Best way to script an SRPG

December 28, 2016, 07:01:01 pm

Not sure if this belongs in the script support board as I din't have a script to debug rather I have question on how people think I should start...

So I'm making the beginnings of an SRPG (think Fire Emblem).

I'm trying to think what the best way to script this would be I've got a lot of different ideas and don't want to rewrite it 10 times so was hoping for some extra opinions before I start, during a battle I'll need:
a) a map...
b) units placed around the map - note for various of the mechanics to work without excess complexity, units will be locked to a tiled grid and only be able to move in 4 directions
c) units moving when instructed - will only ever be one moving at a time
d) battle animations etc
e) a menu interface
f) a cursor you can move around the screen to select stuff
g) other logic (including pathfinding and AI and stuff but I'm happy with that side of things)

Decisions:
1. Should I try and do this in the sphere map engine or just do it in script with the map as an image
2. Should I tie the cursor to the mouse or have it movable with arrow keys or do a hybrid - perhaps moves with arrows but you seperately have a mouse pointer and if you click anywhere the cursor jumps there (if using the map engine and doing arrows should the cursor it be handled as a Person or drawn with a render script))

Pros of the map engine
1. I'd like to have animated tiles in the maps hence the map engine could make this easier
2. I'd like to have birds flying over and stuff which is easy to do in the map engine
3. The combatants will be doing normal walking/running animations which means if I use the map engine some of the logic is pre-built for me
4. I can use the inbuilt engine array of people to keep track of combatants
5. I can use the sphere map editor to set up animated tiles and stuff

Pros of not using the map engine
1. In some circumstances I'll need to draw stuff underneath combatants as well as ontop of them so I'll likely end up drawing at least some sprites of the combatants with a renderscript if I'm in the map engine
2. I'll probably want a button that skips animations - i.e. if someone is walking between two spots there will be a press button to make them jump there -> not sure how I'd do this if I've queued up movement commands within the map engine
3. If someone is walking between two spots and I want to draw something behind them the ME functionality breaks... I could handle this in a renderscript (draw their sprite on their ME X and Y coords whilst having the ME walk an invisable box between the coordinates or something)
4. I don't need to use spritesets and can use my own custom sprite format which may work better for what I'm doing)