- Joined
- Mar 24, 2017
- Posts
- 2,351
A few suggestions with resources -
I'm very much in favor of pushing people to use the most recent versions of Essentials, but I think it's still worthwhile to leave prefixes for older versions of Essentials, to make it clear when a script hasn't been updated.
As an example, I haven't updated my Bounce as a field move script from v18 yet, but I have edited the resource posting since then, to add links to related resources. I can still set the version to be v18.1, but I'm limited to v19-v20 for prefixes.
I've tried the (No prefix) option, but...
This means that if someone searches for resources with the prefix v19, my resource will still appear in the search, even though it's not actually updated for it yet. I could just avoid editing old resources altogether, but that means no fixing formatting, typos, etc., and doesn't solve the issue with resources that I've already edited.
Speaking of prefixes, I think it'd be handy to include prefixes for graphic resources as well, with categories like Tiles, Battlers, Overworlds, etc. The search function works pretty well for this, but sometimes creators don't explicitly mention what kind of graphic they're sharing (for example, Taiga's Trainer Collections don't say "Overworld" in the post, even though they're clearly displayed in the image), or creators might use different terms ("front and back sprites" vs "battlers", "tiles" vs "tilesets"), so not everything will show up in a standard search.
I also think it'd be helpful to let users add tags to their resources, for more specific topics/categories. (Like, a tag for custom Poke Balls, a tag for regional variants of Pokemon, etc.) But I know that could get tricky, since you'd either have to rely on users putting identical tags or on staff coming up with all the pre-set tags that could be used.
This last one's a pretty big suggestion, but I think it'd be fun -
I mentioned this idea in the Game Jam channel before it was deleted, but I think it'd be cool to have a sort of "Community Game Challenge". (Almost like Pokemon Amethyst but taken seriously, lol) Rather than going for a full-length 8-gym kind of game, though, it'd be just a little hub world meant to show off creations from participants, probably even shorter than most Jam games.
The idea I had initially was a collection of haunted houses - participants would make haunts for players to travel through, and the "host" of the event would be in charge of importing all the maps, graphics, etc., and creating a hub world to travel through them all. (Which, now that I'm writing it out, maybe people should apply to be a host, like requesting a plot on Team Mapper? Because I'm realizing that while I'd be willing to manage the work of importing, I probably don't have the skills to make an interesting hub map, haha. Maybe it could be a group of mappers, too, so it's not just one person sharing the work/getting the opportunity)
Going with the fall theme, you could also have a fall carnival, where the challenge would be to create minigames! This could also shake things up a bit with the resources - rather than just graphic packs being released, the accompanying scripts would also be released! Or the challenge could be to create cutscenes (maybe the hub world would be a movie theater?), and ask participants to share tutorials on tips they find helpful and any cool tricks they used! (It might need to be a collaborative tutorial rather than a set of individual ones, though, since dozens of tutorials on the same topic would inevitably get a lot of repeat information)
I'm very much in favor of pushing people to use the most recent versions of Essentials, but I think it's still worthwhile to leave prefixes for older versions of Essentials, to make it clear when a script hasn't been updated.
As an example, I haven't updated my Bounce as a field move script from v18 yet, but I have edited the resource posting since then, to add links to related resources. I can still set the version to be v18.1, but I'm limited to v19-v20 for prefixes.
I've tried the (No prefix) option, but...
This means that if someone searches for resources with the prefix v19, my resource will still appear in the search, even though it's not actually updated for it yet. I could just avoid editing old resources altogether, but that means no fixing formatting, typos, etc., and doesn't solve the issue with resources that I've already edited.
Speaking of prefixes, I think it'd be handy to include prefixes for graphic resources as well, with categories like Tiles, Battlers, Overworlds, etc. The search function works pretty well for this, but sometimes creators don't explicitly mention what kind of graphic they're sharing (for example, Taiga's Trainer Collections don't say "Overworld" in the post, even though they're clearly displayed in the image), or creators might use different terms ("front and back sprites" vs "battlers", "tiles" vs "tilesets"), so not everything will show up in a standard search.
I also think it'd be helpful to let users add tags to their resources, for more specific topics/categories. (Like, a tag for custom Poke Balls, a tag for regional variants of Pokemon, etc.) But I know that could get tricky, since you'd either have to rely on users putting identical tags or on staff coming up with all the pre-set tags that could be used.
This last one's a pretty big suggestion, but I think it'd be fun -
I mentioned this idea in the Game Jam channel before it was deleted, but I think it'd be cool to have a sort of "Community Game Challenge". (Almost like Pokemon Amethyst but taken seriously, lol) Rather than going for a full-length 8-gym kind of game, though, it'd be just a little hub world meant to show off creations from participants, probably even shorter than most Jam games.
The idea I had initially was a collection of haunted houses - participants would make haunts for players to travel through, and the "host" of the event would be in charge of importing all the maps, graphics, etc., and creating a hub world to travel through them all. (Which, now that I'm writing it out, maybe people should apply to be a host, like requesting a plot on Team Mapper? Because I'm realizing that while I'd be willing to manage the work of importing, I probably don't have the skills to make an interesting hub map, haha. Maybe it could be a group of mappers, too, so it's not just one person sharing the work/getting the opportunity)
Going with the fall theme, you could also have a fall carnival, where the challenge would be to create minigames! This could also shake things up a bit with the resources - rather than just graphic packs being released, the accompanying scripts would also be released! Or the challenge could be to create cutscenes (maybe the hub world would be a movie theater?), and ask participants to share tutorials on tips they find helpful and any cool tricks they used! (It might need to be a collaborative tutorial rather than a set of individual ones, though, since dozens of tutorials on the same topic would inevitably get a lot of repeat information)
