Alright, since Erave is working on the final chapter, I believe it is time to share your thoughts about what Chain Game 4 has taught you. This discussion is generally only valid to those who actually worked on CG4, but if CG1-3 taught you anything, you can post that here as well.
As for me, before Chain Game 4, I had the warped perception that RPGs without random battles or a traditional battle system of some kind were just "interactive novels". How wrong was I. Due to the limitation of no DBS and random battles, I worked hard to come up with alternatives, even CBSs as well. As you will see in my chapter, I had several ideas that I thought would be good, and four of the five "sub-chapters" in my chapter involved some sort of mini-game. Beforehand, i had several mini-games planned, but was beaten to the punch in most instances (the using multiple characters thing in Chapter 5 (give or take) and Nessiah's
Rock-Paper-Scissors game). I had expanded on Nessiah's mini-game by making a full-fledged "battle system" out of it, if you will. I had tweaked (removing the pre-turn hint for instance except for the last battle of the scenario where it is expanded on) the mini-game to be more biased in one attack's favor. (i.e.
magic user will use Spell more often than Sword or Knife) I didn't want it to seem as a cheap knock-off of Nessiah's original work, as my system was coded from scratch.
Anyways, pushing my creativity to its limits, I created some quirky mini-games. I won't spoil these, but I believe them to be quite original.
Sorry to ramble on like that, but to make long story short, I learned how to go above and beyond the standards and consistencies of your garden-variety run-of-the-mill RPG. Please discuss, I would like to hear from all of you.
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What did working on Chain Game 4 (or any others) teach you?