i was thinking about the future of my game and what part would be the most challenging to construct. i decided that (other then just finishing the game) the hardest part to make would be the main assault on deus near the end of the game. to construct a current technologically advanced world that wasnt in decline, or in the past would be quite hard given the limitations of the software. though this hurtle could easily be overcome with some good innovation and a dose of liberal anime maker, the harder part of this equation would be making this sequence as exciting as it needs to be. i would have to cram so much real time stuff that it will get complex fast, and have many complex event style ccg. whether i can pull this off i will not know for who knows how long, but this will definitely be my biggest challenge.

what kinds of challenges are you anticipating in your game creation? what makes them so daunting?

Keeping track of variables and conditional scripts.

Get a notebook and start labeling. It takes forever, but if you take notes right, it's not so bad. SK and I already have a full notebook that's seen better days. Pages falling out and whatnot.

I think what I'm concerned the most about with mine is how big it's getting. At the end of the game, there's so many places to visit even at the beginning of a scenario, that there's just hardly any room left for the games progression. The only way we can counter this is by limiting the places the player goes. So we'll have to block off entire continents so we can progress the game. Though we are making some changes so that hopefully the last two or three scenario cards will have the entire world open and still progress the game.

*knocks on wood*

Writer's block. Slayers' Reign will never be finished until I can figure out what to do with the second scenario card.

A constant struggle for me was trying to figure out how I wanted to structure the game. With something like DK it wasn't an issue at all because everything was already handed to me and all I had to do is make it work within the RPG Maker engine. But when you create your own game, you have a lot of tough choices to make. How many levels do I want? Can the player collect things? Building the foundation blocks for a game is extremely difficult, but I've got most of it under control. Mostly, because there's still some room for change.

The problem I'm always running into now is unique level designs. I don't want to continue re-using the same level ideas; I want to have a lot of levels with a lot of variety. One level has you jumping on a see-saw to destroy an enemy, and another has you heating up water to remove a fish enemy from a tank. It takes a lot of creative thinking, and sometimes I have a hard time coming up with unique levels. I usually figure it out, but only after much out-of-the-box thinking, which grates on you after awhile.

@1ce
Those are some pretty cool ideas though so keep it up.

@All
I guess another thing that is hard to make is balancing the battles with the development of the character throughout the game. I mean, laying out the events and creating the story are one thing but you really have to just hope the battles turn out OK unless you can completely control everything reasonable from the start (i.e. the liklihood that the party will encounter stat chaning items, levels, or abilites by the time they get to a given map or boss). If anyone is making a full-on RPG I don't see how this is not the hardest thing about making it. I guess it isn't as bad if one is making a psuedo-RPG or adventure type game.

Keeping the player's attention. The game I working on is more open ended. Considering there is no battles in the game I'm going to need to find other ways to entertain the player. Don't want the game to turn into a retreiveing quest.

Maintaining plot momentum and player interest.