Hey all -

I had made an account here once before and I am unsure what happened to it. At any rate, I have made a new one !

For the longest time, I was intereste din designing and devleoping a tennis RPG game.

Any Mario Tennis Fans in the house!? Well, some of you may have played the RPG-style story that was in the handheld version, so think THAT but a little bit edgier in design.

Even the Mario Tennis GBA had the Fire Emblem-style stats , of course those that would pertain to tennis (spin, speed, stamina, power, etc....)

Prince of Tennis also comes to mind... I am thinking there could even be a cool story that would call to question doping in sports, and there'd be an evil drug company that buys out some players who are towards the bottom to give them high-performance drugs and dominate tennis as a 'super-human'

thoughts?

Why not. There's a "long" list of successful crazy, weird games (who ever thought, that the simulation with a goat will get so popular). So , why not a tennis RPG :D

LOL would it really be that weird? It'd almost be like Pokémon.

You from city to city beating tournaments which would be like the 'gyms' of the games, all leading to the Champion tennis player of the world.

I like the idea, althought I don't know what stats would be helpful in making the game fun.

Sounds good; I'd play it. Are you thinking of real-time action or turn-based sports strategy? (There's a lot of the former, but the latter is an underserved genre; that might be an opportunity for product differentiation.)

It'd be interesting and on-topic if the player can take performance-enhancing drug, too, and face the consequences if caught in a random bust (e.g., be suspended for a season). You could get a neat cyclical-plus-linear story out of it:

CYCLICAL: A relatively short story loop representing a tennis season, with the player starting out cold and a bit out-of-shape, working their way up the ranks. At several points, they have the opportunity to take performance-enhancing drugs. This story ends if the player loses in the playoffs or is caught doping, and restarts at the beginning of the season. The players' skills carry over, but they drop a little in the "being-in-shape" stats due to the offseason. It's possible to win the game solely in the cyclical story, but difficult (because the opponents are doping).

LINEAR: The doping mystery, where the player is trying to gather evidence on the doping ring that's making their opponents almost unbeatable. The player can progress this story independently of the cyclical story, and their progress always remains (e.g., they always keep the evidence even when the cyclical story restarts).

Sounds good; I'd play it. Are you thinking of real-time action or turn-based sports strategy? (There's a lot of the former, but the latter is an underserved genre; that might be an opportunity for product differentiation.)

It'd be interesting and on-topic if the player can take performance-enhancing drug, too, and face the consequences if caught in a random bust (e.g., be suspended for a season). You could get a neat cyclical-plus-linear story out of it:

CYCLICAL: A relatively short story loop representing a tennis season, with the player starting out cold and a bit out-of-shape, working their way up the ranks. At several points, they have the opportunity to take performance-enhancing drugs. This story ends if the player loses in the playoffs or is caught doping, and restarts at the beginning of the season. The players' skills carry over, but they drop a little in the "being-in-shape" stats due to the offseason. It's possible to win the game solely in the cyclical story, but difficult (because the opponents are doping).

LINEAR: The doping mystery, where the player is trying to gather evidence on the doping ring that's making their opponents almost unbeatable. The player can progress this story independently of the cyclical story, and their progress always remains (e.g., they always keep the evidence even when the cyclical story restarts).

Dude, I love this idea and your enthusiasm! I definitely would want this game to have more of an edgy undertone to it, so the doping and pressure to dope would be an interesting dimension to add in! In the doping mystery there ought to be a portion where you have to take on some execs of the pharmaceutical company making the mystery wonder drug (let's say Team Rocket)- where Team Rocket has their own tournament and you find that the finalist is one of their main human projects, if not the exec, himself!

As far as real time or turn-based... I had assumed I'd make it real time just because it'd be more fun that way... but the idea of a turn based tennis game does sound intriguing, just not sure how it would work or how it could be more fun than real time.

I like the idea, althought I don't know what stats would be helpful in making the game fun.

I mean no offense by this but that is likely because you don't know tennis very well... as I mentioned in my original post, there's actually quite a few aspects ( that even the Mario tennis rpg story mode uses) that could function as 'stats' in tennis (speed, spin, power, stamina, control, etc.)

There was a guy here not too long ago who made a Boxing RPG. So this isn't really so far-fetched.

So what's the role playing part?

• Going through interviews, negotiating contracts, running from paparrazzi?
• Training in different facilities and doing favors adding allies to your party?
• Crafting different tennis rackets?
• Beating doped up tennis players to expose a conspiracy?

Those are all great ideas actually... except fighting doped players lmao

I guess that's where the confusion in this thread has come from...

I guess when I say "RPG" it's not an RPG in the most traditional sense like Final Fantasy, etc. where you have a party and turn-based combat with all these stats per se... the video I posted in the original post was really a good example of what I intended, the Mario Tennis Advanced solo mode is widely considered an RPG or at least RPG-like. Though my idea doesn't have a party system or turn-based play, there are the elements of stats (control, spin, power, speed, and a few other stats I'd like to incorporate that'd be relevant but haven't worked out yet) in addition to a story driven gameplay with a good degree of dialogue where the main player can choose from pre-selected responses at various points.

Even in this game, as mentioned previously in the topic, I have planned to incorporate some notion of a battle of good vs evil in the form of the doping faction.

Why not a hockey rpg?

Nah, just digging up an old gamedev.net joke...

Sounds like a good idea to me, when do you plan to start development?

LOL hockey rpg could be fun.. I have no planned start date, now just in the super initial stages and designing and mapping things out... it's always been an idea in my head and I am wanting to see how people feel...

I will post more ideas and future developments soon

If I were making turn-based tennis, I think I'd do it like this, concentrating on the relationship between court coverage and momentum:

Your side of the court is a grid. As the ball goes over the net into your side, time freezes (or slows down, this could be a real-time turn-based strategy) and you see possible routes the ball might take (maybe along with probabilities). These are somewhat inaccurate when your Perception is low. You choose a kind of return and choose where on the grid you intend to execute it. Your character runs there. They only have so many squares they can run, but they can expend Stamina to lunge a bit further. If you chose well, your return connects and does exactly what you specified. If you're off by a square or two, you still can return but you don't get exactly what you intended. If you're well off, you miss.

But you don't get complete freedom to lunge in every direction every turn. One, you're using up stamina, and there are also consequences to lunging in opposite directions. (Like if you lunge left, you're not set up to lunge right on the next turn; you may not even be able to run as far right on the next turn.)

I think this gets more interesting in a doubles match than singles, as you have two character's coverage/momentum/skills to take into account.