Need help on how to make an RPG (Role Playing Game)

I need help on how to create an RPG like Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger or the Aveyond series. It doesn't have to be very extensive. Just some basic ideas about: 1 - How to draw a map and add the necessary elements to it. 2 - How to make the collision detection work so the player does not walk through walls or into areas outside the map. 3 - How to make the playable character and move him around. 4 - How to add sprites and make NPC (Non-playable characters) and have interactive dialogues with them. 5 - Make a battle scene like the ones in the game.

All ideas and help is very appreciated! (And also I'm a beginner to MATLAB)

[Image Analyst]

Would the battle scene need RPGs? (Rocket Propelled Grenades, which is what I thought you meant in your title).

[Star Strider]

Role-Playing Games.

As a gamer myself (medieval-themed fantasy adventure and some puzzle games), but not a game developer, from what I’ve read, videogames require teams of programmers and take months to develop. I believe the majority are written in different versions of C.

Start by looking at the ‘Unreal’ physics engine to get an idea how to do this. And of course, it’s not all programming. You have to have some sort of narrative behind it (consider the civil war and the many subplots in Skyrim for example), the NPCs have to have personalities, dialogue, and the ability to interact with the environment, your character, and others. You also have to have a map, weather, day/night and seasonal transitions, and other environmental variables.

There are (somewhat expensive) programs available to help you program simple RPGs (see the Steam Store for some of them), but for all its many strengths, MATLAB is not your best option for this.

[John D'Errico]

And, your goal is to write this in MATLAB? Sorry, but MATLAB would not be a good choice of tool for such an application. Yes, you can write virtually anything in any language, (ok, Excel would be even worse) but I think you should consider a better tool. And if your goal is not to do this in MATLAB, then you are asking this question in the wrong forum.

Answer 1

[Dan ROG]

I don't think Matlab is the best program for this (though I imagine it is possible :D)

Try this article for a high level overview or this site if you want to really dig into the details.

Goodluck!

[Star Strider]

I suppose Interact with Virtual Reality Worlds is about as close as you can get in MATLAB.

[Ali Haider]

I've already seen those links. But thank you anyway!

I'm not really looking into creating a full fledged game. Just a map with a character that I can move using the arrow keys and collision detection with objects such as houses, fences and other characters in the game.

[Star Strider]

I’ve no experience with it myself (can‘t afford all the MATLAB toolboxes I want). And although definitely not MATLAB, I would suggest such as RPG Maker VX Ace.

The problem with interpreted MATLAB (the environment we all find ourselves in here), is that it tends to be slow. That’s just the nature of interpreted languages. It’s compiled to pseudocode, and then the pseudocode is interpreted, much like the system Apple][ FORTRAN 77 used in the early 1980s. This makes it a bit slow. The compiler can speed things up considerably (in exchnage for a considerable amount of money). It’s fast enough for the computations most of us use it for (that I believe are optimised in C at some level), but I don’t know how fast it would react to real-world inputs in real life. I would check into the flight simulators and other such applications and see how they work with real world interactions.

That said, I would definitely explore Simulink, since it seems to have the facilities you need. If you search the File Exchange for ‘games’, you will pull up 487 of them. Most of them are MATLAB versions of simple tabletop games.

End of my day, so Good Night, Dovakin! May the blessings of Talos by yours.

[Walter Roberson]

Star Strider: The description of the JIT for R2015b says that it generates native language code !

[Star Strider]

Walter — Interesting! I looked for that documentation for more details, but couldn’t find it. (I’m not awake yet.)

Please post a link when you have time.

Answer 2

[RahulTandon]

Evaluate the core competencies (assets, mesh handling, cfd, particles, materials, post-processing) of UNITY , UNREAL, etc. engines to the mesh* functions for capabilies and speed. Matlab as a gaming engine is 'full-featured' and 'performant'. No separate post processing!The programming language is not watered down and completely debuggable . Visual programming is Simulink. Matlab goes further with game design tools and gamification math. There is special intrest by MAKE HUMAN , REALLUSION, REALITY CAPTURE etc. that have to be importable to matlab; if we try. Matlab is not ready-and-packaged-and-simplified for the indie-game-developer-market.

Answer 3

[Walter Roberson]

Create a WindowKeyPressFcn callback on your figure. Inside the callback look at the information in the event structure to figure out which key is pressed (and which modifier, if you care about modifiers). Always have a "current" location.

When you get a key press, use it to figure out the requested new location, by adding or subtracting one from the row or column coordinate as appropriate. Test whether the new location is out of bounds; test whether the map at the new location is occupied by something solid that cannot be walked over; if you cannot go to the desired location then do nothing or beep() . If the new location is occupied by a moveable object, make the new location the "current" location and attempt to pick up the object. If the new location is occupied by a non-movable object that can be walked over, make the new location the "current" location and "activate" the object (for example it might be a door, or a teleport, or a trap).

And so on.