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Create Your Own Japanese RPG
Episode One : With Little or No Money Down

So you want to make a Japanese RPG but you aren’t Japanese. You rented an office. You gathered the semi-competent developers, and a marketing department. You hired the soda guy and the janitor. Now what? How do you make a game that people will buy? Will making the characters have big eyes and eat sushi cut it? How do you know? I know, and I am going to guide you through the process of creating a Japanese RPG that will look, feel and act authentic even if you’re not quite sure where Japan is. Also, since I’m such a nice guy I’ll be creating a game along with you to show you what you might come up with if you were as cool as me.

Oh, and Japan is in the Pacific Ocean, but that’s just details.

The Name of the Game

Some people whine that what makes or breaks an RPG is the story, or the battle system, or the characters. Pansies all of ‘em. What makes or breaks an RPG in English speaking countries is the title. Case in point: Dragon Quest vs. Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy sounds cool. Final, meaning the end, and then Fantasy adding an alliteration quality that makes the whole name come off as sounding like the game isn’t going to take any sh*t. The name Dragon Quest on the other hand simply screams “give me a wedgie please”. The most important thing that you can do for your game is to create a name that is going to stick to the public like a week old shirt to a roofer in July.

If you aren’t continuing in a series that is already established, make sure that the title of your game does not make any sense, and if possible, do not use any real words.

Examples: “Shining the Holy Ark”, “Biomotor Unitron”, “Grandia”*

Here’s a few examples of titles that wouldn’t work, and why:

Title: “Boobies”
Why: Many purchasers may be upset that they have to DO things in order to see the boobies.

Title: “Guy with a Sword hits things for forty hours”
Why: It gives away too much of the plot.

Titles: “Syphilis”
Why: Never name a game after an STD. It’s just bad form.

*Note: If you feel your title absolutely must relate to the story of your game feel free to later go back and add a colon. Then describe your game in 5 words or less, preferably in a different language than English.

For my RPG I chose:
TurfQuester Sigmo : Last of the Ultitrons

Hitting Stuff

The next thing that you’ll want to create is your battle system. The easiest way to do this is just to have the good guys line up on one side and the bad guys line up on the other. Then let them take turns beating on each other until one side isn’t standing anymore. Not very interesting, granted, but it’s tried and true.

But no matter what type of battle system that you use, you must include lots of two things: Sparkles and Numbers. This cannot be stressed enough.

Sparkles must appear every time that you hit something, and increase with each attack in a series. The more powerful the attack, the more sparkles. The player must feel as if they are literally beating the sparkles out of things.

Numbers are the building blocks on which you’ll pretend to have the “system” in “battle system” worked out. Most players will ignore 70-80% of the numbers that come up on the screen, so don’t stress their accuracy. Nobody can do math that fast. Just have a lot of them appear when ever anything happens in a battle.

Historical Note: The number system actually replaces an old system where the screen would turn different colors to communicate the status of your characters. Green for “Good”, Red for “Bad”, and Black for “Turn on your TV, stupid”.

Lastly for your battle system, you’ll have to create buzz factor. The easiest way to do this to take one thing that your system does differently (even slightly), and make it sound like you’re going to put it on your resume. To accomplish this, simply use a bunch of physics or math terms followed by “Battle System”. This words can include, but are not limited to: Active, Matrix, Real, Time, Base, etc. Not only will this make it seem like you had a purpose when you created the battle system, but it will give the poor lonely souls marketing something to write in their press releases.

For my RPG I chose:
Active-Matrix Battle System

In the next installment we’ll learn how to create comedic relief with snowcones and find out what question marks have to do with saving. If you feel the need, you can stop right now with just the battle system and title and release the game with no stories or characters. This product can be marketed as either a puzzle game in Japan, or in the US as “Every single game released for Atari Jaguar”.

Tags: create, down, episode, japanese, money, own, RPG, sparkles