mezbup Wrote:I just had a bit of a crazy idea that might make a game like this mega entertaining and feasible to work with kanji reviews at least...

what about making the battle system so that it has 2042 different attacks... yup, all special moves that directly relate to every kanji yet perform a unique and maybe somewhat bizzare but hopefully entertaining move when you input the correct kanji. That way whatever review comes up you can attack em with it

And think of it like this... you have to collect reviews in order to be able to use special moves... and in order to make reviews due. YOU HAVE TO STUDY!

I mean just think of the some of the interesting and abstract moves you'd have to come up with... things like harbour haha... perhaps the enemy is attacked by a torrent of snakes with water guns? So it could be a way to reinforce the primitives in a visual way at the same time.

I was thinking of that, but only two of us are working on this project thus far, and I can only create so many sprites. >_>

I mean, it'd make it hella fun, but we would need more spriters and perhaps pygame scripters for the project!

KaitouJS Wrote:You gave me an idea. I suddenly thought of the possibility that the enemy themselves wouldn't be the kanji, but that they would spout perhaps a message bubble (the kanji question) and you would have to formulate a message bubble (your kanji response) to defeat them.

I had a similar idea too, heh. Was thinking more of a traditional RPG, Final Fantasy type battle in that way, though I'm not exactly sure how battles would work.

But yeah, roguelikes definitely aren't for everyone (especially in the traditional ASCII permadeath sense), though there's no reason why it can't be graphical, either! Izuna, for example, looks quite nice. It just seems to me that a dungeon crawler type RPG with randomly generated levels might be a nice foundation for something like this.
I definitely approve of anything in the style of Cave Story, though. Anything.

Looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with!

Just throwing some ideas out there:

Battle system could be turn based, where you have different attacks, but they cost questions (So, you want to use "attack 2" you answer a question, if you fail it, the attack fails).

These attacks would differ in cost (A lame attack could be worth a mature card, an awesome attack could be worth a young, or even a new card.)

If an attack needs, say, 1 new cards, and there are no more new cards due, either it can't be used, or the cost is replaced with a higher number of easier cards. (for instance, two young cards, or three mature cards).

Same applies for defense (Opponent attacks, prompts you with a question, if you get it right either the attack fails, or it causes less damage.)

This would motivate the player to add new cards, and review both new and old, and not just stick with the ones they already know.

Same cost system could be used for other situations within the game (using items, casting spells, unlocking doors, getting hints.)

Another idea could be a "monster summoning game", where summoning costs answers (Think "Mana" in "Magic: the Gathering")

Having the game recognize wether the answer is correct or not would be troublesome, unless you restrict cards to cloze deletion, kanji writing, or multiple-choice... then again, you could just ask the player to say if they got it right or wrong (lying to the game would be like lying to anki, it would make no sense).

This way it could work for SRSing in general, instead of just kanji or RTK.

Burritolingus Wrote:

KaitouJS Wrote:You gave me an idea. I suddenly thought of the possibility that the enemy themselves wouldn't be the kanji, but that they would spout perhaps a message bubble (the kanji question) and you would have to formulate a message bubble (your kanji response) to defeat them.

I had a similar idea too, heh. Was thinking more of a traditional RPG, Final Fantasy type battle in that way, though I'm not exactly sure how battles would work.

But yeah, roguelikes definitely aren't for everyone (especially in the traditional ASCII permadeath sense), though there's no reason why it can't be graphical, either! Izuna, for example, looks quite nice. It just seems to me that a dungeon crawler type RPG with randomly generated levels might be a nice foundation for something like this.
I definitely approve of anything in the style of Cave Story, though. Anything.

Looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with!

Haha! Great to see a fellow Cave Story fan! I've been doing spriting for the project and I've come up with a conceptual image of this.



Not exactly like cave story, but similar looking. This was made in paint with tilesets and sprites that I've made for the main character.

Ha, I just had an awesome idea. How about a pokemon like game, but all the pokemon are RTK kanji?

*Also are there any python / pygame programmers out there? I have some experience with python but not much and have basically no experience making a game like this. I've got a REALLY basic tile system at the moment, currently trying iron out some bugs and get XML map loading working but it's hurting my brain =( I would really appreciate it if we could get some more help >.<

If anybody wants to talk on IRC /join #RTK on uk.ircnet.org (I think all the ircnet.org servers work)

Yes! Finally got layers to work with maps =D



Now onto character sprites.

bombpersons Wrote:Ha, I just had an awesome idea. How about a pokemon like game, but all the pokemon are RTK kanji?

*Also are there any python / pygame programmers out there? I have some experience with python but not much and have basically no experience making a game like this. I've got a REALLY basic tile system at the moment, currently trying iron out some bugs and get XML map loading working but it's hurting my brain =( I would really appreciate it if we could get some more help >.<

If anybody wants to talk on IRC /join #RTK on uk.ircnet.org (I think all the ircnet.org servers work)

I've worked with Python and pygame, my main language is Ruby though, but I would definitely be interested in helping out, especially that pokemon idea which sounds quite awesome.

KaitouJS Wrote:I was thinking of that, but only two of us are working on this project thus far, and I can only create so many sprites. >_>

I didn't read the whole thread, but it's cool that people are working on this. As for sprites couldn't you just use borrow sprites from existing games, snes/neogeo etc. They are readily available on the web.

hehe, These games are nothing like what I was thinking about, but these possibilities are cool too, for retro/lo-tech implementation.

Tobberoth Wrote:

bombpersons Wrote:Ha, I just had an awesome idea. How about a pokemon like game, but all the pokemon are RTK kanji?

*Also are there any python / pygame programmers out there? I have some experience with python but not much and have basically no experience making a game like this. I've got a REALLY basic tile system at the moment, currently trying iron out some bugs and get XML map loading working but it's hurting my brain =( I would really appreciate it if we could get some more help >.<

If anybody wants to talk on IRC /join #RTK on uk.ircnet.org (I think all the ircnet.org servers work)

I've worked with Python and pygame, my main language is Ruby though, but I would definitely be interested in helping out, especially that pokemon idea which sounds quite awesome.

Awesome =D If you I'll send you an invite to the dropbox I'm using. I started using dropbox but maybe there is a better way to deal with this?

I'm making a project for this on code.google.com but I'm not sure about the source code license. I want it to be open source and so that anyone can do whatever they want with it, but I'm not sure which license to choose... Anyone know much about this sort of thing?

I would prefer it if you made a git repository somehow (I don't know how google code works with that, maybe they have something automatic). Version control is important when coding.

As for licensing... I usually just go with GPL, but it depends on what you use, if sprites are "stolen" form other places etc. In general though, GPL is really free and makes sure no one steals the code and abuses it.

Mmmh... I can choose subversion and one I've never heard of, mercurial with google code... I'll try sourceforge see if they have git...

GPL sounds good, since Kaitou made the sprites so they aren't stolen =D

I'm fine with Subversion as well, I easily prefer git though. Git is simpler to use, extremely fast AND copies the whole tree instead of just the latest commits.

Looks like sourceforge supports git, https://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/sourceforge/wiki/Git
I'll make a project there.

For some reason I'm getting a 404 at the moment (http://sourceforge.net/projects/ankirpg/), but I'm sure they're just reviewing it or something...

In the mean time I managed to use git to "commit" the files so far.

For some reason, this link works https://sourceforge.net/projects/ankirpg/develop/

Nice! I'll copy down the code tomorrow and look through it.

Thanks a lot =D Sorry if the code is a bit messy, it's my first time trying to make such an extensive game in python =(

Sorry for the lack of being around much, bombpersons. I'm trying to run for the end of RtK and I think I'll be of a lot more help if I finish the book first so that I can have a little more free time to offer.

On the subject of borrowed sprites, I don't do that. At least not for a project like this. I believe that putting your own time and effort into spriting something adds your own personal touch to a game.. and anything I've ever done zero sprite work for I've always taken for granted. You only really realize how much work went into a game when you realize the fact that everything on the screen was drawn by you (well, that and the coder and graphics engine.. XD).

Also, the layer coding looks like it's really coming along, keep up the great work, bombpersons.

KaitouJS Wrote:Sorry for the lack of being around much, bombpersons. I'm trying to run for the end of RtK and I think I'll be of a lot more help if I finish the book first so that I can have a little more free time to offer.

On the subject of borrowed sprites, I don't do that. At least not for a project like this. I believe that putting your own time and effort into spriting something adds your own personal touch to a game.. and anything I've ever done zero sprite work for I've always taken for granted. You only really realize how much work went into a game when you realize the fact that everything on the screen was drawn by you (well, that and the coder and graphics engine.. XD).

Also, the layer coding looks like it's really coming along, keep up the great work, bombpersons.

Don't worry about it, RTK should be the most important thing =D

I also gotta comment on your resourcefulness, dude - there was one tileset in there that you used for a background that I originally intended to be used as a foreground object. It actually looks really good in the background! Perhaps I'll work on that set a bit and make more.

Cloned the git repository, but run.py isn't working, I get the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "run.py", line 12, in <module>
import glob, init, loop, map, image, loadMap
File "engine/loop/loop.py", line 15, in <module>
import glob, map, scale, image
File "engine/map/map.py", line 11, in <module>
import image, camera, glob, loadMap
File "engine/helper/loadMap/loadMap.py", line 18, in <module>
class readMap(saxutils.DefaultHandler):
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'DefaultHandler'

What Python libraries are you using, and what version of python? I have nothing but python 2.6 and pygame.

Sorry, I should have said, the dependancies are Python (2.6.X), Pygame, pyXML

Have you guys considered using the source code of another game as a base?

ropsta Wrote:Have you guys considered using the source code of another game as a base?

bombpersons won't take the source code of another game (for example, the ika engine) because he wants to get coding practice and because I think we can do better than that. There's more we can do with something that we've put together with our own hands, anyway.

I see. Well, if you need some 2d/3d work let me know.