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MalkyTop · 11-15-2011, 01:55 PM

Now I can't help but think of it as Pokemon.

MaxieSatan · 11-15-2011, 05:27 PM

Something we should probably address is how much other characters wander around. Like, do they stay roughly in the same place, just moving around a bit? Do they romp about the level, but still stay in a very general area? Do they randomly go around the level?

Actually, now that I think about it, different characters would probably have different AIs. Some would probably chase you down, either to talk with you or fight you, depending on circumstances; others might follow a particular path through the level, going to different rooms as events unfolded; others might wander aimlessly around a given space. I dunno. Any thoughts?

MalkyTop · 11-15-2011, 05:56 PM

Again: Pokemon game.

All I can think about now is grand battles as pokemon games.

Chasing you down to fight/talk to you? Following a particular path? Wandering aimlessly?

Pokemoooooooooooooooon.

I'm also thinking talksprites though.

But in any case, battles, real time, turn-based? Occupies realm of its own a la Final Fantasy or, uh, the opposite of that?

And now I'm wondering what in the world Lillian's battle moves would be.

Dragon Fogel · 11-15-2011, 06:16 PM

Here is my somewhat ridiculously ambitious vision.

The overall model is an adventure game. Move from room to room and encounter people/interact with things. There is a separate battle system, which could be either actiony or RPG-style or whatever, I kind of like actiony but the point is that you've got exploration and you've got battles.
The ambitious part: Any character can die in a given round. (Besides yours, that's a Game Over.) Essentially, there are multiple paths through each round, and depending on which path you go for, you'll see different cutscenes and fight a different character at the end.

Now, at first glance, this sounds somewhat ridiculous - namely, the part where you potentially have 56 routes for every round. Or more, as special routes could be opened up if certain characters are still alive.

But this can be simplified a bit. For instance, we could have six characters who have mostly the same path for fighting Character X in Round One, and a seventh who gets a special case. So we'd be looking at more or less one to three routes per character per round - still an ambitious task, but far more manageable. There would probably be optional scenes on some of those paths if certain characters are still alive; seeing some of these in earlier rounds might be necessary to open paths on later rounds.

The big thing here, of course, is that there would be a lot of dialogue with all those paths. But it would give the game a ton of replay value. I'd say that all scenes and battles (including fights against NPCs) would be replayable from a main menu; basically the game would be daring you to unlock them all over the course of countless replays.

That's my ridiculously ambitious idea, anyhow. It would take SO MUCH WRITING and also SO MUCH BUGTESTING to make sure there weren't any scenes that triggered on the wrong path or something. But it would also be very, very fun if it worked out.

Dragon Fogel · 11-17-2011, 04:46 AM

Sir Cedric's Last Stand ~ Requiem!! Cedric

Encounter!! Vandrel Reinhardt

MalkyTop · 11-18-2011, 04:33 AM

Oh look

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Eximo sketches.

These are dumb, but they're basically what I imagine Eximo talk sprites would be like. I bet his default is the moving-back-and-forth-vacuuming one. Next common one would be the popping-open-cover-and-bearing-arms one. That first one is just the boring, not-moving one.

Of course, they wouldn't look like that up there. There'd be more frames too. I just had ideas for talk sprites and I wanted to doodle them.

I had ideas for Annaliese but whatevveerrrrr

MalkyTop · 11-18-2011, 04:04 PM

Wait a minute hang onnnnnn

Is there just one battle per stage? 'Cause that seems strange and a bit forced. I kinda feel like every round and every stage would have several battles going on. Maybe not even player character's battles, even. But if we're doing multiple battles, then what determines which fight will end in a death, and thus, the end of the round?

And how would someone play a character such as Lutherion? I mean, he's pretty insane and violent. I kinda doubt that he would just walk around and talk to people. Hell, he'd probably summon some undead monstrosities just to carry him around.

MaxieSatan · 11-18-2011, 06:41 PM

It's possible that you could sort of "make" other characters battle through event flags or something, but for battles to just happen randomly, by themselves, wouldn't make a fun game. In the conversion from one medium to another, some compromises should be made, and I think this includes not having "just when you're getting into things suddenly the round changes because of a fight you didn't know about." And it's not like we could do like we do with the battles and have some Omnipotent Voice From On High say "hey the round's ending in five minutes" because since we no longer have the perspective of an omniscient narrator it'd just be all "okay but why??? who's killing whom and where and why can't I stop it and what if I want to keep playing?"

tl;dr I think wholly random battles would be a bad thing and if that's not what Malky means then I am a doip. Doip

MalkyTop · 11-18-2011, 07:32 PM

Not entirely what I meant by random battles.

...Hey, I never said the phrase 'random battles' at all! Guy, you're such a doip!

In any case, I think what I was getting at, is the player character has the opportunity to come across other fights that are going on. These won't be entirely random either. Like in GB, it will be likely that either Lutherion or Emily will be fighting Eximo, considering things. And then the player character may get a chance to see them. The battles won't really end, but then the player character can join the fight, maybe, or then they can just ignore it. Or something.

That's really what I meant. I never meant to suggest that there could be other random fights going on that could potentially end the round. And also, I would imagine that would be a bitch to program anyways.

Not The Author · 11-18-2011, 09:54 PM

MalkyTop Wrote:And how would someone play a character such as Lutherion? I mean, he's pretty insane and violent. I kinda doubt that he would just walk around and talk to people.

That's a good point, actually! And it gives me a neat idea:

Combat and Conversation are the same thing.

Or, they'd work on the same principles, anyway. Lutherion in particular was a fan of chatting and killing at the same time, after all.

(Advance notice: The following system works best when imagined in a Turn-Based Strategy game, like the early Fallouts.) You'd have a set of combat techniques and a set of communication abilities, and this way we could give characters a heavier focus on either. I think, in a single combat round, you could pick either one or the other, or both at once for an effectiveness penalty. Characters would have a "reason" or "mood" bar or something in addition to their HP, which would be influenced by conversation - I imagine people would have resistances to certain types of communication, and their individual Comm stats would vary depending on who's talking, probably.

A few other things I just now thought of:

The game might encourage running from battle if you get in over your head - NPBattlers probably ought flee to prolong rounds, but it'd depend both on the Battler in question and their MoodReason levelstatus.
I forgot the other things

MalkyTop · 11-19-2011, 12:35 AM

So then....turn-based combat...?

EDIT: Wait a minute oh my god

Insult sword-fighting?

Not The Author · 11-19-2011, 01:54 AM

Absofuckin'lutely

Pick Yer Poison · 11-19-2011, 08:32 PM

Quote:<PickYerPoison> You know an interesting method of doing this gb vg thing might be
[14:30] <PickYerPoison> More like a "define the initial conditions and save the scenario" kind of editor
<PickYerPoison> So you set everyone up with like defined sprites (e.g. "walk left" "talk" "attack A" "attack B" etc.)
<PickYerPoison> And you set up their feelings towards one another at the start
<PickYerPoison> So like "battler 4 has a 50% feeling about battler 7" where it might range from -100% (FUCK YOU FOREVER) to 0% (neutral) to 100% (oh god let's make babies)
<PickYerPoison> And so depending on who you kill or fight that could change how everyone feels about you
<PickYerPoison> That might not be the best way to go about it but it's interesting

Quote:<PickYerPoison> I do however thing that our best plan if we actually do this is not to make each battle separately but to make an editor that can be used to make battles
<MrGuy> That's probably wise
<MrGuy> Set up an engine, and then people design the levels/characters individually
<PickYerPoison> So you can set up like peoples' names, the grandmaster, the zones, scripted events possibly

Dragon Fogel · 11-20-2011, 07:30 AM

More songs.

Encounter!! Vulm'mram'vuul
Zone!! Frozen Destinies
Battle!! Merrifield
Encounter!! Dorukomets

MalkyTop · 11-25-2011, 06:53 PM

I was thinking of this as a battle song and was all 'this is for someone all techno-y and futuristic' and then I immediately thought of Quantos. Battle music for Quantos? I think someone already suggested something....

And also I love this song. Probably doesn't quite fit anybody. I was all 'It's for someone who's kinda sleezy and a male' and then for some reason I thought of Scofflaw but that doesn't work at all. So I dunno.

Woffles · 11-26-2011, 02:58 PM

Chimera - Encounter!! Spectator

**Schazer** · 12-07-2011, 02:23 AM

I know this isn't really appropriately video-gamey, but for me it fits Vyrm'n sort of like I imagine Traitor fits Kracht for Sollie?

Not The Author · 12-21-2011, 08:30 AM

Pick Yer Poison Wrote:
Quote:<PickYerPoison> I do however thing that our best plan if we actually do this is not to make each battle separately but to make an editor that can be used to make battles
<MrGuy> That's probably wise
<MrGuy> Set up an engine, and then people design the levels/characters individually
<PickYerPoison> So you can set up like peoples' names, the grandmaster, the zones, scripted events possibly

I had an idea which sounds simple but is probably painfully difficult to actually do: create a procedural generation program based on adjectives.

Depending on how deep the player wanted to go, they could (potentially) customize every little thing about the round or a character to get it just so - you could say a round is "rocky," for instance, but then go into the rocks that make up "rocky" and make them "blue," then go into blue and pick a certain shade, creating an "((indigo) blue) rocky" environment. Or something. Each adjective would have associated nouns that you could then modify further. Additionally, one could put nouns in other nouns with a "contains" modifier.

I think an example might work best.

Contestant (Name (Gormand)) CONTAINS
- Body (spherical (pockmarked), brown (dark), meaty (moist, tough)) CONTAINS
- - Limbs (many (20 (4 legs)), tentacles (cylindrical, wavy), even dispersal, white (ivory), fleshy (moist, soft))
- - Eyes (one, large (very), human (iris red (ruby), bloodshot (slight))
- Mind (and here I'd describe his psychology and motivations, but fuck that, it's late)

Limbs, because his arms and legs are interchangeable; these classifications are as always tentative and exploratory.

The thing about using adjectives is it also allows one to set up a system to create procedural music. Pulling from certain adjectives (I'm not sure the player could modify this, as it'd depend on the mentality and appearance of both the encounterer and encounteree), an engine could tack together certain instuments with certain rhythms and tempos and stuff, I don't know, okay

I'm torn between this system being too complicated and just complicated enough. Does this make sense to anyone else?

Now for the things you actually care about.

MalkyTop Wrote:'It's for someone who's kinda sleezy and a male'

Mr. Saturday? No, no, I think he's supposed to be competent, and this song doesn't instill me with confidence in its owner's competence. Maybe Parset or Jeremy? Hm.
Here's the list of everyone canon, for reference.

Champion!! Saint Scofflaw ("Epilogue!!" is a little too straight-forward in my incredibly-subjective-and-not-based-on-anything opinion, but this is probably not helping Malky separate this from Pokemon at all. May also work for Encounter!! or Requiem!!)

Battle!! Jennifer Tull

Encounter!! The Charlatan

SleepingOrange · 01-08-2012, 11:17 PM

I've been tossing around the idea of this for Encounter!! Cascala. It kind of fits, but it kind of doesn't.

My first thought when I heard it on the radio was actually "This could be a Legend of Mana piece", but then I thought of her.

Maybe there's someone it's better for though, or maybe there's a better piece for her.

Lankie · 01-09-2012, 11:48 AM

Battle!! Maxwell & Sikarius

Not The Author · 03-24-2012, 04:07 AM

what are you talking about, this is absolutely the most important thing I could possibly be doing right now

Encounter!! Jacob Helix

Battle!! Jacob Helix

Conquest ~ Encounter!! Gormand

War ~ Battle!! Gormand

(12-07-2011, 02:23 AM)Schazer Wrote: »I know this isn't really appropriately video-gamey [...]

It doesn't really have to be! More accurately, the thread title would read The Grand Battle Video Game and Grand Battle Soundtrack Discussion Thread, particularly if you want to view this thread in light of the GradMass cameo round.

Hm. Maybe I should just open this thread up to Non-Battle Grand Battle Discussion, or something. I don't know. Would anyone be terribly opposed? Not like this thread sees much use anyway. I swear I'll get back to gameythoughts sometime or another, really

**Schazer** · 03-25-2012, 07:13 AM

For a lack of a better contender, this is my Jetsam themesong.

Not The Author · 03-25-2012, 09:26 PM

Famine ~ Grand Battle!! Gormand

SleepingOrange · 10-31-2012, 10:45 PM

I've got a few new additions to additate, plus I've updated the list with everything in this thread:

Battle!! Sister Clara Jungfrau

Requiem!! Sister Clara Jungfrau

Zone!! Witch's Haunt

Zone!! Eternity Plateau

Champion!! Kargrek Strongarm

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