/rpgmg/ - RPG Maker General #181

This is interesting. I'm not a fan at all of shitty 4-koma comics like this, but the ideas seem pretty sound.

>4koma
>shitty

FlyingDream is cute! CUTE!!

I liked it. You're just shit.

Also, no progress from me today. Rance VI is just too damn fun to play.

Yes, 4koma can be shit. I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you.

have some bad guys

>Rance VI
Got a link for me senpai?

I want some good guys

have a magebot then

The one on the top right is my favorite.

...

...

Only cause you asked nicely. You can thank me by posting cute girls.

mega.nz/#F!yccGjCQY!PcbrdbrzTWEnZ87qQnTqhw

Password is Anasel

Yo, evening RPG ladm8s.

So I'm trying to create something using the default event options.

I've got the player's X and Y coords continually being written to a pair of variables, and i have an event that's keeping track of its own coords and writing to variables.

I want a condition to be the player's location relative to the event, but so far all I can do is check that the player is on the same X or Y coord as the event, which isn't ideal.

Anything I can do to check if the player and event are within one square of each other on either axis?

Thank you!
These are cute, right?

For reference, tried this but doesn't do anything:
($gameVariables.value(41) - $gameVariables.value(43)).abs + ($gameVariables.value(42) - $gameVariables.value(44)).abs == 1

Where 41 and 43 are the X coords, and 42 and 44 and the Y

distance formula is the pythagorean theorem, a^2 + b^2 = c^2:

a = playerx - eventx
b = playery - eventy

distance_squared = a * a + b* b

thanks to the fact that the coordinates are always integers, we know things about a few key values:

if distance_squared == 1, then the event is adjacent to the player

if distance_squared == 2, then the event is diagonally adjacent to the player

if distance_squared == 4, then the event is on the same axis as the player either vertically or horizontally, with 1 empty space between them

if distance_squared == 5, then the event is a knight's move away from the player

If I'm going to release a demo for people. How should I go about telling them when they reach the end of finished content?

Any idea why the above isn't working? Sorry, it's 1am and my brain is falling away like a wet cake

Make a message about thanking the player and telling them that they reached the end.

The math looks okay. Can I see a screenshot of the event?

Fade to black and say thanks for playing. Then start jewing by advertising the website they can find more info about the game, when it's going to be released, etc

Cute enough user, cute enough.

Apologies if it's something massively obvious, I am feeling very stupid with all this

I've hacked together something that works meanwhile, by considering 4 situations
(where X of player and event match, and Y is offset by 1 or -1) and (where Y of player and event match, and X is offset by 1 or -1)

and stuck those in a common event for now.
Very unprofessional and roundabout way to do things but I guess it works atm.

I've solved it!

{Some number}.abs doesn't work in javascript. You probably got that from a Ruby code snippet I'm guessing?

Instead you need to do Math.abs({Some number})

The condition should wind up being:

Math.abs($gameVariables.value(41) - $gameVariables.value(43)) + Math.abs($gameVariables.value(42) - $gameVariables.value(44)) == 1

You beautiful sod, thank you

I just tried doing a very basic foundation for a game like that Yanfly comic suggested, and holy shit that was refreshing.

Time to make some progress

B-but I planned on hacking my 3ds tonight...

I know you have literally no excuse not to do that but you have no excuse not to work on your project either.

You shall live

It looks so simple but guess it is a good way to start.

STAY ALIVE

Today I put together some stuff for a slave girl. You can't fug her or anything yet but the quest to get her is set up in full, you can set her out to work in a bar for some cash, and if you do so enough you can send her out in more revealing clothing.

Tomorrow I'll work on a hunger/thirst/someotherthirdneed (cleanliness?) system and an event of her dying if you don't tend to them needs.

Thanks anons. I'll work on this soon.

Fuck
I am THIS close to use "This is the choice of Steins;Gate" because something very fortunate happens in my game.
But I know I shouldn't use this.

>When you thought you had a totally original idea but suddenly come across a game with the exact same premise after months of working on yours.

Don't.
Making a meta breaking is only good when you are 100% that your meta is already established, otherwise nobody will take it seriously.

That goes for all of you.
Don't break the 4th wall until you have a goddamn standing house.

I know that feel.
Take solace user, everything has been done.
But not everything has been done well.
Do it well, user. Do it well.

Don't worry, I'm going to use "This is the will of the universe" or something like that instead.

;;;tiles are so time consuming and it honestly feels like they barely pay off when i make them, it's just not my thing. is anyone here good at tiles/maps or am i gonna have to either suck it up or hire an artist?

Just draw the map completely in Photoshop and disregard tiles.
Also TROGDOR

Just another day without complete project.

Even though it's 1am, I just opened my project to work on it a bit before bed. 1 step at a time, user.

Your tiles are looking good so far, though.

So right now, in my battle system, I've got it set up to where the fastest unit always goes first (barring if you're in a certain formation). Should I add some variance to that to make battles a bit less predictable, or should I work in the confines of that to make them interesting despite it?

Bump

Let's say I make a map.
Can I just replace them later by swapping the tiles?

if using rpgmaker yes

I'm looking to get into pixel art, I've been drawing digitally for about half a year with clip studio.
Where should I pick up photoshop / what version should I look for?

I use CS6, but there are other/better versions. You can always use gimp as well for pixel art.

All of these downloads/torrents are sketchy as fuck looking

Depends, if it's really simple 16px tiles, I can do those all day, just as rewarding as the rest, but anything bigger and my lack of artistic ability really trips me up.

I recommend pyxel edit, it was 1 dollar this week in the humble deal, should still be ongoing

CS2 is available on Adobe's website for free. It's ten years old, but fuck, it's still Photoshop

helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite/kb/cs2-product-downloads.html

thanks, i'll try both of these.

Aries is on fire

That's cool

Your art style is gorgeous, really great use of colors and big fat blocks of the same color, really enjoying seeing it.

You are crushing it with these characters. Looking forward to the next demo no pressure

I've noticed that projects with original artwork or displaying a competent level of development receive much less attention or praise than story pitches, character background exposition or RTP mapping, and that's a shame.

I don't post my own stuff because it's disheartening to have it skipped over, though I'm hardly expecting a hugbox or anything.

Good night bump

Sleep titght, user

How do you guys feel about missable key items?

I'm making a H game and one of the party members has an item that they use to get off, but you can miss the item on if you pass that certain portion of the game without taking it.

I'm juggling the idea right now and still quite on the fence about it.

I'm not a fan of missing anything forever in any game. except if it's demoniacally linear so it's 100% the player's fault.
if not, always consider the "I'm gonna explore that area after I do this" mentality

>missables

Not even once. Temporary missables are fine, like in Lost Odyssey you can buy anything you missed from a one-time dungeon in the auction house lategame, but if it's permanent the game can go fuck itself.

Shame or not I don't care much, just the fact that someone out there is looking forward to it is more than enough for me! Thank you user.

Also, an enemy.

Another one.

What is this supposed to be? A cute tentacle rape olive?

Yes
Octolive

I guess that's a sign the drawing conveys the intention well.

For some reason I sent a really small version (?) well, here's the full thing. It's a concept of one of the bosses of my game.

Zodiac-themed?

If I can't progress in a game because I missed an item earlier on, and now my only option is to restart, that's some bullshit.

If I can't progress past a certain bit unless I backtrack all the way to get something, that's admissible.

I think we should be past the point of sierra style dead ends, but you could probably make it worthwhile for the player by minimising the time between losing access to the item and needing it to progress, and adding in a bad-end H-scene.

Yes
Here's Capricorn. The game will have 2 episodes (I don't know if this episodic thing is praised by people, but it's a good way to save time for me, at least), and Capricorn is the first boss, Aries is the second one.

For example,
>You're in a bank
>your party members took out a security guard on the way in
>You all head for the vault.
>Guard dropped a baton
>You could take the baton from him, but you don't.
>Once in the vault, you're separated from your party by a security measure, locking you in a small room-
>the baton would allow you to reach through the bars and hit a release, letting you get away
>you didn't pick it up so now you wait
>after a short while you get roughed up by some busty cops

off the top of my head. This feels like less of a kick in the groin, because the time between losing access and needing the item is short, all just my opinion though, if somebody can make a case for Sierra style puzzling, I'd love to reconsider.

That looks nice. Profile picture feels a bit off but I can't quite tell why. Maybe it's because there's too much space around it.

Episodic is a turn-off for me, as it's usually a hallmark of people who have much bigger plans than they can accomplish. I think it'd be a better idea to get the first 'episode' done and polished, release it as a demo, then work on the rest.

There are already so, so many more indie games than there are people to play them, I think you'd do yourself a disservice to dilute it further.

It's just that there's 12 zodiac signs, and all of them will be on the game. For me it wouldn't make sense to take some down, since it's "Virgo versus the Zodiac". I thought it would work ok, but Capricorn area already has some good 1 hour+30minutes of gameplay, and this is just the demo. The other areas are way bigger, besides the hub town where you'll find a lot of side quests to do... The game will be big even when cut in half, since it will have 6 areas with lots of things to do. But what you've said makes sense, it may push people away. It's just that I was playing Heroes of Legionwood and it wasn't a bummer for me.

I'll place it better on screen. I just saved it in a bigger png file, so it has this huge amount of space.

I tried doing it in pixel art as well, but it was so much more difficult than what I'm doing now. Way more precise for a whole portrait as well, and way less space for subtlety.

I don't think it's a problem that it's not pixel art. It's probably just a tad small and I'm used to seeing bigger portraits.

Also, looking at the picture again I noticed that you have two lamps at the entrances, but the light source of nearby objects is still to the right. You might want to fix that.

Ultimately it's your decision- whether it's one massive title or 12 smaller ones. I can see the appeal of launching them one at a time, because until you release something you've no stake out there marking your project, gathering followers or patrons or whatever. I feel that pressure, maybe you're the same.

On the other hand, you might find that by time you get around to the 3rd or 4th part, you've made a change in some area or another and now the game isn't uniform in its art direction or gameplay or writing, story arc etc.

>I can't believe I didn't notice how rough the camera panning was in the first 2 before i started using this smooth camera plugin

for example.

I guess what I'm saying is that by releasing it as they're made, the earlier parts don't get a chance to benefit from the progression you've made, where in one title you could always go back and implement any improvements into earlier stages.

I guess that's the nature of all sequels though

In fact I just wanted to divide it into 2 parts. I would finish the game with a kind of cliff hanger, and them do another one with the rest of the signs. The story could profit from this as well, but there's this problem about the improvements that you're talking about... I get what you're saying though, if I launched it in several parts like this it could hurt development severely, but what about the game having just 2 parts? I think I would have the time to acknowledge possible changes, although it's always the moment for devs to re-do shit...

But I'm considering just releasing the full thing all together.

Do the full thing, release episode 1 as demo.

So you did the tiles and sprites right? what about the portrait?

I did the portraits as well.

Ah, if it's two that's not too bad at all. My only wondering about that would be if people were expecting to see all 12 in one game but don't get to.

Like if somebody released a platformer with level design based on the 7 stages of grief, but the game ends after 3, they'd call bullshit.

Seems like you're doing it right though, from everything I've seen, don't let bystanders like me sway your plans too much.

What are you working on right now?

I'm doing a visual inventory you cycle through with a key in realtime, since I only have a handful of different items I want to avoid menus as much as possible.

So I have it that when you press a hotkey a common event will search your inventory for item types, skipping over any you don't have until it finds one you do, then shows a little picture of it and sets it to the active item.

Then you use the item with another button, the picture is removed accordingly (provided it's a one-use).

Like this I can use items on NPCs (checking for proximity before enacting any effects so it doesn't just trigger when you're in the same map as them).

Very excited.

I'm also working on menus and user interfaces in general.

I wanted something similar to you where I have a few tabs and just by moving the cursor over each tab it would update the screen next to it to display the appropriate information. It was a bit tricky as first but I managed to make good use of the Window_Selectable class to write a menu script that would fit my needs. Pic related are the only two tabs I bothered to add content to. The first is a status screen, the second the bag with the items. Everything's still very much in the placeholder phase.

What I'm working on right now is a different user interface that pops up regularly during the game. This was definitively more complex to do, it took me the whole week working all day but I'm finally almost done. Progress coming soon, I hope.

I'm sitting here wishing I could just commit suicide

if I feel better though I'm gonna try to storyboard the rest of my story on paper

How do you guys stay focused / not get burnt out when deving?

Struggling to stay focused with my current project, and finding it difficult to carry on.

Sometimes it helps working on a different aspect.
I personally benefit from writing small todo lists on a piece of paper. It breaks the task down into smaller manageable subtasks. It also helps that I don't feel like doing anything else at the moment, so I don't have distractions.

How to get dark theme?