, lets say attack and defense, then you won't die so fast from enemies, and you will deal good amounts of damage.
etc,etc.

Of course, there will be other stats determined by equipment. Playing with 3 stats is boring:

Defense: Less Damage Taken

Mastery: +Critical Chance

etc. The other stuffs.

I think Dodging should be a matter of skill on the player's behalf. AP wanted ranged weapons that are actual projectiles... dodge should be based on how quick one's fingers can move ^_^

I'll keep myself on IRC. I have games to work on for college as well.

I like your hot bar idea, but I dislike the "weight" measurement. No "slots" please. Just a list of items you have.

So you can't use items during fights with ease? or at all?

Mmm...maybe.

Come on IRC!
goofans.com/irc.php

I've been on IRC for the past 4 minutes.

Throwing out a random suggestion...

...why not make the game in a 3rd Person RTS style game perspective?

Think about it:
-Can be done in 2D
-Not restricted in just 2 direction, now you got 360 of them
-can keep basic attacks simple as possible: Just right click!
-keeps hands on keyboard and mouse
-can be very engaging and also very, very intense.

Ok now you might not be thinking "intense, awesome" fights where people die from heart attacks. But it really is! If you never heard of DotA, it uses the exact same controls as WarcraftIII (since it was a MOD for it), which is 3rd person RTS style (skip to 45 minutes):

Just imagine in 2D.

Or for some old school peoples, Ragnarok as well.

...hmm..its 2.5D. I used to play this actually, and I had hours of fun playing it. The problem was that it was a grind and all you did was kill and kill...and kill..

In about 2 minutes, I made a very basic markup of what direction we might be heading in: LINKY

So what do you guys think? Should we change anything?

http://code.google.com/p/project-yami/

For actual meetings, how about we all meet on the irc at 20:00 EST (8:00pm) every day we can. Figure out what that is for your own timezone, on your own.

Hey, wow, a time that works for me. That's nice. I'm usually on (at least, not afk) IRC around that time each night. Except Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

On the topic of what the game will be about, I think it's important for an indie game to have some kind of hook. Basically something new and inventive that nobody has seen before. And done really well. For example, while Cave Story is a great platformer with really good controls as it is, it's unique storyline and really creative enemies (what other game do you have giant fat blobs that hop and fly around and try to crush you?) make it all the more interesting. I especially like the sideways gravity for dropped objects in one particular area. It's really well thought out and very creative.

OK, well, your IRC time is 4 in the morning for me, which is probably the worst possible time I could conveive, so I am afraid I will have to miss you guys on that.

I think Red's idea of the main UI is good. As for uniqueness, I thought my idea of a "2D platformer RPG" was pretty cool. Of course, lots of other peoples' ideas would make it even more unique, but I found it a cool idea for gameplay.
One thing I don't really like is a RTS style gameplay. Too Runescape-y for me, and not enough skill.

Howitz and I decided that markup was taking up too much of the screen. Now, it's just two bars (hp/mp) in the top-left corner that stretch to around a third of the screen's width. For the item-selection, probably the same style as the first markup except maybe the very top of the screen in the middle, taking up a small amound of room.

RedTheGreen's drawing of the concept UI bar is here: http://i52.tinypic.com/30bep3a.png

For uniqueness, I had some other cool puzzles, such as one that involves a time travel spell.

You mean like braid?

EDIT: and mom, no. Check the last one I posted. That was the second one, yes, but I came up with another and ran it in Game Maker to see how it would look.

Anyway, about the new one (not the one you linked to), it looks really dull, but that's just to show the size of what it would look like.