Designing an in-game 'store' that only accepts hard-earned gold—plus new durability & forging mechanics!
Hello IndieDevs! I am the sole developer of a turn-based RPG built in RPG Maker MV called Cavely. I am still very early in the development process, with around 1-2 months of development. However, I have made some decent progress and just wanted to share my take on in-game shops within my game! No real money, all hard-earned gold from playing the game!
This is going to be a big post that goes over some recent changes, but my focus is on the Gilded Shop, so I am going to show that first and foremost. I would love to hear feedback, suggestions, ideas, and so on; this game is one I am trying to shape and form based on input, so anything is greatly appreciated.
Gilded Shop
The Gilded Shop is an in-game Gold-based item shop, designed to replace cash-based item shops with in-game grindable gold to unlock new zones, content, packs, DLC, and so on. Refer to images one and two.
It will include things like Repair Kits, Content Updates, DLC Updates, and so on, so that people can get our hard-developed updates (DLC, Expansions, Content Packs, etc) purely by playing our game! The idea is to take an "online shop" as other games implement, but remove the money requirement. The reason I chose to do this is that I genuinely believe more games need to promote playing the game, rather than opening your wallet! I am developing this entirely on my own, with no budget (other than my own), and I want to make a game that does not limit your progression based on your financial status. That is why this shop became an idea and eventually a thing!
Also, to note why I have this shop instead of NPCs doing this...
I chose to make this shop because I could integrate it directly into the game's main menu, eliminating the need to return to the hub or shopping district to repair gear, unlock content, and so on. I thought it would be a significantly better QoL feature than going back to town, since the walk back can be the difference between an endless loop of dying and getting your gear repaired. It still requires gold, but you can do it from anywhere in the game, rather than at a designated NPC.
Okay, now let's move on to some of the other recent features I have implemented into my game!
Introducing Weapons and Armor Durability
With every round of attacks, outgoing and incoming, your armor and weapons deplete their durability.
How does it affect your gameplay?
- A 25% loss in durability means a 15% loss in effectiveness
- A 50% loss in durability means a 35% loss in effectiveness
- A 75% loss in durability means a 50% loss in effectiveness
- And a 100% loss in durability means you have no stat bonus for gear
This is incorporated into the in-game shop, the Gilded Shop, as mentioned above.
We are also introducing a codex
This codex is a session-based enemy kill-and-death tracker. However, the codex tracker tracks individual kills, so if you have 4 mobs in one battle, it counts each death of that mob as a kill, whereas for quests it tracks based on battle phases, so one battle of 3 mobs is +1 to your progression of that quest (the first death of the sequence adds to the quest tally). We may add a tab to the codex menu to track lifetime encounters; this is still in planning.
Introducing Forging and Salvage Mechanics
With our latest core system overhaul, players can now actively upgrade their weapons and armor or break them down into materials to fuel their progression (Blacksmith your gear into better gear with a max of +7).
NOTE: Each +1 adds 20% more stats to the specified gear item; this may be refined to better fit the balance of the game, but that is how it is currently in the prototype form.
We are also introducing inventory stack tracking within the Blacksmithing menu, so you can easily track the number of items you have to avoid accidentally dismantling your last gear item.