If any of you have been reading the threads in this forum, you'll know that RPGM3 is my software of choice. I made a typical random battle-type game, albeit one with guilds to join and an alignment system, with Series 1. I think I've exhausted the possiblities with that type of game on this software. So for Series 2, I'm making it be based on arena battles. However, due to the tedium of programming it, and problems with balancing battles (the way I envision the game, players have direct control over how their characters' stats are raised, insead of the typical, level-up and gain stats routine. The problem is, because of this, I'll never know at any given time what any of the characters' stats might be, so it's going to be a bit hard to balance the battles), I'm putting it aside for the time being. I've mentioned before that RPGM2 just kind of scares me, and it would take some time before I would be able to make something that stands out from the pack, as there are already so many games for it that stretch the boundaries of what is possible to make. Instead, I'm attempting to push the boundaries of RPGM3, and make unique games that will hopefully stand out from the others made with this software.

Enter Series 3, which is a farming/dating sim. I plan on making this for the summer contest, and as such, it might be released BEFORE Series 2. I'm using the skill window of the character screen to display what skills you have. These will obviously not be combat-based skills, but instead include horticulture, animal husbandry, fishing, hunting (all of these will have three levels of expertise), cooking, and furrier (a skill that will enable you to make gloves, coats, etc, out of the animal pelts you collect). I plan on making menu-based minigames for hunting and fishing, although the details on how I'm going to go about this are still a bit hazy right now, and might resurrect some form of the gambling minigame I created for Series 1. The goal of the game is to marry the girl of your choice, and move into a mansion. Obviously, the game revolves around making money, and the balancing of such will be just as difficult as the balancing of random battles (for example, what price should seeds cost, weighed against the amount of money you will get from the vegetables that grow from the seeds you plant?) in some respects. This is the idea so far. Any comments would be appreciated.

EDIT: I have a solution to my random number generation question. I fooled around with it for about 2 and a half hours today, and after I kept getting auto-event loops, I finally figured out a way to avoid this. Click on the link if you are interested in seeing how I created this. With the game able to give me a "random" number between 1 and 10, I think my dream of having Series 3 a bit like Animal Crossing (all the different dialogues) is looking pretty good. Now all I need to do is come up with interesting conversations for all those choices. If you do not know what I mean, I'm going to try to make a bunch of characters' dialogue based on what the "random" number happens to be at the time. Then I will change the random number at the end of a conversation so if you talk to the person again, you will get a completely different response. I'm not going to have as much flexibility as Animal Crossing, of course, but I can foresee a good chunk of the NPCs having 10 or more different things to converse with you about. But, as I've said, the problem with this is thinking of enough interesting things for the characters to say to warrant them having 10 different available dialogue options. Anyway, that was my breakthrough today.