$12256 / $11500
How is it possible to add another resource bar to the heads up display?
I wish to add a 'Spirit' bar that is separate from mana and health and have some abilities use only 'Spirit'. Just like other RPGs have other resources bars for different types of spell casting that is not just Mana.
Also if adding 'Spirit' resource bar is possible how is it possible to add 'Spirit' character / itemization attributes like 'Spirit' regeneration and drain? Also is it possible in general to modify a resource (health / mana / 'Spirit') by a %? Such as -10% Mana regeneration / + 2% Health regeneration?
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Sorry, but that type of customization is not available in the engine right now. HP and MP are hard-coded resources, so you're limited to those. Although I do think being able to customize these attributes would be a feature worth having. For example, it would be nice to remove or replace "mana" as a resource for a game in a modern setting.
Okay I'll have to work around the limitation of only 2 resource bars of health and mana; instead of 3 for the time being. Is the engine being added onto or is it more or less in a parking orbit where it is at? If the engine is being active developed forward is there a wish list of features in cue for implementation?
Also where are some good places to find extra Flare commpatible 64x32 isometric animated monsters and art assets that can be used in a commercially viable (no copyright woes) fashion? I found more of Clint Bellanger's assets with a creative commons 3.0 license: https://opengameart.org/users/clint-bellanger and he has many assets used / transformed from other people on the opengameart.org website. How many other websites offer such a wide array of creative commons 3.0 assets; or even commerical assets like within the Unity asset shop?
Also is there documentation of how Clint used blender to create his assets? His old asset source / master blender files are outdated and incompatible with current blender. I am unsure what version of blender he used back in the day to retro-port modern blender compatibility. I ask this for a lot of the old blog website links are dead unfortunately.
Also what is everyone else in the community up to for projects made with Flare? I had a hard time getting the isometric mapping to work properly due to lack of documentation and missing assets files / folders with tiled and flare. I still got it to work but I think after around 40-60 experiments with crashed and bugging maps I used a bug / seemingly unintentional format 'hack' (stacking ~duplicate 'object' layers) to make the tile layers stack beautifully and with great depth for my current maps. For my maps are slightly different with the .txt file format to the example maps; but they still work fine from a player perspective. The Tiled mapping tutorial is for a non-isometric map, with this lack of documentation in mind do people also make significant sized isometric games with Flare outside of the internal development team?
I'm currently the only active developer on the project. I don't always have to time or the drive to work on stuff, so saying the project is "active" might be subjective. Nonetheless, engine feature requests are best done on the Github issue tracker (I opened an issue for the resource thing in particular): https://github.com/flareteam/flare-engine/issues
Unfortunately, I don't know any other good resources for this type of art. Just about everything we've gotten has been from contributors on OpenGameArt.
The last version of Blender to work with Clint's models is 2.7. We did migrate the blog when we updated the website, so searching for "blender" might get some of the articles you're after.
As for the community, theres two that I would consider to have been active:
You mention OpenValley, it intrigues myself for I have an open question rattling around in the back of my mind. How to implement non-combat skill and meaningful character progression in an RPG? Is there a meaningful way to do more than the typical slaughterfest?
It seems from my own experience and a wider cross genre phenomena that a lot of RPGs are non-stop slaughterfests. Which is fine but it tends to lopside the player base to ~95% male vs. ~5% female players at the very top end. Even then most of the female players tend to be in support roles with only a super-minority being driven by the slaughterfest.
I know Flare is hardcoded with certain aspects and limitations and the original focus was '~Diablo 2 but opensource'. Although I wonder how the engine can accommodate more than just ~95% male players with only a slaughterfest to progress?
Other medieval fantasy / monster batting games / RPGs have other ways of progression other than slaughterfests like Harvest Moon / Rune Factory / Stardew Valley and Pokemon and Hearthstone / Magic the Gathering and Undertale and Runescape and Minecraft.
I am interest in just what options are found within the limitations of the Flare engine to enable skill based progression (Tradeskills or Runescape Skilling and Farming and Player Housing). Anything to just stop the flood of lost potential for only offering one divisive play objective to meaningfully progress.
Yet sometimes to is better to have one thing done extremely well than many things done poorly. Either way I would like to expand my understanding of just what is possible within the limitations and opportunities offered by the Flare RPG engine. Is there more documentation about Flare or will this foray into better understanding Flare's potential be within uncharted territory?
Flare is first and foremost designed as a combat RPG in the image of Diablo (the first game more so than the second). Anything outside of that will take some creativity and a little "smoke and mirrors". To use OpenValley as an example again, the rocks & sticks on the farm are "enemies" which are killed to harvest their resources.
In the game we ship, the player has 4 primary attributes: Physical, Mental, Offense, and Defense. But these can be customized entirely. The most obvious non-combat attribute would likely be one focused around speech. More points into a Speech attribute could equal more and/or different dialog choices with NPCs. Or for a sci-fi game, maybe a Hacking skill would let the player access normally out-of-reach areas.
I personally don't think it's wise to try and create a completely non-combat game with Flare, since combat is in its DNA. But there's certainly room to introduce non-combat skills as an alternative method of solving problems.
Documentation in general for Flare is sparse, so there's been just about nothing written on this topic. The best way to learn at the moment is just to poke about in existing mods to see how they do things. I'd say 90% of non-combat gameplay would employ the use of Flare's event system. As with most things, there's a lack of documentation, but the section in the Attribute Reference page is a start.
Okay thank you.
Hello, im also making a mod for Flare but due to my uneven dev progress i dont update much; so far i made over 15 new enemies/31 total counting recolors/elemental versions. Ill release them all this summer along with my mod which is just pending of rebalancing enemies and minor details.
The new models are CC-BY-SA due to 3d base model inherited license, i hope you can use them if you decide to use Flare.
if I may say so myself:
I use flare precisely because it is (strictly speaking) the "least suitable" for an openvalley style game.... (i always said that godot would be the wisest choice) but as dorkster says, you just need to arm yourself with patience and (a lot of) creativity to face problems/limitations in a "different" way :p
is also a good mental training XD
I am currently undergoing a bunch of game mechanic experiments to see how much MMORPG and grand scale RPG type features I am able to work with given the restrictions and opportunities found with the Flare engine.
I hope to migrate and implement much if not most of my other experiences and 'game spirits' I have enjoyed from myself working on / tinkering with RPG projects and modules from other games such as Baldur's Gate, World of Warcraft Classic->Wrath of the Lich King, Diablo 2 and even Classic Everquest.
I have my own RPG series that is inspired from many games, films, books, history and many sources in general woven into a single deep multilayered realistic fantasy setting. I have a few RPGs from different game engines and projects that I have cancelled and or frozen to realign and focus myself on creating a new grand scale RPG built up from my own setting and medieval fantasy universe.
I wish to keep my personal sovereignty intact while simultaneously starting relatively small and make a game worth playing that is commercially viable and can be made with low input high output to really harness and enhance my creative power. I am seeking my own creative potential fulfillment built over decades; to share upon the world finally an RPG series where the players win first. There must be an RPG series to succeed the classic greats.
I am attracted to the creative power offered by Flare in itself using Tiled compatibility + simple text based ~INI files. This combination I found to be a very potent and efficient creatively expressive yet still remarkably productive workflow experience when building a dignified Role Playing Game. Many game engines do one or the other well but not both as well as Flare and still be commercially viable.
I realize that either-way it is much more fun than working alone in being with like-minded creative people working towards a common goal :-). Bit by bit, piece by piece until it is ready. Everything large is made of small pieces all put together one by one. Even the longest journey begins with the first step. Iterate, iterate, iterate. If one keeps improving year after year, month after month, week after week, day after day; never complacently stagnant with constituting one's own potential. Then all one has to do is add time and keep having the personal sovereignty to maintain one's own staying power; to earn the opportunity to work hard. Then one will succeed at anything.