Ace Academy: Lessons through Roleplay

[+ Titanhex 284]

Alright, here we go!  This will be a long post, but I think it's a project with super fun potential!  It's based off the concept I'll present to you in the following few paragraphs.

 

The Concept (that I'm using as a base)

 

I'm sure none of you have heard of a dA group called "Academy of Heroes", or many others like it. The details are here, but let me explain.

 

Basically, you create and draw a character for submission. The team looks over the submissions and admits your character into the Academy. The character is admitted to a house. There are several houses represented by some symbol.  In the case of AoH a color.

 

From there you socialize with your house and sometimes other houses through roleplay, chatrooms, discussion board, and even just drawing.

 

After a little time honing your skills, exams come up and your character is tested on various things. It's just like an Academy. You have to draw your character achieving his or her assignment.  Drawings earn points for your house.

 

There's things like dances, house parties, festivals, etc.  A lot of events.

 

There's also classes, mid-terms, and finals.

 

You have teachers and faculty which teach various classes like shadow magic, fire magic, wind magic, etc.

 

It's all kept very basic and easy to interpret and mesh with. The time period style is mostly Renaissance to modern which allows a lot of room for characters, but the guidelines aren't hard-set.

 

It's designed to get artists to be motivated to draw more and try a lot of things, with an emphasis on illustration.

 

Now I'm not here to promote it. What I'm here to do is explain the concept so that I can explain what I want to do.
 

To continue on...

 

My Concept (for RPG Maker)

 

My idea is similar, but instead of art it's game design.

 

Think of it like a giant RMVX social network, but instead of the idea of everyone being their username, we instead make characters around an Academy. The Academy teaches RPG Maker skill classes in the form of ingame lessons that a student-character would be a part of.

 

The student-character would also have classmates and housemates, who would be other student-characters that he or she would interact with.

 

The teachers would be teacher-characters who would feel confident in their category and would teach it in-game.

 

Instead of it being a giant game though, it's a bunch of small games submitted by members of the Academy.

 

There's midterms and classes, fall dances and etc. All these will be displayed by an "Activity Board" where you can look up what's currently happening. Participating in Activities earns you House Points, which are tallied at the end of a semester to declare a house winner.

 

The maps and other various things can easily be provided to the people in the Academy to create a game with. Then they just have to add their own touches and events, and use other people's characters.

 

To be admitted you just submit a character sheet.  The character sheet template will have all optional and required information listed.

 

Teaching & Classes!

 

First we'll need classes that can be taught.  I think since it's an RPG we'll want things tailored around RPG Maker skills.

 

Currently we believe these are suitable categories:

 

Artisan and Engineering

Design Evented (Scripted too if we find a teacher for it) systems for crafting, fishing, mining, shopping, alchemy and interacting with objects and devices, and possibly even menu design.

 

Investigations, Diplomacy and Journalism

This is Eventing via scene design. Learn how to write dialogue.  Create an engaging dramatic or action driven scene.

 

Acquisitions and Exploration

Explore the world, spelunk caves for treasure, and find artifacts in the world. This is Mapping, Puzzles and Level Design.

 

Combat

Fight dangerous monsters. Learn how to balance battle mechanics and make engaging enemies.

 

Art

Currently we're looking at how to best break down art. Our ideas are

(Tilesets and Parallax)

(Sprites, like objects and characters)

(Character Art, Faces, Battlers)

(GUI, Titlescreen, Game Over)

 

 

 

If you have any classes you want to suggest please do!

 

Of course, having a teacher available for them will depend on their availability!

 

Houses!

There will be 4 houses, but how many admitted per house is not yet decided. (3 per house, with the limit being raised as more admissions come in)

 

We're going with Card Suits as house identifiers. We fill it works well with "Ace Academy."

 

Uniformity

 

Some standards will be needed. One example is designing your character in the RTP standard. Like I said, this is so people who might not be good at pixel/sprite art can join in via a character generator.

 

However if you want to recreate characters for your game in your own design that's perfectly fine too as long as you don't mind doing the extra work.

 

There is no requirement for face graphics, since this may cause clashing artwork. If you want to add busts or faces to your game you're allowed to.

 

There is no standard on scripts you have to use. You can achieve your game in whatever way you please.

 

Currently there is no lock on using an engine. However all the templates will be in the RMVX-Ace engine. If there's an interest in RMVX, that's easily adapted and can be done. XP users may need to speak to someone (likely me) about an XP version they can use, but it will be done in RMVX style.

 

Template

 

There will be a template RMVX-Ace project made for each part of the Academy. The template will only have map transfers and the areas relevant to that map.  I.E. A house would have the commons, kitchen, bedrooms for each member, an outside patio, etc.  This template can then be used to show a scene that may have happened between characters in the house.

 

There will only be a few of these Templates, as there is going to be some encouragement for students to make their own maps to show how they accomplished something. In this case a student is free to use whatever style they want.  Infact, you don't even need to use the style of the template if you want to recreate the template in your own style.

 

Minimum & Maximums (for recruitment)

 

Alright, I've landed on a base recruitment limit.

 

Teachers

 

We'll need a teacher for each category of RPG Maker skillsets. The skillsets are still being thought up and tied into the ingame concept.

 

I'd love to duplicate the Examiners idea from AoH but I'm not sure I'll have enough people for it.

 

Students & Houses

 

I'm going to start with 4 Houses and 3 spots per house as a minimum. That means we'd need at least 12 students.

 

I'd love more.  I think I could go up to 12 people per house as a maximum, but I don't see that happening ever any time soon.

 

Detail in Discussion:

 

Development Positions (1)

 

Secondary Lead: This is the most open and yet most difficult development position. Requires a lot of work.

 

Position Description: Secondary lead will ensure the project stays on focus for it's intended purpose of creation. They will assist in development of a lot of the design and details. They will help lay the framework and ensure few problems arise in the future.

 

Duties & Responsibilities

• Ensure the group stays open to novice RM users
• Ensure the group offers something for intermediate and expert RM users
• Designing the group infrastructure to make sure everything is organized and accessible
• Make sure student expectations and teacher expectations are clear and easily accessed
• Make sure group information is clear and easily accessed
• Place reasonable limitations and enrollment caps that meet community interest
• Ensure the student-to-teacher ratio is effective
• Create Rules & Guidelines of the group
• Set-up a very open, welcoming, and creative world lore that allows students to thrive
• Create a world lore that also has some restrictions to make sure character creation is a creative process
• Make the world-lore open for Event Planning to work uninhibited.
• Design student growth details
• Design house names and details

 

Why you want this position:

 

It's the most challenging position. But it's also the most creatively open position. Here you'll get to use a lot of your imagination to design what the "RPG Academy" is.  If you feel strongly about the project and believe you understand the goal and purpose of it, this is a great position for you. Your decisions will directly affect the success of the group. You will be working from inception into the final model.  This position is about making the group open to as many people as possible while staying fun and challenging.

 

NOTE: This position will put you first in line for "Event Planner" if you choose to do that after finishing the final model. The Event Planner will design fun and interesting activities for students & teachers to celebrate different holidays, seasons, and just general joy and activity. They'll be in charge of creating ways for Houses to earn points, creating Quests, and organizing many of the activities students will opt in to do.

 

CURRENTLY FILLING: Infinity Thief, Astellus

 

Graphic Designer: You won't have to do any pixel or sprite work. You'll be drawing the look and theme of the Academy that will be found around the community.

 

Position Description: The Academy will need banners, sigs, topic headers, enrollment "forms" and other artistic touches to make it more appealing and feel like it follows a theme.

 

Duties & Responsibilities

• Create a banner for people to put in their signatures
• Create pins, buttons, banners, award icons, etc.
• Create a banner for the academy name
• Create a banner for each house
• Create topic headers that are flashy and appealing
• Create the enrollment forms for teachers and students to use
• Should know some typography
• Should have Photoshop, Illustrator, GIMP, or equivalent tool(s)

 

Why you want this position:

 

This is a great position to really work on graphic design skills. You will be creating the theme, look, and feel of the Academy that people will recognize. Your contributions will make the Academy fun and appealing, which will affect enrollment. Remember the Academy is about being open and friendly, not elitist, so you don't have to feel pressured into making a masterpiece.

 

FILLING: Bunni89

 

Template Creator:  This is a rather simple and easy mapping position. You'll be making the interiors, exteriors, and layouts for distributed maps in the group using predefined tilesets. There is no parallaxing.

 

Duties & Responsibilities

• Create maps for each house
• Create maps for various activities and events that occur which require a template map

 

Why you want this position:

It's the easiest development position there is. That aside, if you enjoy mapping and can work with various tilesets to make visually stunning maps (This may require you to be able to also event map-driven effects) then this is a great position.

 

If I need more people or have more positions I'll be sure to let everyone know and open those up.  Right now these are the only positions I need. One person per position for now.

 

UNFILLED

 

To Apply:

 

Place your application in this forum and like this post. If you're more comfortable PM it to me.

 

Include why you want to be a developer for this project.

What position you're applying for.

What skills you have that are applicable to the position.

Any possible sample work or things you've done that would make you a great person for this position.

How much time you have to devote to the project.

 

Public Relations:

 

FILLED: Astellus.

 

Conclusion:

 

I'll be assisting each and every person on their position, providing sprite-work, guidance, assistance, discussion,and finalizing details and providing drafts and design framework for everyone to use as it becomes available. I'll also be providing deadlines and working directly with the public and admin to make sure this Academy is a success!

Edited February 16, 2013 by Titanhex

[Proffer 8]

Are you planning on starting an Academy of Heroes here, for the members in the RMVXA.net forums? Or are you just promoting the existing one on DeviantArt?

It's a fantastic idea. I'd probably be down for some of that action.

[Bunni89 85]

Sorry to butt in here, but I'm assuming this will be something like creating a version for this forum? If so, I'm all for it!

[+ Titanhex 284]

Damn you guys were quicker than I could write.

 

Editted first post.

 

Yup, but it's not a small project. That's why I made this discussion.  I need to recruit people and receive feedback.

 

I need to discuss logistics like how many houses, what they'll be, how many classes, what they'll be, how many teachers, who will be them, how many admissions, etc.

 

Also we'll need contributors, and getting enough people will be difficult. Creating the tools we need for getting the most out of our interactions will be a necessity. It's a largely social group idea.

 

I will probably have to branch out to RMN, RMVX, RRR, etc to get enough people.  Which also brings up a discussion of will it be limited to just Ace or can we also do RMVX and XP?

Edited January 3, 2013 by Titanhex

[Bunni89 85]

Aw bugger that's bad for me as I had my own idea for a game loosely fitting the theme of a 'magical academy'...

I'd rather not contribute anything to this project then, cos I'd have a big link to some prior game of a similar genre and might look like I'm copying whenever in the far future I might actually do the game...

Good luck to everyone participating though! I'll definately watch the topic cos I'd like to see what people come up with

 

EDIT: Oh, but this also seems to be strictly an american school from all the terms you're throwing about. So I'd probably be totally out of my depth anyway XD Don't you guys go all crazy over sports and stuff and have no uniforms?? Also wtf is a midterm... yeaaaah perhaps gonna give this a miss XD

It's a shame there aren't more brits on the net, I'll have to make a note to research foreign schools for this future game I guess...

Edited January 3, 2013 by Bunni89

[+ Titanhex 284]

Naw, don't think that'd be a problem.  "Magical Academy/College" is one of those themes that is widely used.  It's actually used a ridiculous amount.  I doubt anyone would call you out if you were a part of this project and made a "Magical Academy" game later on.  If nothing else, being a part of this would help inspire you and give you great ideas for your game.  Hell people might even be more likely to play your game once it's out ebcause they'd want to see what you did after this.

Edited January 3, 2013 by Titanhex

[Proffer 8]

Color me interested.
I think it would be a great little project.

[Thebigzumawinz 14]

I'm down fir the idea if its going to get going ;D

[Bunni89 85]

I suppose you have a point XD Its just that my game was gonna be sorta more of a simulator/visual novel, so all this talk about actual classes and assignments is pretty much the gameplay. (As opposed to a lot of magic school settings where its just an excuse to fight monsters and stuff, the only actual sims I've seen are Magical Diary and Enchanted Folk, though Mana Khemia is pretty close)

Haha yeah I suppose I'd best just try not to give too much away here, and later I can point people to these posts to prove I didn't steal your idea XD I'm still a noob anyway who hasn't made a single project yet, so I might lurk for a bit and hone my skills before jumping in

[+ Titanhex 284]

Well, this might not happen for a month.  (Deadline I've set)

 

Course it could get going faster. We'll see.

 

What I need is a team of people willing to help me out with figuring up the details for how this will be done. Then that team can fill in faculty roles, since they'll be familiar with the inner machinations of the "Academy."

[Bunni89 85]

I doubt I will progress to the level of being able to churn out lesson game snippets on demand within a month when I can barely map XD But I'll lurk around and wait for the moment to strike, haha XD

[+ Titanhex 284]

Oh this isn't a lesson game. It's just a reason for people to make games.  The emphasis is actually more on making cutscenes, but there'll be some base things like battles, gold, eventing, and other parts of RPG Maker.

 

You won't be learning how to event or script, or map. This won't teach you that. That's something you'll have to learn on your own.  But the aim is for this to be open to beginner and intermediate users, and you can put your own touch on the game you make.

 

Sometimes it can be hard just to make something, and even harder to make something small. This is a reason to do that, and allows us to fiddle with the maker with a reason behind it and not some crazy huge plot, but rather something much simpler.

 

The role of faculty would be to set assignments like "Prove your worth of fire by collecting flames from a volcano." And perhaps making a small game where they talk about using fire, which the player might use in the assignment later on.

 

Example from AoH of a teacher speaking about earth magic.

 

As you can see this could easily be emulated into a tiny game cutscene, and you could get creative with how it's set up.

But you may be more comfortable, Bunni, as a student :3

 

I'll begin active recruiting in search of people interested with designing and teaching.

Edited January 3, 2013 by Titanhex

[Kcaz64 0]

Sounds interesting. Am I correct in understanding that it's basically crafting short little "games" based off a prompt? Like a writing exercise, but for games?

 

I'd totally be in on something like that.

[+ Titanhex 284]

In a nutshell, yes. That's correct.

[Wren 179]

So our characters, can they just be RPG Maker VX Ace character generator characters which we then share with our house and we can make games with this cast of characters in response to assignments, such as:

 

Craft a game involving an egg hunt:

 

So we take the cast of characters from our accadamy house and make some little game where we have eggs hidden in different objects around a map just to keep our eventing and map making skills sharp?

[+ Titanhex 284]

Sure they can come from the generator if you want. Whatever means you acquire the sprite is up to you.

 

You'll share the sprite with the community and they can use that sprite in various scenarios upon your permission (Or freely if you so deem it).

 

You may be doing assignments solo, but you can certainly have fellow house members make a cameo. Some things may even be a duo or group project. That's in the details.

 

Likely there'll be house points that come with rewards and such for people who complete their assignment.

 

There may even be some progressive stat development like an RPG, where your character gains a skill after completing an assignment, or a level. There may be quests as well.  Even an allowance, gold and shop-keeper and junk like that.

 

The details need to be worked out, suggestions can be provided, and we we'll move towards opening of admission day.  I imagine it could be a lot of fun.

 

What I need are people interested in helping with the development of this project before it opens.

Edited January 3, 2013 by Titanhex

[+ Titanhex 284]

Hey, I figured I'd start off some of the development and get the ball rolling while we wait for interested participants of varying ... varieties.

 

Teaching & Classes!

 

First we'll need classes that can be taught.  I think since it's an RPG we'll want things tailored around RPG skills.

 

So, lets go with some elements:

Fire
Water
Wind
Earth
Lightning

Ice

Shadow

Light

 

Then fighter skills:

Weaponry
Animalism

Archery

Ninpou

Martial Arts & Chi

 

If you have any classes you want to suggest please do!

 

Of course, having a teacher available for them will depend on their availability!

 

Houses!

Then we'll need to decide how many houses, and how many admitted per house.

 

Also we'll have to decide what symbol will divide each house and the house names.

UPDATE: It struck me. I think we can use colorful stones to represent houses. ex. Lazuli, Graphite, Jade, Obsidian.

 

I've seen colors and animals used. If someone can think of interesting things beyond these please suggest them here!

Beyond this I'm not sure what else needs discussing without hard members interested in a little minor development.

Edited January 3, 2013 by Titanhex

[+ Novem 344]

I need to discuss logistics like how many houses, what they'll be, how many classes, what they'll be, how many teachers, who will be them, how many admissions, etc.

 

Also we'll need contributors, and getting enough people will be difficult. Creating the tools we need for getting the most out of our interactions will be a necessity. It's a largely social group idea.

 

I will probably have to branch out to RMN, RMVX, RRR, etc to get enough people.  Which also brings up a discussion of will it be limited to just Ace or can we also do RMVX and XP?

 

Well, it's a school isn't it? Wouldn't dorm rooms be more fun? The "houses" could be based around the contributors from each community, with the size scaling to how many people submitted (with all of the dorm buildings being the same size as the biggest one for consistency, as that would be what real dorms are like, at least I think they are...).

 

As far as this being a social idea, we're going to need some way to mass-communicate. We need some kind of server for text-chat and project file uploads that people can login to at any time to post what they're thinking about, what they're working on, or discuss between specific people how certain communications between characters would work. On the upload-download side though, we need to have a certain setup for the names of each file so we know what project has been turned in and where. RMVX Ace is already not very accommodating for team projects, we need to use something else to make it more so. I really hope the next RPG Maker has more team features, it's a real mess whenever you try and coordinate with other people.

[Jonnie91 1,149]

A user forum will be created here on VXAN. I'll be assisting Titan in creating this larger project. There isn't any other better way of mass communication than a forum. If the project becomes VERY popular we'll create an off-site forum. There is no better place to host stuff than on a forum. Also, we can simply use Dropbox to host the game file. Although I think you'll find that it'll be loads of small games brought together by a number of users, which i assume are the dedicated Leaders. We also need to discuss the fact of which engine to use. We cannot possibly use different engines. We can only use one. So that we can actually combine the projects into one "Academy". 

[+ Titanhex 284]

Well there's no emphasis on real-time development like in a traditional community project.  If you submit something, it won't affect someone else's work nor be dependent on it.

 

Much like in AoH your drawing is not a collaboration (Unless otherwise allowed) but an individual piece.

I forsee the format being something like this, with the Assignment idea as an example:

Teacher makes a game that runs much like an RPG tutorial, where he explains the basics of fire and how to use it. He then gives a demonstration. From there, he asks the students to do something, like bring him fire salts, beat an ice ogre, or just demonstrate his ability to use fire on targets. He then concludes his tutorial and thus the game.

Student creates a new game that would be in response to the assignment, where they follow the assignment criteria to make a little game.

 

The first thread post would be the assignment via the teacher. Follow up posts would be just responses by anyone and submission of their game by the students via link in the post.

 

There will also be ways to earn house points by say decorating your room in your demoratory and showing it off, or any number of RPG Maker activities centered around the Academy.  Just submitting games centered around your time at the Academy earns house points.

 

I do think an IIRC chatroom or something of the like would be great, and can be hosted offsite. But that is not my area of expertise and thusly not under my control.

 

The new forum area will be ideal enough to handle a lot of the work for this.  Discussion subforums for each house can be created that would allow roleplaying scenarios which could later be turned into games. Same with a chatroom.

 

As for a standard engine, I think we may not need to set a standard engine.  If the games are all submitted individually, there's no reason you couldn't make your response in VX. However, there are some standards that will need to be adhered to. Like we can't ask people to make their character in both RTP and Kaduki. Likely to keep this open to a lot of people we'll be doing RTP Character Graphics so that generators can be used.  But we can do the Academy tileset in Celianna or Mack.

I'm thinking we'll allow full support for VX Ace and possibly normal VX since it's an easy port. If you use XP you may have to do extra work to use XP and join.

Edited January 3, 2013 by Titanhex

[Bunni89 85]

Aww.. mandatory RTP character style? Would there be any possibility to allow someone to break that for the sake of unified appearance? i have my own cartoony sprite base to match the fact my art style isn't anime. So would I be allowed to make my games in that style (with me improvising bunni-style conversions of other people's characters) and then have an RTP sprite of my own character that other people can use?

It'd be a lot more work for me but I was expecting to do that anyway XD Since probably most people won't have big character portrait busts and I kinda love em XD (Though I dunno if people would like to see their characters reimagined in my goofy style)

 

EDIT: oh and I like the sample class comic and I'm eager to see what the 'laws of the universe' end up as for this version. (Dunno if its gonna be the same as the deviantart group or you're gonna invent stuff yourself) I'd love to try a silly little game based on the topic of those magic seeds, though I wish I knew how to make a minigame. (Something like mash the A button fast to successfully grow the plant)

Though I figure it'd be easy to just make silly skits on the topic XD Like say my character messes up and gets a lemonstone that grows super fast and takes over the classroom and then its a zany mini adventure to stop the crazy thing and in the end they're just like 'wait I just destroyed my homework' and fail XD

Anyway I can't wait to see plot info and guidelines so I can try and create a charrie perhaps :3

Edited January 3, 2013 by Bunni89

[+ Titanhex 284]

Haha well you definitely got the right idea on how this works, Bunni.

 

You're free to render your game in non-RTP, so long as you provide an RTP template for others to use.

[Bunni89 85]

Okie doke, that's what I meant but I ain't good at talkin' XD So that's fine by me!

*sits eagerly* :3

May I just add that if you can pull this off I'm sure it'd become huge and you'd be super famous for it This is sort of a more amazing memorable project than just a regular game

[Overtime 10]

I still don't get reading TC's (Topic creator, if you're slow) first post 10+ times. Care to explain it correctly?

 

3rd EDIT: What about maps that are "replicated"? As in I create maps that is a replication of a NON-RPG map. Here's my examples:

 

http://unpayedovertime.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d5jws0p

(Midwich Alternate school of Silent Hill 1)

http://unpayedovertime.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d5hlfqi

(Near replica of Corpse Party: Blood Covered West building floor 2)

http://unpayedovertime.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d4qpaxe

(Resident evil Mansion replica with events)

Edited January 3, 2013 by Overtime

[Infinity Thief 10]

I'm loving this idea. Count me in, color me interested, consider me hook. This seems like a great way to practice use of the program.