/rpgmg/ - RPG Maker General #197.5

Attract, Rollout, Self-healing, and Body Slam

Nothing to actually post, but I finished my outline for my game. Just in time for bed, too.

I made a thing so I can randomize NPC colors as a lazy way to avoid towns full of the same dude.

Now I just have to make some original sprites to use with it.

>randomize colors
Like... natively? Because I've been looking for a way to make a sprite flash white for a second without needing extra sprites or something.

How will we celebrate thread 200, anons? A game jam maybe?

By reaching 750 posts

bump

bump

youtube.com/watch?v=-HX5L2sf2oI

the latest /rpgmg/ podcast, for anyone who wants to listen!

Nice, I was just looking for a podcast to put in the background while I work.

you're welcome! there are many so you have lots of hours of podcasts to listen to.

Eye lasers

orange juice

Do you have a banter system going on?

Do you guys have your plot fully written out before starting? Or do you have a vague idea / key points and wing it from there?

>Bounce on ground
>Hat flips off
>Demon comes out of hat
>Attacks enemies
>Hat returns to ball

Slight progress. I spent around 30 minutes trying to figure out why the cooldown display wasn't working before realizing it was on a lower picture number than the ability.

It's always the simple things.

Will be uploading sometime within the next 12 hours.

>walking
>ball

Conjure feet.

Game jam is a great idea! 48 hour jam?

How would that work exactly?
We agree on a theme and after 48 hours all two people would post their stuff?

Maybe we could bust into the discord and convince one or two of them to do it too. We could also make it 24 hours so it's easier.

24 hours seems a bit short, especially considering what kind of people are here.

Good night bump

I've been on and off playing with RPGMaker for the past couple of years, only putting true effort in around three of the games I've tried to make, but each one is a pretty shit story that I never finish, and I want to start over.
I think the problem I have is trying to create a game that needs a lot of effort put into it (like having to make my own assets, and an original story that doesn't have many clichés or tropes in it, etc.), so my question is:
Should I just try to make an old fashioned generic RPG for my real first game? Because, honestly, that sounds the easiest at this point, and I'm pretty stuck on everything else.

Yes. Make a supershort game, and then a simple excuse plot for it.

Then make a supershort excuse plot, and then a simple game for it.

That might give you a better feel for which flow you prefer when creating a game, and then you stick with that choice.

sidenote, a story that fits the game's mechanics, themes, and events is more important than an "original" story.

I agree. 24 hours is a little too short, even if the topic of the game jam is easy. 48 hours is optimal though, it gives enough time to came up with the idea and make it work.

Don't be discouraged by not finishing your projects user! Even if you may consider them a failure, they are not waste of time - by doing them you've got more experience with the program that you can use in next projects.

If you want to make a generic RPG - go for it - but see this as a training. If you get an idea that you will be able to make - dump it into your project and see if it works. If it will - you will have something to use in your future project. And try not to get bored with making it - ideas that require less effort to make tend to be less interesting not only to play but also to create.

Oh, and don't be afraid to use tropes in your story! Personally, I prefer stories that are more interesting and entertaining to follow than those that are completely original.

up

Why are those threads dying so fast lately?

Bump

Probably more stuff being discussed in Veeky Forums. We need to ask for 15 pages, desu.

Because there are a total of six people posting in them and all of those people sometimes have to sleep.

After reading a lot of movie-writing books, my method is getting the big details in place and filling in the minutia as I go

>Princess must be saved
>Write quasi-romantic post-saving dialogue here
>Hero travels to next town
>They're all zombies
>He's unhappy about this
>'Visits' local lich to undo the curse

This way, I have the map, I have the major beats, but I don't need every single joke and line of dialogue to get started

I'd post progress but most of the progress I got done was storytelling concept and setting up variables.

I try to write the key points first and make up dialogue as I go along.

Are you me?

You should probably make a small simple game, but don't make something you won't be happy to making either.

You'll never finish it that way.

I start with an idea, make a new project, expand on that idea until I have a story I can reasonably create in the engine, then forget about it for months and maybe pick it up again later.

I'm having trouble finding interesting ideas for status effects. What are some unique ones from your game? (or just ideas for some, if they're not in your game)

>Go back to my comfy original RPGMXP
>Resources and scripts are buried in time, links are broken and demos cannot be downloaded
>An entire generation lost under the shadows of VXace and MV

Welp. I am the last autist using XP

Toxin: Does nothing, but at 10 stacks kills you. Some abilities may deal more damage if you have stacks of Toxin.

Dragon Scale: buffs def/res, removed with any successful status ailment.

Phoenix Pact: Convert ALL mp(including allies/enemies) into your hp. Cast abilities from hp. Lose % of current hp every turn.

Glue: Lose speed. Inflict this ailment on any unit that melee attacks you.

>The /rpgmg/ times
>Local lich turns entire village into zombies
>Bug halts local hero progress, dooms world
>Default rpg maker heroes speak up on years of mocking and bullying

dang

Well pokemon games can only really be made in XP so there's always that until MV gets the needed resources there's always people on XP.

Explain this, I've never used XP, started with vx.
What's the difference between XP and newer versions?

Not him, but:
>More map layers
>TALL SPRITES (instead of sqaure ones)
>Mapping tools designed around TALL SPRITES
>The best Pokemon plugin ever made

I hear those have a tendency to run poorly on modern machines, though, and that's probably not going to get any better by the time you actually finish making a game.

It shouldn't be too bad as long as you replace the music in the essentials because the music seems to lag up every time you enter a battle and when designing maps you just gotta be mindful on size. Pokemon games should be fairly small.

I'd love to join a game jam again. Did one recently, but was sad I joined a team that just used me for 3d assets.
I wanted to do a 2d visual novel with rpg maker.

bump

Why is Veeky Forums moving so fast today? Did something come out?

>the music seems to lag up every time you enter a battle
You mean, lags all the time? Even for sound effects. What happened is modern Windows machines don't give two shits about MIDI, and have to load/drop it every time it's called. They don't keep it in the RAM, because it's viewed as useless. Convert your sounds to MP3 and you're golden

My progress is drawing faces.
This is the main character as a 10 year old and an 18 year old.

Are there any rpgs where you play as kaiju?

Any way to make different enemies have different death messages in ace?

Cute
Would hug

Good morning /rpgmg/, what are your plans for the day?

I shall make progress
In a few hours

Recording my dialogue

It's late evening here, but I will devote the rest of today's hours to making additional sprites for a cutscene. Tomorrow - I'll be making the cutscene in question.

Let's see some of those sprites!

BUMP

How old is your main character?

Sorry - it's a late/end-game story content.

13 - according to my notes, but it's never stated in the actual game.

She begins as a ten year old and grows up throughout the game until she's 18 at the end.
Her name is decided by the player, but I haven't figured out how to let the player determine her birthday yet, or if I should.

Bumpa

Uploading the collab now, will post a link when it's done!

Bump

Cute style. Could be pretty charming depending on how you convert it to grafix.

What MV plugins are for making aesthetic changes to a game? I mean like changing windows and menus to pngs instead of the graphic set in systems.

tl;dr: How do I make game prettier?

I really like unorthodox abilities that require combos to be good, like "Caster has its Magical Attack drastically raised but is Muted" and want to make a game built around such skills. Yet, I suspect:
They would be extremely hard to balance correctly.
If the skills are shared with the AI, the AI would be extremely easy to disrupt.
They would require VERY flexible skillsets to serve their purpose of being combo-rific. So I'd need either a huge roster of characters, a job system that requires the player to change jobs constantly or a Materia system.

How would I go about fixing these issues?

Bump?

Chapter 1 of the Collab has been finished!

dropbox.com/s/yhxwolr03gkpnz6/CollabProj.zip?dl=0

BSTAnon is taking over for chapter 2. Play it and let me know what you think!

Downloading
Haven't even played the prologue yet

Downloadan

Forgot to clear out the save folder, feel free to delete all the saves in there, most of them are buggy.

I'm stuck on a black screen after that dialogue between the King and Claymore and whatever his name was, pretty much after the first fight.

Did you start a new game?

Yes

Wow I'm an idiot. I fucked up the map order and messed up one of the prologue teleports. I'll upload a new version overnight that fixes it, my internet is slow as shit.

To fix it manually, go to Chief's House in cutscenes maps and click on arwen. at the bottom of his event list change the transfer from Chapter 1 Complete to Prologue Complete (any x/y really).

sorry.

That fixed it, saw a different cutscene and I can progress now.

What do you guys think of timed hits/blocks?

>Do we have something to eat?
>Nah, we starve

I got stuck.

So I'm writing out these characters and hit a wall, I want to write out tragedies for all of them. I already did a lover dying and I am unsure what to do for the other two, without people dying. Because that will have lost its effect. Anyone able to point me in the right direction?

Tell me about your characters, user. What do they do? What are their motivations?

I like them because it actually rewards you if you are playing the game and not simply mashing enter to attack.

I feel dumb, how do augmentations work?
I found a few things but I don't know how to use them.

It's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.

Make one guy a friendless, kissless virgin social outcast.

almost mandatory for me to enjoy an rpg

you go to the item menu and select either weapon or armor. then select the item you wish to augment and it will show you how many slots it has. some armor has more slots than others, and some stuff can only be socketed in either a weapon or armor.

So you only enjoy, what, Earthbound and Mario?

There is a Ranger, a Knight and an Alchemist. The player picks one and the other two become unplayable. (Unless you start a new save. Ideally, you play all three to see things from other's perspectives.) This is just some ideas I am tossing around until I figure out what I'm doing.

The Ranger, is the only one I am satisfied with. His fairy dies and he goes on a quest to revive her using the local plot device, however the plot device is fucked because of plot reasons and basically monkey paws everyone. So naturally she comes back as a means to the main villain's ends and has to be put down. Fucking him up forever. There is a LOT more too it, but I dont want to post it all here for obvious reasons.

The Knight stars out as a squire living in a great city that fell from grace, she finds a boy around her age who despite that fact natural magic is super rare in the setting, is able to use ice magic. Everyone thinks he's cursed so she takes him in as a brother. Hearing about the plot device, he wants to undo the work of the beings that shaped the world but that would also pretty much mean global extinction. A ghost may or may not be involved and I am trying to go with a clash of ideals. I dont know how to end it on a sad note.

The Alchemist, I have no idea where I am starting, Alchemy is a pretty big thing in the lore, when I said the world was "shaped" I literally mean it. It was made by borderline god-tier wizards who had mastered Alchemy, hence many of the mages and scientists in the world study the remains of their studies. The only thing I have is the Alchemist makes a nifty Glove able to "tear elements" from reality so you can shoot a fireball or whatnot without the use of a polarized staff. However everyone just kinda looks at him like "but why".

Well I guess I was being a little hyperbolic, but the game needs to have some kind of input variation or something. If the entire game is just selecting menus, the game has to stand on other merits like storyline or music/setting. I've been playing rpgs since the original release of DQ1 on nes, after a while menu selecting gets old.

For me menu selecting only gets old when they put no effort into balance or strategy and you can get through everything by mashing auto attack (so 99% of RPG Maker games).

Selecting menus is an intrinsic part of RPGs, that's like saying jumping gets old in platformers or shooting gets old in FPSs.

>Anyone able to point me in the right direction?

They're old and feel like they've lost all their best years, having accomplished little or nothing at all

They're still hurting over a lover they let get away, all those years ago

Way back, they were given a grand opportunity carrying lots of risks (business, travel across the sea, etc.). They regret not taking it. They feel it would have turned out really well.

The one thing they want to be good at- someone else is outstandingly better. The rival might even be younger, too, for extra pain.

A friend or family member is relapsing into drug use.

An abusive ex wants to get back into their life, and they feel torn between inner peace and no longer being alone.

They something stupid a long time ago and ran away from it. Someone has appeared to make them pay.

Helping someone in need goes terribly wrong (ie. you pay off someone's mafia debt, but the mafia demands more and more because they can)

Someone they looked up to as a hero turns out to be a degenerate gambler, gangster, alcoholic, or worse

Their business/farm fails, and they fall in debt

A letter arrives from home asking to come immediately for some reason or another. They can't, because the adventure comes first. They spend the quest agonizing over the conseqeunces

A character has fallen in love with one of the enemy generals, or the Big Bad themselves. Knowing they must die is a heavy cross

A character is an outworlder who will dissapear when the moon turns full again

I ain't reworking this. You're getting it. Maybe I'll make another later