The quest prototypes are working great! Now it's time to add a Quest Journal for tracking quests and Actor Labels for finding NPCs. For this, I will be using the Quest Journal System and the Events Move Core plugins from Visustella.
New Features: Quest Journal and Name Tags
A Quest Journal is a standard feature in adventure RPGs, and I will definitely want my players to have a way to track where they are in the story and what steps they need to take to get to the next part.
There will be a lot of things to do, so a quest journal will come in quite handy.
In order to make it clear who everybody is, I'd like to use name tags on all my actors so players don't have to search around or remember where that person was. I want it to be clear where a quest-giver can be found when certain quests need to be cashed in.
What I need are a couple of plugins to help me with this:
- Events And Move Core - This contains an update to the RPG Maker Core that allows diagonal movement, name tags, and other quality-of-life enhancements.
- Quest Journal System - This is an expansion for RPG Maker that makes handling and organizing quests much easier.
These two plugins will go a long way towards making my game more playable.
Let's start with the Name Tags since they are the easiest.
Adding Name Tags
Giving actors/events their own name tag is super simple. After installing the Events Move Core plugin, all I have to do is go to each of my Events, and in the NOTE field at the top, enter <Label: Name>.
Name Tag Added For Jonas |
Now that everybody has a name, let's move on to the Quest Journal next.
Adding A Quest Journal System
I need a way to list quests and give some basic information about them, such as:
- The name, description, and level of the quest.
- Who gave the quest and where to find them.
- Quest objectives.
- Quest rewards.
- Quest status.
For this, I have chosen to use the Quest Journal plugin from Visustella. This plugin gives you an onscreen quest tracker and a quest journal interface framework.
I want to have some starting intro quests that teach the player about game concepts such as Tech Level and Law Level, so I set up a test for that.
In this intro quest, the player needs to talk to an NPC about Tech Level. The reward is +5 XP, and the game starts with the quest already in the player's journal.
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The game starts with the Tech Time quest already in the journal. After the player completes the quest, the quest objectives are updated and the quest is moved to the 'Completed' section of the Journal.
The Quest Journal works great and will be a valuable asset to my game.
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Your Turn. What Do You Do?
Do you like to use a Quest Journal?
Share with us in the Comments section below. Tell me what you like about using a Journal and tell me if there is something you like better.
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