Immersive Sim Design

[Brosephus 7]

So I was wondering if it was possible to add elements of Immersive Sims into a project in RPG maker.

Immersive sims are games like Deus Ex, Dishonored, and Far Cry 2. The term is kinda broad, but I basically mean two things:

 

1) Immersive sims have realistic level design. They feel more like a real, lived-in place than a video-gamey challenge tunnel. 

The maps feel like they were designed as an actual building first before the designers decided which enemies would go where or

which doors would be locked. Thief II is a good example.

 

2)Immersive sims allow the player to find their own way through the game. They tell you what to do, but don't tell you how to do it.

Levels can be finished in multiple ways, and you're allowed to pick your own routes and gameplay style. The designers do give you

some hints on how to finish a mission, but they let go of the player's hand for the most part.

 

Obviously, you can't make Deus Ex in RPG Maker - It's designed to make JRPGs - but I was wondering if elements of this philosophy

could be incorporated without the need for lots of massive overhaul scripts or excessive hassle.

 

Your thoughts are appreciated.

Edited January 2, 2017 by Brosephus

[+ Chaosian 617]

Typically, I design games from either the mechanic, story, or aesthetic first- and then find the genre after that. Rarely is it ever the other way around. I would recommend doing the same for your game, regardless of the genre. Star with what you want to do in the game, what you want in the game, and what you want the game to be about / make you feel - because starting from genre here isn't going to be particularly useful.

 

To elaborate:

 

The question you're asking is in what way could you make an immersive simulation in RPG Maker. I'd start by distilling what the genre is, and then extracting out from there what I could probably make. It's sorta an old term, like "RPG" that has long, long, been exceeded in meaning. In my mind Immersive Sim was sorta a name for proto-sandbox games that you don't hear about too much anymore. It seemed to be a genre about having a detailed world, and watching how two different things in the world interacted with each-other back before that was quite rare, when you would perform the lockpick skill on the chest, and the fight skill on the monster, or have your game consisting of simply running and shooting. At the time, it was the genre based on "what happens when garbage can meets proximity mine", and getting cool and emergent results out of that. Now-a-days a lot of games would classify as an "immersive sims" of the late 90s and early 00s. Outside of maybe Nintendo games, most games are made with the intention of having levels portrayed in realistic locations - and a good amount of games offer more than one playstyle now, have multiple solutions to one problem, or are bursting to the brim with rats, chickens, diary entries, and flavor text. Generally, we just call that RPG.

 

That's a long way around to me saying I really think you're in the wrong engine if you wanna make something in the spirit of an immersive sim. For one, you'll always be fighting with the engine if you want to make the kind of toolkit that helped define the genre. Multiple play styles or anything that involves mechanics besides walking around, talking, and having battles are going to be both difficult to design for, and create. People will say you can do more with the RPG Makers, and they're right to a fair degree, but if you're going to do "more" maybe just do it in something like Unity, UE4, Game Maker, or Clickteam Fusion where you can make it in half the time and in the exact way you want it without having to learn how to make compromises.

 

With RPG Maker, there's poor support for the object and function oriented game designs. Most games, like Deus Ex, System Shock, or Thief, used what most engines would consider prefabs now-a-days. Things that can be dragged and dropped into the world and have all their functionality built-in and will 100% function. RPG Maker isn't really designed for that, the eventing system is very much designed for scripted encounters.

Now, what you could do to get this functionality is make your game rely greatly on the common events system, and you could go places with that - though you might find it a bit cumbersome. You could make a "box" common event that has all the features of a box that you want, then apply that to an event in one map. From then on, every time you want to have a box, you could just copy that one event in that one map. That way all your boxes would act the same way.

 

I find Immersive Sim to have also have been a 3D genre. Many mechanics often relied on this, and the level design did as well. You're at a disadvantage when working in 2D regardless of the engine, but if you do plan to move forward, you could also see it as an opportunity. Just like it is a challenge to make a 2D game like Castlevania 3D, it could be an interesting and fun opportunity to make Dishonored 2D. How DOES one do stealth, detection, and the intricate level design when working with just X and Y? Do you fake Z? Do you add something to compromise?

 

With regards to the other features of realistic level design, and multiple play routes, those are sort of self-answering questions. Most games now devote time to having realistic settings, the majority of RPG Maker games probably do and the RTP is built with the concept in mind. Player's aren't playing in the void, or in spaces where interiors are bigger than exteriors. As for multiple solutions, that just comes down to design, and again, the toolkit in which players can perform these actions.