MegaMan RPG Prototype January 2012
Overview
This is just a prototype for a potential game, so right now it's only a battle simulator. You choose your team (only two available) and which field you're going to play on. The "goal" of the game is to defeat all of your opponent's robots by attacking them and draining their energy to 0. Because there are still many abilities to be added, there's no real structure yet, and because the character's stats are still being tweaked, you may not feel like the game is "fair" at times or that the computer's choices make much sense. It's a prototype though and since all enemy actions are random, it should be expected. Also note that there are no "accounts", leaderboards, installations, or anything of the sort. No progress is saved and the engine is just posted so you can play around with it while I continue to develop it, so please take that into consideration. Also, please feel free to report bugs, but do so full-well-knowing that it's clearly an incomplete project and it's likely the bug/suggestion is already on my to-do list. Also note, the "fields" do not do anything at this point other than look different. In the future, these fields may provide specific stat or type bonuses as well as other tweaks.
Stat Mechanics
Each robot has a unique spread of Energy, Attack, Defense, and Speed stats. Any one robot has a total sum of 400 points distributed across its stats. This is to give each robot a unique battle strategy while maintaining balance. When a robot is defeated in battle, the victor absorbs 10% of the defeated robot’s remaining stat points.
The Energy stat should be the most familiar – it is the robot's "health" (typically represented as HP in other games). This is the bright green bar you see under your robot's name. When this stat reaches 0, that robot is "disabled" and can no longer battle. If a robot's Energy is getting low, it should be switched out. Using a switch in battle takes up a turn, so be sure the new robot can survive your opponent's next attack.
The Attack stat is used to determine how much damage your abilities do to the opponent. When a robot uses an ability, the Attack stat is treated as a percentage and multiplied against the base power of the ability. If a robot who's Attack stat was 150 uses an ability with a base power of 10, the resulting damage would be multiplied by 150%, or 10 x 1.50 = 15 damage. Naturally, this means that robot's with lower Attack stats than 100 suffer a proportional decrease in power. Through boosts or other stat-altering scenarios, a robot may only raise its Attack stat to 200% (2x) of it's base value – any further attempts to increase the stat will fail. Inversely, a robot's Attack stat may never go below 0 either. If a robot's Attack stat is even dropped to absolute 0, they will immediately go into "Attack Break". When in Attack Break, a robot can not deal damage to the opponent (all attempts to do so will result in 0 damage). Attack Break can only be removed by raising the Attack stat above zero, and there are only a handful of ways to do so.
The Defense stat is used to determine how much damage a robot takes from abilities targeted at it, much like the Attack stat but inverted. When a damage is triggered on a robot, it's Defense stat is used to increase or reduce the amount inflicted. A robot who's Defense stat was 150 would take 50% less damage from an ability than a robot with a Defense stat of 100, whereas a robot with a Defense stat of 50 would take 50% more damage. Like the Attack stat, the Defense stat cannot go above 200% of its base value, and it cannot drop below 0. Also like the Attack stat, dropping any robot's Defense stat to 0 will immediately put them into "Defense Break". While in Defense Break, any damage done to this robot will result in a OHKO, no matter their remaining energy.
The Speed stat is used for two purposes unrelated to the Attack and Defense stats. First, the Speed stat is used to determine which robot can make the first move in a turn. The robot with the higher Speed stat goes first. If both are equal, the (human) player will always go first. The second purpose that the Speed stat serves, and probably the most important, is in determining accuracy. Each ability has its own accuracy rating, and the relative speed difference between two robots alters that accuracy. As an example, a robot with twice the Speed stat of the opponent (2x) will have the accuracy of their abilities increased by 200% (obviously capped at 100% accuracy). Inversely, a robot with half the Speed stat of the opponent (0.5x) will have the accuracy of their abilities decreased by 50%, representing their ability to get a lock on such a speedy target.
Type Mechanics
This is where the most Pokémon inspiration comes into play. Unlike Pokémon, robot's do not have "types" that define them. They do, however, have unique Weaknesses, Resistances, Affinities, and Immunities to specific "types" of abilities. Currently, there are 16 different "types" of abilities, ranging from more elemental ones like "flame" and "freeze" to more abstract ones like "cutter" and "shield". While most robots will have a specific type of types of abilities they prefer, it's not a rule and some robots may have a range of ability types at their disposal. Robot weaknesses/resistances/etc. can be checked by using the "Scan" option during battle. At some point I'll post a cheat-sheet of all the characters to make lookups easier, but for now the scan should suffice.
When a robot has a Weakness to a certain type, that robot will receive double the damage from any moves of that type. If a recovery move is used on a robot that is weak to its type, that recovery will be inverted and become a damage-dealing move instead. This applies to the Energy, Attack, Defense, and Speed stats equally.
When a robot has an Affinity to a certain type, that robot will receive double the recovery from any moves of that type. If a damage-dealing move is used on a robot that has an affinity to its type, that damage will be inverted and become a recovery move instead. This also applies to the Energy, Attack, Defense, and Speed stats equally.
When a robot has a Resistance to a certain type, that robot will receive half the damage and/or half the recovery from any moves of that type. This applies even if that robot also has a Weakness or Immunity to that type, as the two calculations end up cancelling each other out.
Finally, when a robot has an Immunity to a certain type, this robot will not receive any damage or recovery from moves of that type. A robot with an immunity to a type cancels out any Weakness, Affinity, or Resistance to a type and always results in zero effect.
Additional Information
I've tested this game extensively on the iPad and I think it looks great on the thing. I made a full-screen mode for it that works in both landscape and portrait, so if you have one to test it on I encourage you to do so (make sure you "Add to Home Screen" for the full-screen mode). Other than that, please feel free to leave any feedback and I’ll try to make this development process as transparent as possible. If possible, I'd love for other people to be involved in the future with ideas, stat balancing, ability ideas, sprite-assistance, etc. so if you want to contribute once things are more complete, please don't hesitate to contact me. :)
Game Screenshots
For those who would like to see some screenshots before you take click the link, please see below for some screens from the most recent version. :)
