/rpgmg/ - Rpg Maker General #207

That awkward feeling when your tired mind tells you to buy a trumpet to express yourself musically and you realize that you could totally justify it as your 'expensive purchase of the season' on the budget.

Well you could also record your trumpet play and use it in your game.

>tfw you came up with a new cool project idea today

Tell us about your idea user!

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No. It is too lewd.

Is it too lazy/cheap to have a side-view battle system with static characters (monsters and party)?

I don't want to sound mean but yes.
Why bother with side view if characters are static?

I mean, front view is damn lazy too.

But pokémon did it...

Ok. So if characters are static, what would the best way to go?

You know you want to

pokemon's not exactly front view these days.

The first few ones? Yeah, they were very much static avatars with special effects doing all the talking. Them switching to 3d models was a big deal in terms of the amount of animation they could promise for the future.

>So if characters are static, what would the best way to go?
Side view with equipment changing character appearance.

Ah shit, the previous thread died

>Side view with equipment changing character appearance.
That's what I'm planning to do. That's why I won't make animated battlers. Also I want to add 50+ party members.

anyone made a frontview dungeon crawler with rpg maker yet?

why isn't there a dungeon crawler rpg

Those are the worst. Like windows 95, no internet, watching the maze screen saver boring

Don't end up like me with a huge idea and little knowledge of coding. I suggest newcomers to start small and get familiar with stuff that you are comfortable with. For example I wanted to make a turn based tactical strategy game like (Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy Tactics, etc) but in order to do that you need to know how to make a grid for a map and code it into the game, make two opposing side take turns, add obstacles, etc. It's very frustrating with little to no knowledge on where to begin.

So what I'm planning is just make a simple turn based strategy like a hero vs 2 enemies in a side view or something like that. Maybe this time I won't shit the bed.

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I'm already teaching myself music. My 'mechanical' ideas are basic at this point. I plan to expand once I've learned how to do other things for myself (or, at least, approach commissioning people for work as an intelligent adult).

You begin with the first game you ever start. Take your time, don't get overwhelmed, and break down the goal into as many smaller logical tasks as you can. And start practicing studying others' codebases, so you can see how others accomplish things.

Shoutouts to Red Mage for being our resident RPGM expert

We're going to address this in a couple weeks. Probably by playing a game UnPro "reviewed" for maximum irony

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...

Friendly reminder that function statements are not valid inside blocks, and result in undefined behavior.

Remember to make back ups Anons
You don't want to lose everything

Remember to automate it so you don't even need to remember!

BUMP

Does your game have a blog where people can follow progress?

mirroredsoulgame.tumblr.com/

No but maybe I should make one.
Do people actually find you on tumblr?

Oh not at all. I have maybe like 10 followers and most of them are friends

So I decided to update and download the newest version of MV in the OP a month ago and didn't bother to actually check if it works until yesterday and I get that black screen when playtesting thing that seems to have a ton of people asking how to fix it and no one giving an exact answer except reinstall it.

Is there a way to actually fix the one I got from the OP or am I doomed with my currently 3rd world tier internet that currently has trouble downloading anything from mega? Would have been nice if I wasn't an idiot and didn't get rid of the old version I had

I really wonder how people build sizeable followings. Seems quite tough.

>Why use a script at all?
If I'm understanding how you (and I would've) approached it, you're limited by the number of events that can be initially drawn on a map, right? Like a 20x10 map can have up to 200 player and enemy events, combined.

The funny thing is, since RM/Hudell don't truly "delete" events that are erased, to keep the event list from growing indefinitely, I have to use a similar algorithm to re-use event IDs. Difference is, I can dynamically increase the list length from, say, a cap of 100, up to whatever, if the map proves to spawn more monsters than the original set limit.

And if you can script, it's kind of hard not to, no? Like the above algorithm is ~3 lines of text. More convenient to just type it out than to use event commands, easier to read/modify, blahblah.

Stay alive

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>you're limited by the number of events that can be initially drawn on a map
Only at one time. When what I call the spawner reaches the max (50, at that time), it reset down to 2 and began anew, reusing anything that was presently available for spawning.

But yeah, if you're a scripter, there's no reason not to script. I just don't like being limited to the scripts of others in case I want something to happen but its not within the parameters of the script I found.

yeah, that's what i meant bump

If you're desperate, you can use nwjs to playtest. It's far from ideal, but hey it works until they fix it and someone uploads the fixed version.

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10

it looks like he's hopping in place

The GLITCHED guys give a prety good rundown in the two interviews they gave on the podcast - Be everywhere and post lots of pretty pictures.

Regularly

>That spoiler
HAH

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Is getting the japanese version the only way to edit JP 2003 games without messed up names? And if yes, any idea where I could find one?
I need to steal tech.

did you try changing your computer's unicode program setting to japanese locale? maybe that'll be sufficient

I have, but nope.

Messed up file names? You want to use Applocale when extracting Japanese projects from zip folders. This way the filenames come out as proper moonrunes and not jibberish.

hbgames.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=77629

I think even if you do this, if you don't have East Asia Language support on your computer, then in game Text will display as whiteboxes. But at least the file paths will be correct and it'll run.

Correction
*extracting ZIP and/or decompressing the Game.exe

Not filenames, map/event/stat names, and only when opening japanese games in the editor. Already in japanese locale.

Oh right. The font used in the Translated version or RM2k doesn't support special characters. It's like basic English characters only.

Idk if substituting the .fon files in the program folder with a font with broader character support would work or not.

nvm. that didn't work.

The official translation that's on stream now might have better language support.
I always forget, that's a thing now.

Looked at the Steam changelogs and it says they added new fonts, so possibly. If anyone bought it I'd appreciate if they could test this.

This heat is killing me

good night

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Good night bump

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Pitch me your story

I'm bored.

How do you feel about characters permanently leaving your party for story reasons? In Lunar, your friend Ramus stays behind because he realized the adventuring life isn't for him. I think there's a lot of potential there, but big devs are scared to put something in their game that would garner a negative reaction out of fans (much like modern movies - they're too 'safe')

make it seem like the player's idea.
>party member is subpar, not really fit for adventuring anyway
>once more able members join up, he consults you about it, asks you whether he should quit
>you can say yes, no, or find that shop that would be willing to take him
>the truth is he'd end up there even if you didn't point him in that direction
>but if you say no he stays in the party

When I played FFT I used to invent personalities and motivations for the Units you recruit. But the story relevant characters eventually push out all the replaceable ones.
So in my mind, as they were mastering their jobs they'd have to make a decision to stay as they were or move on. And there would be an interesting (imagined) development for a character who had already mastered a class; instead of being awesome at whatever, they change job classes and let another character suck at being a dragoon for a while. So this new dragoon is striving to awesome, with no clue his teammate is secretly a way better dragoon who gave it up to be a Scholar(Calculator) who I'll eventually have to dismiss and be forced to read those heartbreaking dismissal lines like "I beg you, don't say such things" and "was all of this for nothing?"

1/2
I'm actually not sure.
I think if you are going to do this then you need a strong narrative. If the player doesn't care about the character in question then you gain nothing except for more work because you need to balance fights differently.
If the character is well liked then you need a good reason as for why they decide to leave the party.
I remember playing a game named Grandia on the PS1 and there was that little girl in your party, pretty much a sister to you but I think she was a childhood friend. She was with you right from the start of the game and for several hours you are adventuring together. Then suddenly she grows sick and has to stay behind and you never see her again (IIRC). I don't think this is satisfying at all.
Sometimes your partymembers are killed pretty much out of the blue, Aeris/Aerith from FF7 or Shinjiro from Persona 3 come to mind.
While this may feel cheap I can see some merit there aside from the shock value. It can give the player quite a lot of motivation, namely to seek revenge.

2/2
I started playing a very story driven game the other day, called A House of Many Doors which is pretty much a mix between Sunless Sea and FTL. Some spoilers ahead for that game.
There are lots of different ways to lose your party members aside from battle. As soon as the game starts one member wants to quit because he pretty much hates everything and wants to return to his hometown but you have the opportunity to wager with him. The wage is that there is something out there which is beautiful enough to change his mind, haven't found that yet but I'm sure there is something.
Another member is your guard captain but he is a total wuss and has never fought before. You have multiple opportunities to let him go or encourage him to get better at fighting. If you let him stay he tries real hard to become better at fighting but to no avail, he stays completely inapt and he hates himself for it. As it turns out he is really good at being a barber, though. So you have the option to help him become a barber. This means he will leave your party but he will be happy and you can visit him from time to time. This is really satisfying and brings closure. Another one tried to trick me so I shot her in the kneecap.
TL;DR You can do it but you have to do it right.

It is good as long as the story reason is good.

Repetition of not being an asshole via your 'company' social media (you should almost certainly use social media separate from your own).

Do you have to use social media? What did people do, like, 10 years ago before everyone had smartphones, when social media was only used by college kids to keep informed but distant relationships with old classmates?

>What did people do, like, 10 years ago
Not sell a lot of indie games.

It's a good idea in this day and age. I personally hate Twitter, but I can't deny it's useful; it's way easier to get people to retweet than to share an article, for example. Of course, it's just easier, not easy.
As the other user said, ffs don't just get whatever Community Manager stumbles onto the lot, and drop them immediately if they start fucking up their job (eg, insulting people, acting like a brat, etc)

tfw when your game is coming out very well and suddenly your illustrator stops sending work because she has a no time and needs to pay her more and you are poor

>tfw I'm my own illustrator
>tfw still can't afford an illustrator

The game was supposed to be finished by the end of the year but this will take forever because now she works 6 days a week unless i can pay her,I just started a patreon page

I'm starting with my big project because wth. I won't have the time to do it in a couple of years.

Awesome art desu

Did you tell her that ~REAL ARTISTS~ do it for the love of drawing, not money?

thats why so many ~REAL ARTISTS~ starve

the problem is that we live in a shitty country Mexico and she has some complexes, she´s an execellent artist but never has worked as one because here "is not a real job", she even have to work without her family know and had to look for another job.

If you're a small company getting started, social media is absolutely necessary. Getting ten people to follow you and like you is basically a guaranteed chance that twenty people will hear about your shit.

People tell their friends about things. People share things mindlessly.

>What did people do ten years ago
Newspaper ads/advertisement by email/radio ads

Cute

Did two portraits.
Now I can actually make progress on some cutscene I've been meaning to finish for quite a while.

I want to pat his head and tell him that everything is okay

Jeez, you both have my condolences, and I hope you can gtfo of there.
If she's okay with it, taking porn commissions is honestly an easy way to make a bit of cash. Though my experience is working in a kinda niche fetish bubble, so I'm not sure if regular porn is a more crowded market.

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Bump?

Bump.

Its one of the most shitty thing a Rpg can do to be honest. You get the hang of the character, buy him gear, level him up, then he just leaves. No point to it at all.

How often should sex scenes come up in lewd games?

Very