itch.io

GDD I think is a game design document. Preferibly in .PDF with some pictures.... Lots of work to get one set up in a legible way.

I'm lazy and juts use a napkin or any stray paper laying around, but these are for me and not to be shared.  
In the GDD you need to show some concept art (does not need to be great, as it is just concept art) ..

You also need the story .... not just the back story. So, the major quests, maybe some drawings of "game play"

showing your idea of what the actual game should look like. Again, not perfect as all this will be changed later.

If you have played ANY rpg game, imaging drawing the Battle Scene with the menus systems ....

If doing more of action battle (street fighter?) draw that ...

if a skill tree, explain and draw that showing how a user would interact with it (if any, some games have this hidden)

I can go on and on ... but basically, you need the entire game described as to what you want.

I was looking for something like this.... I will try and "frankenstein" it and see what I can do with this. If it works for me, I will post a link on my itch page (with credits) to the source images. To see my plan, check out what I did with kenney's character pack ... his was 16x16. I plan something like that for your 128x128 and see if I can add more animations to it...

This is a cool LPC tool. I tried doing one for GameMaker, but it swelled to 1GB ++ probably because I did not compress the image directory... This is great for offline usage. Extra note: I am trying to import your .pak file for use in JS projects (credits included) but will not be doing a stand-alone version... your would be better anyway. Mine will simply be used inside a game for autogenerating NPC and such. Have no plans to use your sounds, music, or GUI stuff, unless you say ok to that (zlib license) and (LPC license). If you look at my waffle dudes (kenney art) you will see what I am trying to do with LPC... Might be kinda fun to see if AI can upscale LPC and still look good.... but that's for later.

I did run into a similar problem with my current game ... hex based ... Where I could not decide on what the interface should be or how the game should be played .... I had ideas, but the "Game" had other ideas... My original plan was each player "Picks up a Unit and drops it in a new location" but that was not what the "Game" permitted. The game basically told me to make a system of "programming" the moves and then all units/players move at the same time. This eliminated the need for an "Undo" option and simplifies multiplayer interactions... An additional benefit is having not been done before ....

That seems to be where you are trying to go ... something not done before.  Listen to your game ... it will tell you what works or what is needed.

Updated: Made card height shorter and shifted them up a bit. Added things to prevent playing cards during deals (does not always work in Klondike). Added autoplay to Picture Frame (facecards will auto-play to correct place without needing to be clicked on).
Found some odd bugs with undo? in Kings Table. I do not play that one enough to have fully understood the cause yet ...

I saw no posts.... do you want me to create an RPG game base on your PDF? and make it browser playable? It is such a simple Idea, no inventory or anything ... probably do not even need an interface.

from a dev point of view..... you sound like a new game writer ....

1 - do a test game that showcases any ONE aspect ...

2 - follow up with multiple showcases that show JUST ONE other aspect ...

3 - if the flow is working, combine them ...

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another way to go about this is via level progression:

1 - pick YOUR favorite aspect and make the test and call this Level 1

2 - pick your 2nd favorite and do a Level 2 ... and repeat for each aspect.

This gives you time to see what works and what doesn't ...

FOLLOW the FUN ... If something is not "fun to do" or "a hassle"

drop it! and add something else... If needed, you can add it in later.

Needs an actual title .... do that later

tbswar

This is just to showcase the map editor. I think it has everything that is needed ....

I will add to this as I work on actual maps and playtesting. There are no maps, game or anything at this point,

just a map editor. Hidden feature, when you save a map, it saves it as a JSON to the clipboard so you can view the data

structure using Notepad or equivalent. Currently the maps are not encrypted. As this is expected to be a 2 player game,

I am not too worried about "cheating" on a game because in a 2 player game, you probably know who you are playing against.

BUT, this is a browser game so there could be random players ... BUT, if doing a custom map against a player online, why "cheat"

when you could just give your units 999 attack points instead of 4 while your opponent gets 1 point... By leaving it open, you can

see exactly how the other player cheated or not cheated...

Currently using big square boxes for units ... I am planning to change that to individuals to better show formations. Currently this is represented as an arrow to show unit facing (not shown in the editor). There will only be 2 formations ... Column or Combat ... Column formation permits faster travel (mostly for roads) at the expense of reduced attack and granting damage bonuses if attacked.

waffle.

Also, if you just want to go off the deep end,....

check out baby brother ... With a little begging, I could do a framework for you in JS so you only need to add the pictures and sounds...

Then if you get board because it too easy, you can look at the source code and add more features...

Baby Brother was coded in GMS 1.4+ with HTML5 export.... basically JS. I could do the same thing in CT.JS or even PHP in

a few minutes work. In fact, for a PHP example, I have Jasi Comic with my daughters comics ....

I set that up so my daughter could upload comics (directly in the browser) and the viewer would automate viewing ...

Notice they are referenced via a number (controlled by the website) ... exactly how a text based game would do it.

reminds me of a game I played when younger .....

file13 a game about making games ....

Use pictures .... For scenes that are visited frequently, give it 4 (or more) random images and select one at random during play.

For an example:

babybrother

created in GM1.4+ using images from the WEB ... 

My draft of this game was written in a mini-notebook via page numbers....

Maybe this website will have someone that can help you. 

rpgmaker plug in JS It might take a few weeks for me to get up to speed on RPGMAker to be of use. I would rather work on my own games. The forums there seem pretty friendly and offer support and custom plugins...

and I can't get your discord invite to work. here is mine wafflehelp its quite there. I am not too familiar with RPG Maker stuff. I have looked at it and felt it was too overwhelming for my needs, and could write my own better (have a few). For fun, maybe you can give me a small taste of what you need. Hopefully I won't need to buy RPG Maker just to test JS ideas... If JS is for scripting, mostly all you need is functions to perform some task (set variables, check variables) that are hard to access via the IDE (design window). Generally, RPG Maker provides template JS function that you can copy from using notepad (notepad++ is better). You should be able to get additional guidance from ChatGPT (but will have issues, such as not being familiar with your dev environment)...

1 - pick your favorite game ... Warcraft for example...

2 - create some custom maps or levels ...

3 - see if anyone like your levels better than the default ones...

4 - see if this is fun for you ....

Next, look for a system that lets you do what you want...

If RTS is your thing, look into any open source engines (there are many FPS engines that are open source and just awesome)

Which ever way you go, you need to push the engine as hard as you can. Break things, just so you can learn how it works

so you can fix it. Everything is complicated. there is an open source JS RPG MMO engine even .... with a level editor...

You do not need to begin from scratch unless you have mastered the engine of choice and wish to do something the engine

does not permit .... At that point, look for any dev system that come closest to what you already learned from the previous engine.

If you use the JS RPG and you have exceeded it's design specs, maybe its time to roll your own in custom JS? or HAX.

Simply asking which is best will only start a meaningless discussion ... I have used everything from MASM, C++, PHP, Prolog, many flavors of basic and FASM 

on up to JS ... so far, the only one I truly dislike is Python ... just something about the syntax that just annoys me to no end.  In short, focus on something you love 

to do... after all, if it is your game, you will be doing it a lot. So, If you love the syntax of Python, and love making your platform MMO game, expect to spend

most of your time in the Python editor... (you can replace Python with any language or IDE and my point is still valid). Pick something that "Just Works" for you.

ct.js is free, and offers everything renpy offers and is easier to use. It uses JS. You can layout each image as a background for each room and just display text over it with sounds or whatever ... GameMaker (GMS2) does this very well too BUT the free version does not post to itch. Every dev will have a different approach. Godot has a framework for this too, I tried it but JS works better for me.

for sounds, hard to beat SFXR, for pixel art field ... IF we go down the rts path, we can keep the art simple (programmer art works best at the start) we just need to have specs set-up so the art can be changed. (gif or png strips ... 8x8, 32x32...) I really liked DK2, and tried to do a parody rts but dropped it because without good art, all jokes were lost. 2D rts is not to hard to get up and going ... where the problem usually comes in is level design and AI... also tech trees can become overwhelming.

those are high-level problems, but need to be planned out and tested before getting serious...

Solutions abound though. The best way IMO is make mini-games to test game aspects. Start with a demo of unit selection and movement. If multiplayer is planned, here is where beginning testing takes place. Before all the other modules are brought in. At that point you will just know if things are working or not.... 

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Status of my current game... HexGame with Nucs V2

V1 was completed in GM1.4+ (source code lost .... maybe on older laptop) did not have AI ... Now, I have ideas for AI so I am revisiting the game using JS with multiplayer support via Ably planned ... cool idea to have a JS multiplayer game not requiring a server created using python or something .... Ably was tested using a tic-tac-toe game ... Currently working on the level editor. 

The artwork is just boring squares for the units. The game is planned to be almost realtime (very short/adjustable turn times) and limited to 2+ players (+ indicating a neutral player) where the 2nd player can be an AI... The AI will use a simplified MCTS algorithm (tested on tic tac toe 3D on itch.io) so not perfect, but good enough. My hex game currently has 10-14 hex tile types and 5 unit types ... that's it. From a game play perspective, it is very simple. It is all the other stuff that is important.

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I have rambled on a bit here... And games must start with some kind of design document.  But, if just going for FUN, there is another way ...

Shall I toss together some stupid RTS thingy (squares vs circles vs triangles) using Ably with crappy sounds just to give everyone something to play with?

Try different art,sounds, maybe even offer multiple control schemes... Nothing fancy, just command a circle to attack a square and see if it does it.... In single player, that would be trivial, but multiplayer via Able with multiple games at once, that is a great place to start and then see if we can make a game out it :)

I'm confused, the project is in tpg maker mv, so why javascript? Is JS the scripting language of RPG Maker? Or do you just need a web developer?. Course, this is old, so maybe project dropped....

currently doing a hex wargame .... outgrew GM and moved on to JS ... its free and ... What sorta project do you have in mind? 

found a bug in STTT with invalid win condition, looking into it ...

found it ...

 [0,0,1,0,    0,0,1,0,    0,0,1,0,    0,0,1,0], 

I had a 1 in the wrong place

Added patch to shift layers in TTT3D. Just click a button because mobile can't do a right-click ...

Updated:  some card animation improvements. Fixed bug where card size is lost on UNDO. The undo is still not perfect, but it's OK ;)