Non-Fantasy RPGs?

From reading the various posts here, and looking in the galleries, it seems like many people are working on Fantasy-themed RPG's.

I was just curious if there were people working on any other genres? And also if there are any artists that would be interested in working on other genres (i.e. sci-fi themed RPG's, ancient Japan RPG's, etc.)?

-Elektrix

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my story is sweet caramely sci-fi wrapped in a hard and chocolatey fantasy shell. actually, of the 5 part series I've got planned (these are short parts, mind you), two of them are pure sci-fi. no spells, no dragons, no nothing. just guns and robots. fun for the whole family!

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Do not follow me for I may not lead. Do not lead for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me, either. Just leave me the hell alone.
-Jedi

Sounds very cool.......I've just finished playing The Longest Journey (an adventure game, not an RPG), and I really like the ideas of mixing sci-fi and fantasy elements together.

I'm also looking forward to checking out "Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura" although I guess that is more fantasy/steampunk than fantasy/sci-fi.

-Elektrix

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Mine's a combo of Taoist China and Lovecraft, with a pinch of Salem-era America and steampunk thrown in.

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People who claim the sky is falling obviously aren't aware the earth is falling, too.

sanehatter, that sounds REALLY interesting, definitely an unusual combination of elements. Do you plan on putting up any samples from what you're doing? It sounds very cool.

-Elektrix

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I don't even know how you'd combine Taoism with anything else, but hey, it sounds like fun to develope anyway!

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Do not follow me for I may not lead. Do not lead for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me, either. Just leave me the hell alone.
-Jedi

Well, that's half the challenge! Pastiche is my medium, juxtaposition my brushstroke. If I need to say it, the visual style is going to be a little odd, too. 🙂

(quote)Originally posted by sanehatter:
**Well, that's half the challenge! Pastiche is my medium, juxtaposition my brushstroke. If I need to say it, the visual style is going to be a little odd, too.:)

Lovecraft soudns cool though, there's gonna be some Lovecraft influences in my futuristic rpg too, have you read tht lovecraft story, think it's called the Lurking Horror, the name has slipped my mind. Mine's gonna be a blend of classic greek architecture (with a futuristic touch) for the first chapter of the game, and then switching to a fallout style for the second chapter and then FF7 in the third, it sounds kinda weird, but the plots links it together quite well. There will be magic/spells, but it manifest's itself in a sort of aura/meditation medium, so that you have to meditate to get your mana up. There won't be fireball type spells, all the combat techniques are more martial art styles, meaning you'll be able to control elements around you. For instance, at one point you have to fight a group of royal guards, you could use the weapons in your inventory or you can go for a close combat hand to hand style or you can combine the two for a sort of matrix/crouching tiger blend of telekenises and firepower.

I've drafted an event script that'll switch all the game controlls round when you enter combat meaning you can use every key on the keyboard for a different move. They'll be different styles of fighting too which you choose to develop seperatly, meaning literally hundreds of moves. once the next beta comes out I'll properly develop and test it and once my game is released I'll also distribute the source for this as well. hopefully, It should work quite well.

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Ladies and Gentlemen, as you know we have something special for you at
Birdland this evening. A recording for Blue Note Records...
**
Let's take it back to the concrete streets, original beats and real live MC's...
"We find it hard to strike a good balance between reality and fun. The reason being? Reality is often not fun." - _pipeline

Well, the first one I'm working on is a Fantasy RPG, very Final Fantasy II style, since it's a good place to start.

I am toying with the concept of a Military RPG, with the characters serving as a platoon in a war that changes depending on choices you make. No magic, no robots, no ressurections. Considering the vast history of warfare, there's plenty of eras to choose from: American Civil War, 2 World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Mexico, Napoleonic era... etc.

There's another idea that just popped into mind, but I think I'll sit on that for now.

Quote

Originally posted by KitsuneStudios:
there's plenty of eras to choose from: American Civil War, 2 World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Mexico, Napoleonic era... etc.

not to mention the 15,000 years of warfare that preceded those. 🙂

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Do not follow me for I may not lead. Do not lead for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me, either. Just leave me the hell alone.
-Jedi

I'm thinking about making an RPG with Coldstone, however, I wouldn't want to jump the gun until I've actually used the program.

Anyway, mine will be very much more real-life style. Actually, it has to do with driving. It's not all planned out yet, but, if everything goes well, I'm am almost certain this baby's gonna be a hit. 😉

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.... So, two guys walk into a bar...... the third guy ducked.

You're not thinking of remaking AutoDuel are you (the old game based on the Steve Jackson Games RPG Car Wars)? That would be totally cool!

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I doubt it. Heh, I've never even heard of that game.

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.... So, two guys walk into a bar...... the third guy ducked.

Here's a link to the Car Wars AutoDuel (pen and paper RPG) that AutoDuel was based on (an RPG game created by Origin, of Ultima fame).
(url="http://"http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/Autoduel/")http://www.sjgames.c...books/Autoduel/(/url)

Probably not possible to do anything like that, and you said you were going for realistic anyway...

But in it's day, this was one of the coolest games ever... 🙂 Had it on my old Mac 512ke. Was set in a futuristic mad max sort of world on the east coast of the US (mid-atlantic cities like New York, Washington, Atlantic City, Boston, etc.).

You could do courier missions from city to city, enter the arena to duel other drives in a car, earn enough money and buy your own vehicle, which you could customize the weapons and stats, etc......oilslicks, flamethrowers, etc.

-Elektrix

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(This message has been edited by Elektrix (edited 08-28-2001).)

Quote

Originally posted by Elektrix:
**Here's a link to the Car Wars AutoDuel (pen and paper RPG) that AutoDuel was based on (an RPG game created by Origin, of Ultima fame).
http://www.sjgames.c...books/Autoduel/

Probably not possible to do anything like that, and you said you were going for realistic anyway...

But in it's day, this was one of the coolest games ever... 🙂 Had it on my old Mac 512ke. Was set in a futuristic mad max sort of world on the east coast of the US (mid-atlantic cities like New York, Washington, Atlantic City, Boston, etc.).

You could do courier missions from city to city, enter the arena to duel other drives in a car, earn enough money and buy your own vehicle, which you could customize the weapons and stats, etc......oilslicks, flamethrowers, etc.

-Elektrix

**

Sounds VERY cool...if only I wasn't working on a different project I'd think about modernizing this..ah well...when the sh|t goes down, you better be ready..as they say.

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Ladies and Gentlemen, as you know we have something special for you at
Birdland this evening. A recording for Blue Note Records...

Let's take it back to the concrete streets, original beats and real live MC's...
"We find it hard to strike a good balance between reality and fun. The reason being? Reality is often not fun." - _pipeline

Sounds like a kickass game. It's gonna be hard to equal something like that.

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.... So, two guys walk into a bar...... the third guy ducked.

Yeah, I'm curious about how well ColdStone could actually a handle a game like AutoDuel. You could probably do a lot of the world traveling stuff without any difficulty at all, but the vehicle combat was probably beyond the scope of what will be possible in coldstone.......I don't know though, how much can coldstone do?

These would be the requirements I would see for a modernization of the AutoDuel concept:

Vehicles for Characters, with their own sprites....movement would be handled the same way as character movement, just faster depending on the type of vehicle.

Special "weapons" which would only be useable while operating a vehicle (in the game they are part of the vehicle, but could be handled as character weapons for simplicity)....in AutoDuel you could equip your vehicle with different weapons, armor, tires, etc. based on the type of vehicle....i.e. a SubCompact car could only handle a couple of weapons and light armor, whereas a van could have a number of weapons, heavy armor, etc.

Alternate weapons.....i.e. Oil Slicks (dropped from behind vehicle to create a slick surface), lasers (beam of energy using vehicle's power plant to power it), mines (dropped behind vehicle, will detonate when another car goes over it).

Since so much of AutoDuel was built around the combat (the second part of it was built around doing courier missions, but even then as you traveled the highways you would usually have to fight off attackers), I'm not sure how feasible this is, but it would be cool.

-Elektrix

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Actually, I think that it could be VERY possible to make something like that.

Hrm... if you're not going to be creating something else, maybe you and I could remake this awesome game. It sounds very promising. You know about the storyline and I could help out on the graphics and programming.

Although, if we would want to sell such a thing, we would probably have to get permission from Steve Jackson Games. But, who says we can't publish it as freeware?

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.... So, two guys walk into a bar...... the third guy ducked.

I'd definitely be interested in working with you on this actually....it sounds like you've already been putting some thought and work into the mechanics of driving, etc. so that would be half of it right there.

Regarding Steve Jackson Games, to my understanding they are pretty open to working with software developers....to be honest, I don't think it's necessary to use all the specific elements of the actual Car Wars RPG. In the chance you couldn't get their permission to use specific trademarked names, etc. there's really no reason you couldn't still do some sort of general car combat game anyway (there have been a ton of games inspired to some degree by car wars...most famously Interstate '76, and then all the games like Twisted Metal, etc. although they didn't have the RPG elements).

Honestly, the most complex part of the game I think was just in handling all the logic for the cars. Going to the auto plant to create a car and all of its stats and weaponry and armor, and then the logic of handling things like ammunition, the power in the power plant, etc.

-Elektrix

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(This message has been edited by Elektrix (edited 08-29-2001).)

Sounds like a plan.

Although, I haven't really put much thought into the mechanics of driving.. but I have an idea on how the sprites might work. Basically, I probably know as much about programming such a thing in ColdStone as the next guy.. seeing how it isn't released. Eh, we could help each other out on the programming.

If you can get some more people to help out in making this game, that would be great. I'll try my best to recruit some people as well.

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.... So, two guys walk into a bar...... the third guy ducked.