RPG Maker?

[Laddy]

Any of you guys used this tool? Have any games you've made yourself worth mention? Any games made with RPG Maker you'd like to share?

[Wolf Kanno]

I've played around with it but I haven't had time to invest in it. With that said, I have a wonderful idea for a game to make for it but I'm still in the scripting process for the story and I have not had a chance to really think about how I want the main game to play. Still, I really want to get to work for it but I'll need to do some research on available tilesets and sprites because the game calls for certain aesthetics.

[Ayen]

I only ever played RPG Maker 3 for the PS2 (yes there is a RPG Maker for PS2), and never did finish anything I set out to make. Didn't have the patience.

[Fynn]

Yes, there are RPG Makers for the PS2, GBA, and I think the DS as well, so that's not exactly mind-blowing news

Much like Wolf, I've played around with it in the past. I used the 2k3 version mostly, though I did dabble in XP as well. At the time, though, 2k3 had many more online resources available. Plus, it came with an ATB system, yay!

I was making this big game that was essentially an FF in all but name (private use only, don't worry ), with like 16 playable characters, actual MP3 music instead of that midi crap and a lot of other pizazz, but it ended up running super slow before I managed to getting to the meat of the game. I don't know why, maybe it was too big or something, I just couldn't do anything about it.

[FFNut]

I've been working with the MV version to help with making some programming easy, but if you want anything original be prepared to spend hours upon hours in a program like photo shop building your own sprites and tile sets to get anything worth while.

[Old Manus]

I'm just going to wait for Psychotic to post his EoFF RPG Maker game so I can replay it

[Randy]

Played around with some of the older ones. 95, 2K, XP.

It's a great program on the whole. The massive flaw being the art work. Everyone's seen the standard tilesets a thousand times so you need to completely do your own artwork for it to appear original. Like To the Moon did.

[FFNut]

Played around with some of the older ones. 95, 2K, XP.

It's a great program on the whole. The massive flaw being the art work. Everyone's seen the standard tilesets a thousand times so you need to completely do your own artwork for it to appear original. Like To the Moon did.

Ya I spend hours at a time creating tiles for the program.

[Ayen]

I did a review of RPG Maker 3.

[MJN SEIFER]

Now here's a topic that brings back memories.

Warning: This will be long, I'm in full nostalgia mode.

I have used RPG Maker in the past, first on PlayStation, and then later on computer. The PlayStation version really has its limitations, and having to type full dialogues the same way you would normally enter your name(s) is extremely tedious, but I do have a nostalgic feel to it in a sense (I'm hearing that music that played while you designed the game right now.)

I'm not sure which version I got for my computer, but it was ages ago, and I ended up losing what I did, as far as I know, because my family had to get a new computer, and while I saved what I did (on floppy disk) I'm not sure if it worked, however it was a lot better than the PlayStation version, and I think the only disadvantage to it was that you had a space limitation for dialogues, so you had to keep creating new ones if you wanted the characters to keep talking, but it's miles better now that you can type with a keyboard. You could also do so much more, and you could add things you didn't have, such as more music, sound effects, and even enemies.

I did have a game planned, and it did owe a lot to Final Fantasy in places. In fact, my ultimate plan at the time was for it to be a full series, with the cast changing each time (like Final Fantasy), with the main character being the only one to be in each game (unlike Final Fantasy). One problem was, the series was too close to Final Fantasy; the first game owed quite a lot to FFIX, with bit of FFVIII being thrown in (the ending was going to be FFVIII's with dialogue, really), the third game was going to be close to FFIV, the fourth game was basically FFX's storyline with elements of FFVII's thrown in (which actually gave the game an identity crisis), the fifth was FFV for the most part (I might as well have just hacked an existing FFV ROM, and claimed it as I my own), and the same can be said for the sixth game when compared to FFVI, though the sixth game had more changes to it, I think (not that the fifth game didn't too). Only the second and seventh games did not owe too much to Final Fantasy; the pitch for the second game was basically "What if The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening was done in a more Final Fantasy like way", so it wasn't really original either. The seventh game, was the only game that didn't really take anything from existing games, other than the fact that it was going to be filled with call-backs to previous games like FFIX did (it was going to be the finale), and even that game took inspiration from a Hamtaro episode, of all things. A series that, also played a part (with two cameo appearances) in the fifth game...

There were other things that needed ironing out, as well as the lack of originality; I knew that I wanted to reference real life things, without directly mentioning them (as it was a fictional world), but I didn't really have a clear idea how to do that, in places. I think the worst thing I did was force song lyrics into the dialogue, which stuck out like a sore thumb.

There were also some storyline events, that were very poorly planned; one character's storyline in the first game was going to have him discover he was from another world (which was also part of the main character's storyline, remember it owed a lot to FFIX), but the way it originally started was poor - a girl from that world calls him by name, and then nothing is said until later on (even though she stays where she is, and there's nothing stopping her explaining herself, or him asking her to). The first game also had a "storyline" where, towards the end of the game, a dragon would appear and help the main characters "when all seemed lost", and the way this was going to be possible was that you would receive a "Mystery Egg" early in the game, and it would be revealed towards the end of the game, that the inside the Mystery Egg was the dragon, who apparently has the power to revert to an egg, and then "un-revert" back to a dragon for no reason at all, and apparently did so, so he could help your team for no reason at all, other than the fact that I like dragons, and wanted to include one... yeah, thankfully my writing has evolved beyond this.

One day, I'll have another go, and do an improved version of at least the first game, but with its own storyline better defined, and not an FFIX clone with FFVIII features. It will still clearly draw inspiration from FFVII and FFVIII (my two favorite Final Fantasies) though, but it will be more of an homage to those games, rather than copying there story. It will be more of the general look of the world, as I loved how the worlds in those games looked (i.e. it will be modern time), but it won't copy the worlds, but they will serve as my inspiration, in places. There is one storyline element, which I plan to use, but I will have to be careful, as FFVII uses it as well, though it is also a Tekken 2 homage as well - basically it's the "evil corporation" element, but hopefully they shouldn't be too close to Shinra, as it is a trope on its own, and the storyline will not copy FFVII's, at least not in a way that can't be from any story (i.e. use of tropes).

[Vyk]

It's a great program on the whole. The massive flaw being the art work. Everyone's seen the standard tilesets a thousand times so you need to completely do your own artwork for it to appear original. Like To the Moon did.

So much this. I wish more dedicated fans realize this. I've pretty much started shrugging away each and every RPGMaker game that appears as a recommendation on Steam and similar places, because they all look and play the same. Nobody puts any effort into their creations

On top of that, the program hasn't really even made it out of the early days of SNES creation, even the best tile sets still look blocky, and rarely is there a game that allows you to move diagonally. Everything is a grid, and its blatantly obvious in its design. It takes so much work to bend that machine anywhere close to anything original in the programming department, let alone the design department

I dabbled with it out of boredom, I got my hands on VX and VX Ace through some promotion or another, I forget what, and then went through the tutorials on their website, and then forgot about it

As someone who's dabbled in writing a lot, the idea of making a game rather than just a story has intrigued me, but I don't think that would really be the tool for me if I ever did decide to jump in and make one