I have finally decided that I am now ready to create my original rpg game with original story. But I have no idea where I should begin with. I have a story and simple graphics ready to work. But I don't know what I should be doing. Should I be making maps first? or make a single player or should I first start with the turn based battle system. Could someone list out what I should be doing in order?? And how would I fit my story in all this process???

The whole thing will be much easier as a 2d game, as there are many 2d editors available (e.g. tiled which is a popular tile editor) which can let you build the levels. My first port of call is always to get the bare minimum of level data loaded. Then you can add characters walking around.

There is no process; you start with what you think is best (and hopefully, important) for your game and go from there working your way downwards. You should start with your core requirements and work your way outwards from there - that may be trading, battle system or something entirely else depending on what kind of RPG you are making.

E.g. If I was making a clone of FF1 I would start with the core mechanics; battle system -> world map movement -> town movement -> character leveling -> enemy mobs -> inns -> shopkeepers, etc.

Then there's dialogue boxes, UI and so on that needs to be taken care - you can keep splitting the task up as much as you want and however you want; the important thing is that you do split it up into tasks. Otherwise, you'll spend a lot of time banging your head against an unmovable object.

You specifically mentioned the story; the first basic thing you need to make work is triggers, and the easiest is a proximity trigger. How about I set you a challenge?


0) You need to be able to parse a .tmx file, which is the file format for tiled. Depending on what language you use, you might be able to find a parser; I have one for XNA just sitting around.

1) make a level load; part of this level is an arena, with impassable walls all around and a gate at one point. A gate can be created in a tile based game simply by making the terrain passable, and then changing it to be impassable when the gate is closed.

2) Add a proximity sensor in the center of the arena, give it a radius that ensures the player is not standing on the gate when it triggers. The trigger should close the gate and make an enemy appear.

3) A monster runs toward the player. When it catches the player, a battle starts.

This will give you a good stable platform for developing your battle system. Step 4) would be to make the battle screen in a turn based fashion.