/rpgmg/ RPG Maker General #221

I want to make a game inspired by Escher's art.

What would the story be about?

One of the Witcher games did this (as did Tactics Ogre), and it was basically two different stories. It's a fuckton of work, because you're literally making twice as much story content.

>Won't the player just think all choices have no consequences, if you have a lot of fake choices like that?
Shadowrun Returns is full of this kind of shit. There are mountins of 'choices' with differently-worded answers. So many, in fact, that my autism gave up on trying to find the 'perfect' one and just did whatever I felt like. That was probably the point: You're bombarded with so many similar-looking choices that you're trained to stop analyzing each one and go with whatever your gut says. I found it extremely annoying, but also pretty engaging.

What about punishment for your choices?
Your patron god command's you to do something bad(?) and player refuses, so no MP refill for him.
Is doing good, it's own reward?

my game has three paths based on the player's 3 main stats which will give them different final bosses and endings.
So far it is a lot of work, yes, but the areas will be the same and all bosses other than the final one are fought at the same time.
Not having to balance the whole game for other paths is a relief, though having to write a shitton of dialogue might be annoying.

A good point is that if you set a theme for each path you can throw in your ideas for situation outcomes more easily. The lack of having to decide which outcome will happen in the end makes it easier for me, at least, as all outcomes will eventually happen.

Just don't go overboard with it. Trying to keep all paths equivalent in a gameplay/leveling side is important but other than that the paths will feel samey.

This only makes sure the game only has a single path and makes it all a chore. If one choice rewards you and the other punishes you, you're forcing something on the player and making sure they have no saying in the game.

Kind of like saying you have a 'choice' to not fight the enemies because you die if you avoid attacking.

However that's cool if you can chose what God you'll follow and worshipping another one gets your other god mad at you, but that only happens if you change allegiances.

>Tactics Ogre
the kicker here is that the 3 major paths is only the first THIRD of the game contentwise, and you're ready to put down the game after 1 major path.

So you just change some switches and variables, but keep almost everything the same?
I plan to try something a little more bold, like allowing a player to kill an important NPC mid quest.
When you have MP the game is in easy mode, without it's hard mode you have to use items and tactics.
Having the opportunity to change your patron seems like a cool idea, if it's not too much trouble I will try to implement it.

Morning bump

Well this is going nowhere fast.

Funny thing is i was introduced to RPG Maker on PS1 through a friend of a friend i was visiting for a few days. I never played it but this friend made a legendary game in the area and everyone played it. Apparently You were a KKK member running around killing all the blacks in the game. Everyone thought it was great but i never got to play it.

After that i searched everywhere but i couldn't find a new or used copy of RPG Maker on PS1 and it stayed like that until i got the PS2 and i was searching for RPG Maker and some guy at EBGames said they didn't have it but they had RPG Maker 2 for PS2 and i had no idea they made a second one so i bought it.

There are only three variables for that, and every time you get a choice or a certain stat threshold you get a +1 in that variable. Some outcomes depend on one of those 3 to be at a certain value, however it would be tons easier if it was just two paths and events only asked which variable is higher to define an outcome.

>What got you into RPGMaker.
No idea, it's been at least 8 years.
>Favorite RPGMaker game?
Commercial or Free? And finished or killed? I loved "Necropolis" but it never got finished as it was in the middle of being transferred to a newer engine before it faded away. "Blackmoon Prophecy" is a damned good fangame, complete original flavor. "Paradise Blue" similarly was a great game made in the spirit of the older Final Fantasy titles.

Then there's games that went from freeware to commercial which remain rock solid and made changes and additions along the way such as "Oneshot", "The Last Word", and "Soma Spirits".

>Last one you played that's worth mentioning?
Hmm... recently took "Colors: Lost Memories" for a spin. It feels like Link's Awakening but without the combat and instead its all puzzles. Haven't gotten too far in it though, only just got a second color option. I also tried the demo for "Heartbeat" around the same time. It is somewhere around the same sort of spirit as Pokemon FireRed and Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga.

My game has only 1 singular path directly to the end boss however almost every NPC in the game is recruitable using a Friendship variable. Obviously there's going to be multiple girls you can raise their special Relationship variable with and get romantically involved to get waifu type text, Undecided if i wanna add in actual sex scenes(probably not).

None of it changes the story any but it's something you can do if you want to do it. Every NPC can fight aside from a few specific old people. Some characters start with a shitty base class that can't fight very well and has no skills.

Tons of diverging side paths you can take but none of it matters in the end. Just like Mass Effect

Do I sense heresy?

>>What got you into RPG Maker?
Probably the thought that I could make a super cool fan game with it, it was a long ass fuckin' time ago (in a town called Kickapoo).

>>Favorite RPG Maker game?
Exit Fate.

>>Last one you played that's worth mentioning?
I haven't actually played any in... I don't know how long. So I don't really remember this one.

I recommend checking out RPGMaker dot Net. There's a lot of good games there. And a lot of shit. And a lot of unfinished stuff... But a lot of good stuff.

If done well, diverging paths and real, meaningful choices are things that can make your game really stick out. Not only because multiple paths add replay value, but the fact that you have to choose can make everything feel more meaningful to the player. Tactics Ogre gets brought up a lot, but it probably wouldn't be as highly regarded if it didn't make the *player* make that choice. Undertale likely wouldn't be quite the hit it was either, if it didn't have the murder path to contrast and give weight to the player's choice *not* to kill anything for the "good" ending. Alpha Protocol may have questionable gameplay quality, but the reactivity makes for an amazing experience.

But as you well know, it's also a huge amount of work. You'll just have to ask yourself if it works for your game, and if you have it in you.

I know, I know... but that doesn't change the fact that I'm a lazy cunt, trying to dev my own game, and have a bunch of other shit I want to do, including a whole stack of unrelated games. There's only so much time in a day!

Hah, I know that feeling. Between Gamejolt, Itch io, RPGMaker dot net, and all kinds of places I keep spotting loose freeware titles my quality freeware backlog is insane.

In the Ar Tonelico games, at some point you have to pick who you are more concerned with: Girl A or Girl B.
The story will diverge slightly depending on the route you choose. There are alternative dungeons at this point in the game.
This is called "Phase II" of the game. Each route has a (more or less) bad ending. To get the better endings you have to move onto Phase III. There's usually a boss in Phase II that you have to beat under a certain time limit. And then you have to choose not to live happily ever after with your waifu of choice.

There's a battle sample here, user!

youtube.com/watch?v=furwEhNm9yA

I played 1&2, a little to easy but I love them.
wut? >beat under a certain time limit
And some of those bad ends felt pretty good, especially Misha's, and then going to Phase III, seriously wtf, really made me want to punch my monitor and she isn't even my waifu.

Finally getting around to idle animations. Thoughts?

Almost all of that is wrong:

>The story will diverge slightly depending on the route you choose. There are alternative dungeons at this point in the game.
This is called "Phase II" of the game.

Only applies to AT1. In AT2 the route split begins halfway through Phase I, and in AT3 there isn't an actual route split.

>Each route has a (more or less) bad ending. To get the better endings you have to move onto Phase III.

Only applies to AT1. AT2 doesn't have a bad ending. And while AT3 does have a bad ending, that only happens if you fail to fulfill the conditions to move to Phase IV.

>There's usually a boss in Phase II that you have to beat under a certain time limit.

Only applies to AT3. AT1's bad ending is gotten from defeating the final boss far before the time you're supposed to.

These are actually "normal endings", not bad ones. However, choosing the normal endings means condemning Metafalss and the whole of Ar Ciel to an horrible death after a few years.

Also, Misha's route has been decanonized for years now: all the supplementary material makes it clear the canon route is Aurica's.

The feet sort of glide in and out.If it's supposed to be standing, that's going to be awkward.

Is that meant to be heartbeats or lung-breathing?

Lung-Breathing. It's also partly because the character is based on a bull, so it's meant to kind of look like it's preparing to charge.

Have you played the noSurge games? Are they any good?

Going off topic.
It's localization was better than AT2. But it's still pretty bad. artonelico.wikia.com/wiki/Glitches

The RPG Maker community's made some really nice textures.

ded

They are very good. However, Ar nosurge's localization is every bit as shitty as AT2's was, arguably even worse due to the removal of several features.

Is this a first person RPG Maker game?

Today I made the timer change color when below 30 seconds, and then again to red when under 10 seconds.
This is XP, but there tend to be crummy timers in all the RPG makers.

Yeah i never understood why a timer had to be complicated.

Dunno yet. I've got a huge fondness for those Japanese horror-puzzle games, maybe one in first person would work.
Trying to figure out what I want to make next, but RPG Maker textures work really well for this. Only issue is that to make the map comfortably maneuverable I have to make them like 4x size, which results in me being a tiny shota or loli.

Might be interesting, The Garry Coleman experience.

What are some of the best RPGmaker games?

Dude. The first post in the thread, not even a day old, already asks for people's favourite rm games. At least wait a COUPLE of days before you start on this.

Still working, I keep getting distracted.

>working on drawing a scene for an eroge
>have to fap
>after fapping don't feel like it drawing it anymore
every time

I've had that happen while writing smut. I came to the conclusion that i should never write porn while horny. I end up with some fucked up incest, futa, gay, shota, loli stuff i scrap the next day. It's like writing stuff while you're under the influence of drugs or Alcohol and then reading it when you're sober.

I don't have this problem.

For some reason battle animations make the game freeze for a split second because it apparently needs to load.
Is this normal for rpg maker vx ace games?

good night bump

I don't know, I've never used VX Ace but in Pokemon Essentials for XP it would freeze momentarily when entering a pokemon fight and it was because the midi sounds took forever loading. It's possible your sound effects are causing the same problem.

My sound effects are in .ogg
Is that a problem?

It shouldn't be a problem with .ogg but maybe try swapping a sound with a different sound anyway. It could just be a common issue with VX Ace unrelated to the sound I've never used it so i couldn't say.

Okay so here's the deal i have the opening to my game, It's short and has a simple story suitable for my first game however i have a problem. I want to force the player into the item shop to reset the towns NPC's and turn off opening events but this causes an issue. I want to give a reason why the barrier i placed prevents you from exploring the town fully but the reason is currently "late for work" however if you go talk to your boss NPC it's going to drag you inside and you'll miss some conversation if you don't talk to them first.

How should i get past this? Do i drop the whole late for work thing and try for something else? Allow the player full access to the town which would undoubtedly cause problems.

My biggest problem now is the forced entrance into the shop with no option to say no. Should i just give the player the yes/no choice even though they're late for work?

Why don't you just fade to black, reset, and back again? That's how most games handle a change from a cutscene back to gameplay without leaving a location.

Well i could do that but It's not really the act of entering the shop it's that entering the shop is gonna reset the town to default but i wanna give the player the chance to speak with the NPC's but the way i set up the barrier pushes the player away and has your boss tell you to hurry up which i feel would prompt the player to speak to her first which they should ultimately be speaking to her last but it makes no sense in the story to force the player to talk to these people.

If i faded to black it would still just fade to black and reset the town making the player miss some dialogue same as it does now. If i force the player to speak to these characters they'll feel like I'm hand holding or pushing them down a specific path however if i don't do this they might have to restart the game to get the missed dialogue because they accidentally missed it (bad game design).

I like lopsided choices like that. They help speedrunners, but also let the player examine thier own morals.

I dealt with something like that in Valkyria Chronicles

>When you start the game, you get 2 snipers, 4 scouts, 3 engineers, etc.
>WHO you get is random (any from a long list of fully-voiced characters with several individual quirks)
>Maps encourage you to bring a balanced squad, including at least one sniper

>Sniper 1 (Oscar)
>Like 13 years old
>Annoying to listen to
>Couldn't hit the broad side of a barn

>Sniper 2 (Cezary)
>Less annoying to listen to (but still pretty annoying)
>Way more accurate than Oscar
>Huge racist (Even gets a debuff around the squadmates he's racist against)

I went sniperless until I got to far enough to open up more characters. Then I got Marina, and she is the best sniper waifu.

Keep in mind, the game randomly assigns what you get, so I just happened to get the two shitty snipers off the bat.

ded

Made some good progress, I gotta sleep. Don't die. I plan on making more progress when i wake up. No more screwing around.

bump

So instead of the boss, have it be the character saying something like "if the boss sees me leave without even talking to her, I'm REALLY going to get it".

Or put in an actual road block like the old favourite, "the bridge is out and won't be fixed until you go do the fucking plot".

I'm pretty sure it's a problem in XP, I get that occasionally- so it might be in VX ace too?
Maybe look and see if there's any way/scripts to preload assets?

I'm pretty sure it's a problem in every RPG Maker.

Help me think of a title for my game.

It's about a robot who fell from the sky. On his journey back, he gains human attributes and learns what it is to be a human.

what kind of game is it? Gameplay, mood, themes, and such.

>falls from above
>meets a species deemed "lesser"
surfacetale

Have part of a cutscene I just finished. Best expression.

For some reason I imagined the robot literally grafting parts of humans on themself.
Try thinking of uncommon terms and words that could refer to humans or robots?
Tinman? Everyman?
>tfw my game's name is based off what I thought a cliche title for the genre would be.

I forget the file. Time to commit Sudoku.

Should i add MC text? I thought it would probably be better to leave the protagonist silent, Is a talking protagonist better than a silent protagonist?.

From The Thunderhead
Soul of a Golem

I've heard that huge maps can lag. Ok, but, what is a huge map? 50x50, 100x100, 200x200?

Silent protagonists are >90% garbage.

[citation needed]

I don't really think the size of the map matters Your overworld map can easily be the maximum 256x256 and not lag at all. The lag comes from loading animated tiles and events. I'd stick to keeping cities/villages below 100x100 because filling that space with events and water/lava/waterfalls will cause problems.

One thing you might notice and it's what i noticed that the actual FPS never drops below 59 however the camera gets less smooth. What i thought was lag was actually just the camera scroll skipping when i moved. I'm sure on a phone or maybe a mac it might actually lag but i don't know, On my PC it sits at 60 fps all the time..

?

Please don't die!

>search all over for MV Heroine Fantasy Pack and the 3 Japanese character packs

Baidu is annoying to navigate

It could be something fancy like "Promethean the Created"

bump

Need feedback, play and do survey: nerokrohe.itch.io/rpgact1demo

>grayscale
why

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In all seriousness it's thematic. Real world/overworld is a dull place, being in battle makes you feel alive.

I guess it's subjective, but the lack of colour unironically put me off the game and made me not want to play it, I cannot get comfy in such games.

sorry to hear, i'd do a colour version but it would definitely not look right

...

Make a reference to Galatea or Pinocchio? Maybe Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I'd have suggested calling it "Turing Test" if there wasn't already a game called that.

That's a tabletop game that already exists.

How do you rotate assets in rpgmaker or would ps have to be opened up to rotate to the side?

You'd have to manually rotate them to the side in Photoshop, I think.

bump

If I gave the player the option to be able to play as a spooky skeleton how different should the gameplay be

Look to roguelikes for examples

>Can't heal magically
>Weak to blunt weapons
>No need for food (if applicable)
>If skeletons are rare, lots of changed dialogue (HOLY SHIT A TALKING SKELETON!)

I have since fixed the flaws but I can't arse myself to make a new screenshot.

Well then it's going to be hard to say anything about it, isn't it! But I will anyway: That house looks like it's at a completely different angle than the rest of the map. Some wonk with scale is to be expected in the medium, but the front part seriously only has the same depths as that bridge. And the back corner extends outside the cliff. It's not a house, it's a cardboard cutout of one.

That tileset is nice.

Why are there no good fantasy tilesets for MV compared to vx?