I've found that the trick with designing an RPG is finding a nice balance between gameplay and storytelling. You want the player to experience a story instead of just being told what's going on. For a game a game like Rydos that can be difficult, as the storytelling is more text than visuals. Since I can't rely on fancy cutscenes with lots of bells and whistles, I focus more on character interaction as a form of storytelling, like with a stage play or television show. Having the story told through the perspective of the player and the characters they encounter makes the story more interesting and the flow feel more natural.
At some points, the player will be able to make certain dialogue choices that garner different reactions from the party. These choices don't affect the gameplay too much, more of a way to discover more about what's going on, or see how someone would react. A fun way to flesh out the world, so to speak. How I do mix gameplay with the narrative is in the hidden items the player can collect that offer information on the Tower and what's inside it. That way, someone who just wants to slaughter waves of enemies can rush through the entire game and have their kind of fun, and those who are curious can take their time and explore in order to find answers.
Today, I worked on one such event for the encounter with the boss on the 5th floor (those who have played the Alpha demo will know what that is). Depending on if the player has found a certain something before encountering the boss, the encounter will vary slightly with how the characters react and what they know at the time of the encounter. Writing out dialogue as the party discusses what they're dealing with, and what it means for them going forward, was a nice challenge (and will likely encounter more than one re-write as the game's development goes on). The tricky part is making sure the player cares just as much as everyone in the story about what's being discussed or a constant spam of the dialogue button will occur and the player will get frustrated. As of right now I'm not too worried about that, but we'll see once the next demo is released.
Tomorrow, I'll get to work on putting together a few more scenes including the boss encounter with the one on the 10th floor. The original encounter was very cryptic and will be more elaborate. With each encounter with a key character in the dungeon I hope to answer some questions while also creating new ones to be asked.
