Game Design Fundamentals

RPG MAKER WITH is only a tool, and a tool is only as good as the person using it. Whether you're making an RPG or a puzzle game, understanding game design fundamentals is key to making your game fun and meaningful. Read our guide to know which skills you should have as a game designer and where to get the knowledge you need.

Game Design Fundamentals

Game Design Fundamentals Checklist
Creating a Game Starts With You Draw Inspiration From Your Other Hobbies or Life Experiences Start a World and Write a Narrative Decide the Core Mechanics of Your Game Create Compelling Level Design

Creating a Game Starts With You

Your priority in starting to make a game is to create an experience that can satisfy your needs and wants as a gamer. By focusing on what you find engaging, enjoyable, and meaningful, you can create something authentic that you can pass on to other players.

For example, a person passionate about tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons might enjoy designing an RPG that centers around one of their favorite characters. Say, it's a barbarian. So, they decide to make an ARPG about a Barbarian who defeats lots of enemies all at once. You can do something similar in your game as well.

Draw Inspiration From Your Other Hobbies or Life Experiences

Many successful games are rooted in the personal passions and experiences of their creators. You can draw ideas from your favorite books, hobbies, and life experiences and use them as a foundation for your games.

For example, Pokémon was inspired by Satoshi Tajiri's childhood passion for collecting insects while The Legend of Zelda was inspired by Shigeru Miyamoto's childhood exploration of the Japanese countryside. These developers drew on their own personal experiences and translated that into their games, or allowed them to imagine their own game worlds.

What kind of experiences do you have in life that, when you mix and match certain parts for things that happen in video games, would make for an interesting RPG? You can ask yourself this question as a starting point for your eventual game.

How to Outline Your Game

Start a World and Write a Narrative

Storytelling and worldbuilding are fundamental to creating an immersive game experience. Whether your game has a rich, complex narrative or a simple premise, the story should complement and enhance the gameplay.

Start by building a world and filling it with characters that occupy that game world then start building up the backstory for the characters until you create a promising narrative.

There are a lot of avenues through which you can learn how to create world-building and set a narrative such as reading web novels or joining writing communities online.

Decide the Core Mechanics for Your Game

At the end of the day, a game is just a game, and at the heart of every game lies its core mechanics. These are the rules and systems that define how the game is played and how fun it is to play. Core mechanics include movement, vehicles, combat, puzzles, and challenges.

For example, when designing a traditional RPG, combat systems are a key consideration. Do you use a front-view or side-view perspective for your battles? Do you have your players do their attacks on the map? These would affect how players experience your game's combat gameplay.

How to Switch Battle Views

On the other hand, if you're making a more casual non-combat RPG, how do you treat exploration in your game? Do you require the player to eat food? Do they get tired while exploring? When you do storytelling, do you make use of cutscenes in-game, or do you craft your maps in a way that they can tell the story themselves through environmental storytelling instead?

You can sign up for online courses in game development on platforms like GameDev.tv or Udemy. These courses cover a wide range of topics, including game mechanics, level design, programming, and more, allowing you to build the skills needed to create your own games from scratch.

Create Compelling Level Design

Level design is the process of creating the spaces in which players interact. It's important to let the players know where to go and what to do without becoming disoriented. Use visual cues, sound effects, NPCs, and weather effects to your advantage when guiding the players where to go next and try to give them a hint if danger is close.

To The Moon is one of the best games created using RPG MAKER and while it is more of an interactive narrative than a traditional RPG, its level design plays a crucial role in supporting its storytelling. The game is structured around the exploration of memories, and each environment is crafted to evoke strong emotions and further the narrative. The levels are simple but purposeful, with careful attention given to detail.

You can learn how to be better at designing levels by joining game dev communities focused on level design such as Mapcore or gaining insight from other devs on Reddit.

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