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Contact Me

Comments go to my E-Mail address, I won't really answer them here

E-Mail: wolfcoder (at) dreamincode.net
Dream.in.code: http://www.dreamincode.net/
AIM: wolfcoder
Yahoo: umbracoder
MSN: wolfcoder (at) dreamincode.net
20XX Irc: irc.esper.net #20xx

Installation: Delete RPG_RT.exe and paste this program where it used to be. There you go.

Introduction

To address the old-age and technology of RPG Maker 2003's RPG Runtime engine, a replacement will be written that implements more modern features. This is intended to work both as a 1-1 replacement for the RPG_RT.exe executable and as an extender to allow features which would be cumbersome to implement conventionally as event scripts.

There are also a long string of bugs and feature requests that will be addressed with this engine, especially the more commonly known battle bugs and speed/agility problems.

This is not a patch, it is a ground-up open-source engine that plays RPG Maker 2k/3 games. There are others out there, but usually for systems like the GP32X, PSP, and DS so that you could play RPG Maker 2003 games on those systems.

This technology enables you to create something new with something old, comfortable, and most importantly, fun. The G.E.C.K. for example, still sports that Win95 look but uses the next-gen engine you actually play. After all, it's this engine that your users will actually see and not your tools.

Participants

Thanks to the following people who submitted games for me to test against:

Kentona (Hero's Realm)
Drakonais (Tiamat Sacrament)
J-Man (Phantasia 5)
Ocean (Paradise Blue)

These participants will decide the engine's current level of compatibility with the original system.

Features

Features that 20XX will extend onto your project:
- Fixes the hit list of bugs and annoyances with the original engine
- Many more supported image and sound/music formats
- 32 bit color with alpha images
- Bitmapped fonts let you draw your own font pixel-to-pixel (also 32-bit alpha possible)

Tell me what you want and I'll implement them depending on how annoying/frequent you are at asking for them.

Specs and Stats

License: LGPL
System: SDL / Win32
Video: DirectX 9 3D
Audio: FMOD Ex
Libraries Used:
- SDL (system)
- DirectX (graphics)
- FMOD Ex (sound)
- SDL_image (loading many different image formats)

Latest Blog

Cancelled

Cancelled

I have lots of scientific study and work to do, so my time is pretty limited. I've been thinking this engine was a bad idea three months in, but I wanted to finish it anyway. Almost a couple years later, it's become apparent that this project is dragging itself out. I'm not sure I'll even be finishing normal games either, this is the end of posting in-progress projects. Any further announcements of projects I'm working on will be after it has already been completed.

Bad Idea?

The idea of using any of the RPG-Maker series of engines, in retrospect, is a bad idea. They already exist as a suite to satisfy your curiosity and boredom. For the more ambitious game authors, I recommend you just pick up GameMaker, Acknex, or any of the other higher quality toolkits out there for lower prices or free. People claiming to be from the Terraria staff are planning an independent RPG Maker, you should be supporting those projects. Regardless of what you use, it always takes great effort to make a fun game- there are many better engines (in all use cases) than this one to make your game with. Hence, I've been trying to finish something I feel was a mistake for about a year now.

Hell, if I didn't already have a job, I'd ask the "Producer of Terraria" if they could use me in making an independent RPG Maker- something like that I feel is the true solution. Do it right from the ground up and discard the nonsensical Enterbrain designs altogether.

What Now?

RPG Maker 20XX is missing the cookie cutter battle system. It can be used to make games, but the optimal use will happen when the source code is modified to fit whatever game is being made. Yes, this is identical to editing the ruby scripts of XP/VX to match your game. This requires a few coders to make different flavors of 20XX and the rest of the consumers to make various games. It's not pretty, but I have to point out that I left behind some pretty usable materials.

I will leave Feld here to manage any newcomers to produce the different flavors of 20XX, and I will add anyone working with the code to the project staff. I will continue to respond to questions and comments via E-Mail, if you use anything other than E-Mail, your message will go unanswered. I recommend you e-mail me especially if you want to work with the code since the code is heavily commented but also very messy.

Conclusion

20XX was just a curiosity of mine, and I thought I might be able to help the community. There's only so much I can do, and I am sure I will no longer be capable of providing adequate support for 20XX by myself, and therefore it will not be enough to serve you well. I may release games in the future, but you will only see them here when they are finished. That means they're probably not going to be RPGs (I have finished games a long time ago, but they weren't RPGs).

Other programmers are welcome to take the source code (everything available from the SVN) and branch off in an attempt to adapt or modify the engine.

Posts

I just wanted to see if it worked. ^v^~
I don't have anything playable made by myself right now. :/
Wolf, I had stepped away from 2k/3 for so long because of all the problems it had... But I think you just made me love it again. :3

Thanks for the hard work! Looking great so far.
benos
My mind is full of fuck.
465
I tried it, and panaroma doesn't show.
tardis
is it too late for ironhide facepalm
308
just installed this in the tired old husk of a project that is The Colony, and upon booting it up, immediately after the title screen an error message telling me "Invalid Switch Get (0)"

if i click okay, it repeatedly pops up and traps itself into a deathspiral of said message, making the game unplayable past the title screen.
Dudesoft
always a dudesoft, never a soft dude.
4846
You should use a valid switch.
I tried it, and panaroma doesn't show.


Yeah, panorama's don't work yet.

You should use a valid switch.


I've got the suspicion that RPG_RT.exe ignores exceptions like these. Check your code for a place where you set a switch by reference and the reference var is zero.

If I can verify this, I'll add a quiet exception mode. You really should have the exceptions turned on for new projects though.
NewBlack
☽ TRASH THAT IS A WASTE OF TIME
4830
author=WolfCoder
I tried it, and panaroma doesn't show.
Yeah, panorama's don't work yet.

You should use a valid switch.


I've got the suspicion that RPG_RT.exe ignores exceptions like these. Check your code for a place where you set a switch by reference and the reference var is zero.

If I can verify this, I'll add a quiet exception mode. You really should have the exceptions turned on for new projects though.


I actually think I might know what this meant! aha

Because 20xx uses var 0-6 for it's own uses right?
Wrong, it's because everything in the database for RPG Maker 2003 starts at 1.

you have to add too the .ini
Year=20XX

to enable the extras, and then the default registers start at 1 to 6.


a switch operation using a variable reference can error if the input variable is zero, and there is no switch 0.
dragonheartman
Developer, Starless Umbra / Heroes of Umbra
2671
author=tardis
just installed this in the tired old husk of a project that is The Colony, and upon booting it up, immediately after the title screen an error message telling me "Invalid Switch Get (0)"

if i click okay, it repeatedly pops up and traps itself into a deathspiral of said message, making the game unplayable past the title screen.

If you aren't referencing any switches via variables, try to figure out specifically what event(s) is causing the issue.

Make a copy of the start party map and delete events from it, testing as you go, and see what works. Also check common events.
tardis
is it too late for ironhide facepalm
308
checked it out and that's exactly what was happening. killed the common event and all was well with the world.

now i'm just trying to figure out how to get my shiny new .bmp font file to work.
Don't forget to make sure it's a 32-bit alpha .bmp file, and that your alpha channel is correct. Double check that the file you save is shown to be in 32-bit depth when right clicked and examined.

It must have the same name as one of the existing fonts, and be sure to use that in your game (if you replace MS Gothic, be sure your system is set to use MS Gothic in the editor).

The system color pattern gets multiplied with the font image, which is what the multiply filter in Photoshop does. This means pure white text becomes the exact color of the system graphic for every white pixel.

So, if you surrounded each letter with black pixels for an outline, it would result in an outline. For best results, use grayscale colors when drawing your font. Don't forget the alpha channel can also be used to draw ClearType effects.


I used this tool ( http://www.codehead.co.uk/cbfg/ )
to generate the fonts, but it's hard to use correctly and easy to use wrong for this purpose. I still had to manually make my alpha channel in Photoshop.


Oh yeah, and if Year=20XX is in the .ini and you put nothing in the New Game slot of String (Vocabulary), the title screen gets skipped.
benos
My mind is full of fuck.
465
Hopefully we can use gif format, even if it's a format that doesn't animate. I got gif files for face/item/etc picture sets I found all around the net on japanese sets called "Cardwirth". It's where I found the face for Whisper, the mysterious masked guy from DREAMWALKER.
Just save them as PNG.
With Graphics Gale *ahem*

*Don't remember if the free version can load .gif, tough.
tardis
is it too late for ironhide facepalm
308
http://rpgmaker.net/forums/topics/8123/

just saw this on the forums and thought i'd ask about this...
how hard would pixel movement for the player be to implement? or at least 8-dir tile?
Oooh! Like in Chrono Trigger!
I second TARDIS' suggestion. I've always wanted pixel-wise movement like in Golden Sun D:
Magi
Resident Terrapin
1028
Pixel movement would also require changing the way tile collisions are handled... It is difficult to implement that kind of system when you have limited control over the exact places where tile passability ends. That boils down to editor modifications for decent control over pixel movement, but I am sure something very rudimentary is possible.
It could be possible with messy edges though, no? I mean, if a tile has full blocking, then the player couldn't move into that tile... at all. There are a few SNES games that handle pixel movement like that; they let you move pixel by pixel, but if you hit a blocking tile, you can't move into it at all (even if it seems like you should be able to).