/rpgmg/ - RPG Maker General #141

A lot of weight on one item. I can dig it though. Secret characters are great.

Scythes are one of those weapons I have a love-hate relationship with. They look cool as hell but they're just completely impractical.

I was thinking about making a Final Fantasy VIII fan game based on the fan theory that Squall dies from Edea's ice attack at the end of disc 1.

The beginning of the game would open with the Deling City Parade battle against Edea and Seifer. It would be a forced-loss battle and Squall would get stabbed at the end of the fight.

So he'd lay there, bleeding to death, and Edea would call guards and have them all arrested. They end up in a small jail in Deling City, that becomes the first dungeon, and your objective is to escape and try and rescue Squall who is in a medical room in the jail.

You fail though, and he dies there.

But the rest of this fan game would tell a very different story. Edea would be the main villain, she wouldn't be everyone's orphan mama, Ultimecia wouldn't exist, and neither would things like Moombas and Shumai. The tone of the game would be much more like the first disc and less like the rest of the original game where shit kind of went off the rails.

What do you think?

To be honest, if FF8 did this, it would have been a much better game. I'm a FFanboy, so you'd have my attention regardless, but you have it even moreso now.

Would Seifer remain Edea's Knight throughout the journey, or would killing Squall eventually cause him to turn on her and become the party's gunblader?

He'd remain a dick for a little while but then he'd realize that being Edea's puppet is a bad idea and join up with you.

My character rides the 4th wall and knows that the locket opens the way to a secret character, so he makes sure to get it. He, and the character he gets it from, end up having complicated feelings for each other

They had a fight two episodes ago

They make amends two episodes from now

Also, I had an idea how some of the game's systems could work.

K first off, Drawing Magic would still be a thing, HOWEVER, Junctioning Magic wouldn't be, so you would lose no stats by using your good spells. I would also include shops where you can outright buy units of Magic if you don't feel like drawing them.

GFs would work differently. You would be able to Junction up to 2 GFs per character, and they would give you various stat and other bonuses. For example, equipping Ifrit might boost your HP and ATK a lot, and also make you resist Fire damage, whereas equipping Shiva might boost your MAG and MDF and make you resist Ice damage. So in a sense, different GF combinations create Classes - if you want Zell to fight strictly melee, you would give him a pair of GFs that boost his ATK. Maybe I could also incorporate GF compatibility so that as you play with a given GF on a given character, they get better stat boosts and more bonus traits.

Then those GFs also kind of become Limit Breaks. Instead of the Limit method used in FF8, it would be more like the one in FF10. Then you summon GFs instead of use traditional limit breaks when the meter gets full.

So then the question becomes... what makes each character different then? Well, I've got an idea. What if there was a restricted skill system based on their old limit breaks? Hear me out here.

Let's take Rinoa as an example. Next to her HP and Summon meter, she would start with another meter, split in half into two notches. This meter would fill as you performed attacks or met other conditions, and when a notch is full, you can use a skill from her unique Angelo command. This, of course, calls in Angelo to do an attack or something, consuming a notch on the meter. As you continue through the game, you will gain more notches, but the length of the meter stays the same, so you would get to use Angelo skills more often as notches would fill quicker, and you could store more up as well.

Continued...

Irvine would have a Shot command, where he could load special bullets to do special attacks. These would be consumable and could be restocked from shops or from chests/drops. However, his special meter would be a "Reload Meter", which would be one single meter that fills up as you take actions. When it maxes out, it will automatically deposit a number of Bullets into your inventory, based on what Shots you've used since it was last maxed out (so for example, use Shotgun Shot a lot and you'll get more Shotgun Shells).

Quistis is a Blue Mage. Nuff said. I dunno what her special meter would do yet.

Zell would have a number of notches on his meter like Rinoa does, and they would grow over time. His special command is Combo, and he can use it any time he has at least 1 notch filled up, but the more notches you have, the better it is, because it will let you spend all the notches you have in one turn (one notch = one action) to deliver a variety of combo attacks to your foes.

Selphie's special command is Slot, and it's kind of like a magic version of Zell's special. Her meter lets her store up casts, so when you use Slot, you then pick any spell you want and it will cast that spell as many times as you have notches on your meter.

Seifer's special command would be Trigger, and it would perform a normal attack and consume a notch on his meter, but it would always be a critical hit and depending on what Gunblade he's using, it will apply a status effect or some other effect with 100% accuracy.

What do you think?

I like drawing, and junctioning pretty much broke the game so I'm fine with that being gone. The GFs could work similarly to how they did in FF6's Espers, too. Rather than just have their own stat boosts, you could unlock certain traits for them from having them equipped...almost like jobs? Earning Guardian Points or some other thing that you can use to unlock different facets of the GF for the characters, either permanently (like FF6) or until they change the GF (a job) or some other way.

>Restricted Skill System
I think the idea is definitely interesting as long as each character's "style" is interesting enough to justify using. I've legitimately never used Rinoa or Selphie in FF8 (you don't need much beyond Zell and his endless Limit combo) so I can't really vouch for them but the ideas seem sound. The practice is where they'd come out though.

I would play the shit of that.

Funny story: One of my buddies had borrowed VIII's first disk from a friend as a kid. For the longest time they thought that's how the game ended, with Squall dying and always turned off the game before it said to insert the next disk.

>I liked the Moombas though.

Being completely new to scripting, how could I go about tracking the usage of certain spells and have every cast increase a special exp bar of sorts? (I think Breath of Fire 5 did it similarly with its dragon powers)

On paper, I imagined this could tie into a system of (more or less freely) selectable prestige classes of sorts, with their own exp bar in addition to each character's individual one.

Any ideas or pointers (I intend to use VX Ace)?

>tracking the usage of certain spells and have every cast increase a special exp bar of sorts?
I did something like this to level up a skill:

You'd have to make multiple versions of the skill (The different levels of said skill), and have the skills call up a common event.
In said common event, add to a variable.
The have a conditional branch check, if variable is greater than 10 uses or whatever, add the next level of skill to the character, and remove the first level.

>prematurely posted mfw

So you could use the variable setup as an alternate exp bar, and mess with skills/setup as needed for the whole additional class setup thing.

Magic Knight Rayearth matches the rmxp battlers pretty well, don't you think?

Page 10 Alert.

Name a feature you enjoy in RPGs (or other games), that you'd like to use in your own game.

>I.e. The breakfast conversations in Grandia II to remind players what they were doing.

Summon magic.
Or transformations.

Thanks a bunch, I'll try that.

I half expected having to throw in a bunch of plugins to get this idea to work, but it sounds a lot easier this way.

Bump

For the MC, the antagonist's sword. He doesn't use it, and merely keeps it in good shape (cleans, sharpens, and oils it) in hopes of if he can save his deluded friend that they can have their long awaited duel.

The only super important item belonging to a character is a hummingbird necklace. It was given to him by his ex (who was still a close friend) when he had to leave, and he knew (they both did) that they would never see each other again.

It has very little effect other than a morale booster. And if you're a jerk, or uninformed (which at the time you will be), you can take it off of him when he joins you only for him to disappear without it. Good job asshole.

good gameplay.
but for real a proper way of doing team attacks would be great.

Ded

Yanfly makes so many plugins. Does he actually make games?

Yanfly basically makes RPGMaker functional for them. He should just make his own RPG Engine. I'd happily switch over.

bump it up

God help us all if he did. We'd never come close to matching the gameplay

Vancian casting. Spells per day, "re-learning" them after using them up, material costs, etc. Yanfly has plugins for all of those, so it should be relatively easy.

Dungeons and Dragons mechanics in general would be a nice alternative in general; the Six Stats (STR/DEX/CON/INT/WIS/CHA) make a good jumping-off point for non-combat skills, Vancian casting gives casters some incentive to manage their spells, field-based battles provide much more tactical advantages, etc. It's less user-friendly, but more versatile and IMO satisfying.

I'm aiming for that (D&D on MV). But using row formation for a more abstract positioning in the battle (and because there's no TBS for MV).
The main problem so far is the missing attacks being very irritating (roughly a 80% hit chance). I could "fix" it, but then I was one of the people who bashed Swordcoast Legends for not using the D&D ruleset.

Also, can't decide if I go 4e, 2e or 5e.

I probably wouldn't go for a specific edition, mostly because each one has nuances that might not be easily replicated in RPG Maker (2e has the THAC0 combat matrix and 4e is pretty much based around the grid system; I'm not familiar with 5e). I'd take the parts that are most easily applicable to MV (casting mechanics, using rows and formations to represent distance, races and classes, etc.) and go from there.

I like spell management, but having a mana pool(or generic magic energy stamina system) just makes more thematic sense to me.

I am hoping to have it both ways by having a very low numbers game. If you got 40mp to hit a dungeon with in a world without mana potions, I am hoping it will lead to players not just spamming spells.

Not that there won't be ways to recover magic, but you won't have a stack or potions to pull from.

A white cape her friend and role model gives her as he's dying. The cape gets more bloodstained red, ripped and torn through out the game as it progresses as a symbol to say goodbye to innocence, but still having it to remind her to look at and question if she's doing the right thing or not and wanting to make him proud.

In that case you'd want to look at the Monk's ki pool mechanic (and half of Pathfinder's classes).

Any good rpgmaker games that go nuts with numbers and stats or flashy moves, or flashy numbers and stats?

Does your character have any pets?

That's pretty much what I had in mind.

Yanfly's newest plugin!

youtube.com/watch?v=ZohmBgJO7HY

Item Disassembling is go! So fucking hype!

I recall him making a demo project for his Subclass script back in RPG Maker VX. It actually had a story, gameplay balance (to a degree until the end where you can just break the enemies to pieces), and used nothing but the default RTP database with some obvious changes to the classes.

The scary part? It was way more fun than "real" RPG Maker projects I've played which goes to show that it's all about the execution and game making theory. Seeing as how most of his tips videos talk about game theory all the time, it wouldnt surprise me a single teensy bit that Yanfly has profound game design philosophies on a higher level.

Pretty much all my character has is pets. I'm gonna be working on designs for the monsters today and share my terrible pixel art for the world (or this thread I guess) to see.

Here is a fun little character building activity.
Describe each of you playable characters as "The Adjective Noun"

For example; The Strange Wanderer

>Item Disassembling
Oh I am SO turning that into a butchering mechanic for my next game. I was looking for a way to do that part.

>butchering
That's actually a very neat way of implementing the plugin.

I was thinking of using it like that for my hiatus'd hunting game...
I'm interested in seeing how you implement it, though. I'm sure we'll end up with totally different things!

The Bastard Princess
The Iron Heir
The Angelic Orphan
The Misguided Worshiper
The Compulsive Grifter
The Mysterious Ally
The Apathetic Prodigy
The Tranquil Eruption

>The Tranquil Eruption
wat.

Ever read the manga Dungeon Meshi? I'm stealing the core premise of eating the monsters you encounter in the dungeon. Butched the monsters into parts, Craft the parts into meals, replenish the party so you can keep going further into the dungeon.

>Easy mode, this is pretty much how my 'classes' are named. Since there is no class changing, it's a quick title for the character.
The Drunk Knight
The Corrupt Cleric
etc.

The Misplaced Hero
The New Friend
The Colorful Female

Ah, definitely different to what I'd be doing, then. Resources gained from monsters would be your only way to get weapons, armor, healing items, etc. Your idea kinda reminds me of the camp scenes in Dragon's Crown.

Good luck if you decided to make it! I'd definitely be up for playing a Dungeon Meshi game!

I refuse to let you die again

All right. I'm pretty shit with sprites but going to try to do my own rather than steal others (I was tempted just to take the ones from DWM and edit them).

I'm aiming for some sort of Egyptian-themed jackal here.

Also for those that missed my initial idea, I'm looking at putting together a monster-raising sim, an amalgamation of Monster Rancher and Dragon Seeds, with an artstyle probably similar to Dragon Warrior Monsters for GBA.

I'm not sure if/how to add shading to the body (and creating the up/down sprites feels like it'll be a pain).

>insert fishing for monster ideas you'd like to see/raise

The determined heir
The quiet investigator
The short-tempered friend
The fast-talking smart-ass
The black man

Done all the enemies for the first dungeon! ( not counting bosses )
Might get too bloated if I make too many for one introduction dungeon so I'll stop here, and just leave the sketches for the next one.

>(I was tempted just to take the ones from DWM and edit them).
imo as long as you edit them enough that's not really a problem. Just make sure you go over each edit a few times and make enough changes so it is no longer traced.
If you pay attention to the 8/16-bit era you will see a lot of sprites from games in the same genre look suspiciously alike, and most of the RTP assets are just redraws from early RPGs.
Copy shit and change it to make it your own, that's how art works.

>Copy shit and change it to make it your own, that's how art works.

I might, if I can't get my ideas working. It's not like DQ has particularly difficult art to mimic to begin with.

I'm bored.

Looking nice.
Gotta draw my first area enemies soon myself.

make a game

Nothing like trying to come up with interesting floor tiles and ending up with stuff that makes your eyes bleed.

What are your thoughts on characters with more "real" names, like Johnny, Logan, Zoey etc?

It depends on the setting of the game.

As long as they make sense in the region, it is ok.

But you better don't have Johnny, Aryanna and Yukiko as childhood friends that lived in a small town in the middle of nowhere.

No idea if I'll ever finish it, but here is a screen for a practice project.

>you play as a bored villain setting up dungeons and obstacles to raise a hero that can actually fight you.
>all battles are automatic... still ironing it out but I made the AI slightly less retarded.

Finally finished this map, aww yeah.

The Ambitious Adventurer
The Cynical Mercenary
The Nervous Prodigy
The Calm Leader
The Bumbling Newbie
The Mysterious Researcher

>Butchering
Sounds really cool. Reminds me of an old gameplay demo I made for a tiny project ages ago in which the player only receives EXP by consuming meat which they've taken from enemies they killed. The meat healed you as well, and there were alternative areas which could heal you as well, so if you didn't want to gain any levels you could keep yourself at level 1. I may go back to that at some point.

When I use "normal" names, I use as a signifier as to where the characters are from. For example, the main character's NotEurope feudal country uses German names and then he travels to desert area and "common" names are Arabic. It can help give each area more of an identity and makes the world more varied and real.
>But you better don't have Johnny, Aryanna and Yukiko as childhood friends that lived in a small town in the middle of nowhere.
Agreed. It does the exact opposite of the above: it makes the world feel inconsistent.

The Selfish Hero
The Moody Knight
The Ambitious Magician
The Sadistic Mercenary
The Brutish Paladin
The Noble Abomination
The Greedy Leader
The Careless Gambler
The Tactless Scribe
The Hesitant Mummer
The Caring Tracker
The Genius Chef

Man, I finished my final preparing touches for my current project, and the next step is to start mapping and eventing the world. Only problem is my work partner hasn't finished writing the script yet, so now I'm out of things to do, at least for tonight. I really dislike losing my momentum like this,

The Generic Hero
The Best Friend
The Purest Psychopath
The Loyal Knight
The Plucky Traitor
The Replacement Healer
The Decoy Villain

My first project had characters named things like Maria, Elise, Kaito, Rei, Luda, Il'ferius, Xelia and Larli.

It was justified though as the world had 3 distinct regions (one which was roughly Western-Earth based, one which was roughly Eastern-Earth based and the last which was basically Fantasy Land) and the game took place in a central melting pot land where all of the different cultures came together (to search for phat lewt).

Samefag here.

Actually now that I think about it, I should use this opportunity to ask a question.

The game in question was my first real project in RPG Maker and I spent like 9 months working on it. There's a ton of content, but I also realize that the game really isn't that great and would need a LOT of fixing to make it decent (most notably my fuck-awful maps).

But nobody really ever played it. So I was wondering... could you guys try the game out and play through the entire thing (if possible) and give me some feedback on what I did right, and what I did wrong, so I can use that knowledge for future projects?

Here's the link: mediafire.com/download/g7wf94b3345rf7o/Treasures of Il'moria (Rank D Demo ver. 0.116).rar

I actually had considered remaking the whole thing from the ground up in MV, and improving upon all of my mistakes, but I'm not totally sure I'm going to do that. Still, it would be nice to know what I need to improve upon.

Some things to note about the game:
>There are 6 dungeons playable in this demo.
>14 party members other than the MC, plus more if you figure out the cheat to enable all the unfinished beta party members that puts that number well over 20.
>There's a ton of secrets and optional bosses. The game has a big emphasis on exploration.
>The demo doesn't just abruptly end, there's a "final boss" to it that should adequately test your skills.
>If you rush through the game, I'd imagine it'll take about ~6 hours to beat. If you look for all the secrets, I would imagine it'd take 10+ hours.

So yeah... feedback would be nice.

I've got a backlog of RPGmaker games to play but I shall add yours to the list, SameFagAnon.

Dammit, I knew there was something I forgot.

One of the biggest complaints about the game was that the beginning felt slow and boring because for the entire first dungeon, all you can do is Attack, Defend and Item. But right after that, it opens up the ability to learn new skills. So uh... maybe try and force yourself through that bit...

And I'll also thrown in a list of how to get all the party members:
>Luda (Knight) - Joins automatically as soon as you get your Rank E License.
>Elise (White Mage) - See above.
>Maria (Black Mage) - Found in the North-West corner of the Il'centra Guild Hall main room. After you have opened a certain number of Treasure Chests, she will join you.
>Kaito (Thief) - Found directly opposite of Maria on the East side. Give him 200 Gold, then follow him to the 2nd floor of the Inn and speak to him to get him to join.
>Rei (Monk) - Found in the Sanctuary in Il'centra. Speak to her and agree to everything she says and she'll join you. While you're there, speak to the little girl in the Sanctuary. She starts up the Shiny Stones side quest.
>Noah (Bard) - Speak to him on the Il'centra Docks at the very end of the dock, and he'll tell you about losing his Lucky Quill in the Quan Woods dungeon. Go find it in the next-to-last screen in the dungeon in a silver chest and bring it back to him and he'll join.
>Adrin (Archer) - She's hanging out south of the Tower of Trials in Il'centra. She, like Noah, wants an item - the Lost License - from the Volstone Cave dungeon. It's in the last room right before the boss in a silver chest, so bring it back to her and she'll join.
>Larli (Gambler) - She's the bunny girl wandering around the Guild Hall. You can technically get her right from the start, but she costs 5000 Gold to recruit, so you will probably want to wait till later. You can't miss her, or any other party members, so take your time.

More next post....

Huh, I like your scrolling panorama intro. Nice touch.

But the first actual map/screen is really boring. It's just two guys on a dock.
I don't think anyone actually leaves barrels and ropes hanging out, but even junk like that would liven it up.
But it's the first thing the player sees, so do something.
>I'll report more later.

why does the in battle dialogue switch back to the status window between sentences...? That might be an engine thing, but it's really irritating.
>On the other hand, I'm amused by the 'tutorial'.
> I named the MC 'your mom'.

All of those characters can be recruited while you are a Rank E Treasure Hunter. The following characters can only be recruited after you raise to Rank D.

>Luke (Spellsword) - Joins automatically as you cross the gate leading to North Centra (the Rank D area).
>Farast (Lancer) - Hangs out on the north side of Il'centra's main area next to some benches. He wants you to complete a certain number of Hunter Quests (go kill x amount of y quests) and be Rank D before he will join you.
>Zaiku (Silver Mage) - Hangs out in the Arena in Il'centra. You need to be Rank D and have defeated all of the Rank E Arena monsters and at least 1 Rank D Arena monster to get him to join.
>Theodore (Alchemist) - Hangs out on the second floor of the Library in Il'centra. You MUST speak to him first and hear everything he has to say, and then go to the Lokrim Temple dungeon and speak to an NPC in the second area, who will give you a book (he won't give it to you unless you have spoken to Theodore first), so take it back to Theodore and he will join you.
>Maldeus (Dark Knight) - Found in the Cursed Cave Grotto, one of the secret areas on the world map. It's invisible on the map, like all the other Grottos, but like every other Grotto, the area is made to look suspicious. There's a section of forest shaped like an arrow (or a sword?) on the northern end of the North Centra continent that points to a long string of mountains that end in a dead end. Head down there to enter the Cursed Cave. It's located at 137, 306 (the game has a HUD you can enable to display your coordinates), if that helps. Once you're there, fight to the bottom of the area and then defeat Maldeus in battle to have them join.
>Nyami (Copycat) - Found in the North Centra Camp. Speak to her after opening a certain number of Treasure Chests and she will join you.

I think that's everyone you can recruit normally...

Made a small battle test with all the enemies
a.pomf.cat/jzeuzk.mp4

Only won because I used OP as fuck skills hue
And yeah, placeholder music.

Mechanically and placement wise, I don't mind how it's set up. I like that the guild is directly up from an exit, so when I get told to go to the guild when trying to leave, I find it.

But otherwise, your outside town area is far to samey... the rows and rows of the same flower are weird. Try to make the outside areas have some unique shapes at least so people don't get lost. Also the people who are just standing still are kinda odd. Throw 'em on a bench or admiring the flowers. Give them move routes, or something, even if it's just like 'look right-wait-move down down-look right-wait-move up up (repeat)'

> I don't mind how it's set up.
Err, I mean for the map of the main hub. Which is kinda important.

Yeah, I know, my mapping was super bad back then. I mean, my mapping skills still aren't great, but I think they're at least better than they used to be. Pic related. It's somewhat of an improvement, I think.

Yeah, a lot better. I say you should fix the first main hub up, so that its easier to entice testers into trying the game for you.
>my god I recognize MV's slimes.
Are you converting your project to MV?

This is from a totally different project. Though like I said before, I had considered remaking Treasures of Il'moria from the ground up as well.

If there's anything you like from the original there is the VXace to MV converter by that ponce Shaz, of course.
IIRC, it just does database, map (which might look broken unless you use the old tilesets) and events.

Otherwise, the core of your game is fun and I like the ideas behind it, and even if you never fix it up.

>Pic is just a map from my first attempt at a game.

The Misguided Warrior
The Tsundere Mage
The Unexpected Love-Interest
The Faceless Prince
The Kleptomaniac Thief
The Jealous Antagonist
The Colorless Artist
The Loving Mentor
The Caring Gardener
The Deaf Bard
The Twin Knights
The Protective Sister
The Loyal Mimic
The Lost Child
The Regretful Father
The Sadistic Shadow
The Glutton Cook

A few of them die as the story goes on and there's more characters but too lazy to list them all.

I actually like the taller sprites but too lazy to learn how to convert them to MV and all the tilesets..

Nah, I'd rather literally start the whole thing from scratch. There's too many things that need to be completely redone.

That looks awesome. And you don't use any scripts, right? How do you get all that awesome shit like the death explosions and the victory screen?

Unfortulately I couldn't get a lot of the things I wanted to working via events, so when it comes to the battle system I had to use a bunch of scripts and customize them.
Still not a fan of going around using scripts... but at least I can still count on being good at eventing on overworld stuff.

I heard there's some way to tell RPGMaker to draw sprites differently to work better with a 2D sidescroller perspective. Could anyone give me any insight into that?

I'm bored and need to take a little break from my RPG (getting burned out).

Anyone need a specific piece of music for your game?

Just tell me what it's used for (like the situation to give me an idea), the feel you're going for, and a specific genre/ theme of the music itself and I'll try my best to make you a piece.

It's free because I'm not confident enough in my work ethic to charge :L

Only term is that you don't hold copyright to the piece and the specific song is public domain (if someone nicks when I post it in the thread and uses it as well, no legal action could be pursued).

Just shoot me a reply if interested. Can't go wrong with potential free music, me thinks.

Uh, piano music played in an old mansion.
Maybe full of wistfulness but also a tint of hope?

That's pretty generous of you, and I'm really tempted. So...
How about something upbeat and jazzy?
If we asked nicely, would you post the project file so other music makers could make variations?

Usage would be a secret character's theme. Sorry I forgot that. The guy is overly friendly, leans on the forth wall and enjoys apples far too much.

Question, how are you at NES accuratish chip tunes?

Noted. Is the mansion haunted or something? Or literally just an old mansion?

Upbeat and jazzy. Love doing this kind of music. Noted.
> If we asked nicely, would you post the project file so other music makers could make variations?
Sure. There's no guarantee that you'll have my vsts and soundfonts though, but I suppose I can throw the project up regardless.

It's I skill that I'm practicing. I'm aware of how the channels worked (three channels with a DPCM channel) so I can make pretty authentic sounding music, but it's usually really simple sounding. I'm no keygen music creator, unfortunately.