Designing Cities & Towns in RPGs

This video goes over cities and towns in RPGs.

Often one of the largest time sinks during development when done right can be a compelling way to tell stories and promote worldbuilding in games. This video goes over three ways designers promote content in the cities they craft! NPC Reaction, Dynamic Change, & Hidden Secrets!

[Rod_Silva]

I think it is considered a "retro" turn-based RPG now, but PoPoLoCrois for PSP (2005) had AMAZING storytelling and lore communicated by the NPCs in the towns. The game didn't have that "library" where the player can read hundreds of backstory, the NPCs did that! They were always changing their dialogues after each quest, it really paid off to talk to each and every one of them every time (I mean, if you're really interested in that).

Btw, that's something that people joke these days or make it into a meme: The person presses X the entire game, skip all dialogues, doesn't talk to anyone and after they beat the final boss they nag "Meh, I didn't understand their motivation, I thought the game was bland and flat...". Oh, c'mon!

You either treat the game like a sport and then you accept that it is just that, or you treat it like a book and enjoy the journey.

[mr.goldfinch]

I absolutely love Athkatla from Baldur´s Gate 2. You can spend dozens of hours just doing side quests there. Not to mention a huge number of interesting NPCs, places and points of interest.
Great video!

[Seejayk]

If you were a library book, I would never return you.

[FaNATEiker]

Saw your link in a sub and had to subscribe because you are so close to the 1000! :D

[Virtualnerd]

Very interesting video! I know this is unrelated, but do you have any tips for getting into coding/game design? About to go to college for 4 years, and I’m hungry for knowledge!