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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

Umm... And what about items doing other stuff rather than only calling A SINGLE DAMN SWITCH? I mean... We could cut the switches used by 10 if we could use 2 switches! AND cut it all to A SINGLE VARIABLE if we could do "use this item > Variable x becomes = item ID OOOOOOOOOR simply "47".
Probably someone has already said that, ne? Also, tiles... There could be a way for 8 tile based movement instead of 16? and a way to add (optionally) 4 passabilities in each still 16x16 sized tile? It would be awesome! But it DOES sound hard and I believe the map stuff is already coded... >:
Anyways, good luck, this is very, very awesome. *-*
And coded for DS and GBA? o_o
Whoa + wow
tardis
is it too late for ironhide facepalm
308
i think stuff like 8-way movement and the item stuff would be editor-related, not engine. i could be completely wrong, though.
"And what about items doing other stuff rather than only calling A SINGLE DAMN SWITCH?"

If you've set an interrupt to trigger when some particular switch is on, the item will cause that interrupt to run and then suddenly the item does whatever you want it to. Heh, could even have an item that makes the engine close. Could also help you when you want to do a really complicated move command... I'll think about it.

"Also, tiles... There could be a way for 8 tile based movement instead of 16? and a way to add (optionally) 4 passabilities in each still 16x16 sized tile? It would be awesome! But it DOES sound hard and I believe the map stuff is already coded... >:"

If it doesn't destroy my engine too much, I was thinking of either having 16x16 movement or free-grid. Free-grid or gridless is where you move more like in the Legend of Zelda. I hope making that work with the standard tileset collisions won't be too hard but this is a feature action RPG makers desperately wanted and didn't want to drop 80 or whatever dollars on a piece of software they can't figure out. Same with 8x8 movement. I could do that, but it's not something I'll do for a long time.

"And coded for DS and GBA? o_o"

Yeah, that's what NovaForce was going to be before I canceled it. I also wrote some programs for the NES and tried to write a NES emulator for fun. I like the GBA/DS, writing for ARM processors is kind of fun.

"i think stuff like 8-way movement and the item stuff would be editor-related, not engine. i could be completely wrong, though."

I have to get creative of how the engine should interpret what the editor is telling it.
5 Set Global Battle Event : (A=0 for off,otherwise the Monster Group ID to become global)
Sets a monster group to have its battle event to run for all battles in addition to existing battle events.
6 Draw Number : (A=x pixel location to draw from,B=y pixel location to draw from,C=number to draw,D=0 for system graphic, 1 for battle gauge graphic)
Draws a number in the current system font or current gauge font (depending on the value of D) at the location (A,B) which is the top left corner of the number displayed.


holy fuckin christ this is awesome
I'm going to implement the escape characters in Show Message so I can get to implementing all of those. Variable Operations works now so I can go ahead and implement this. Especially the drawing of numbers, I think that's going to be something I really want to get working.
I don't know if this was already suggested, but maybe you could try and fix the way monster names are displayed in battle. For instance, instead of showing the same monster name 3 times, it shows it once and has 3 next to it, like old Final Fantasy titles. That always bugged me.
That's because it selects a specific monster that way. I'm going to redo ALL of the menu systems and that includes battle interfaces though. It's not even going to match 2003 at all and it doesn't have to.

You'll be configuring more finer details using the system calls if you want. The out-of-the-box settings should be great though.
This engine sure does sound nifty, I think I asked this before, but are you gonna break the damage, and stat cap from 999 to 9999 and damage from 9999 to whatever high now?
The engine will allow damages over 9999, and I think the stats are limited by the editor because my engine reads whatever is there.
Just checkin', still alive over here, right?
Funny you should ask, I'm going to make a log entry to explain why I suddenly went dead silent. I'm still boiling with nasty little microbes for the time so it'll be a few more days of absolute standstill. Don't worry, you know how much I can accomplish in just 5 hours out of a single night, I can pick this up again.

I did manage to implement ExFont as a custom sheet of 16x16 pixel icons you can draw though. Instead of using the old system, I'll let you use a sheet of 16x16 32-bit icons.

Also Fallout New Vegas
Not sure if you can do this, but it would be nice if the Display Message window wasn't larger than what you can actually type in it. You know, change it around so we know where the end is instead of having some of your text just disappear off the edge of the dialogue box.
That's something wrong with the editor of which I think there is actually a fix for.
Could I port game from rpgm2k3 to this? If yes, I cant wait.
You don't port games you simply run them right as they are. It's a replacement for RPG_RT.exe in your game folder.
You mentioned before that you're fixing the Agility to be FFX style, with it being turnbased with the possibility of multiple turns. Is there going to be a way for the player to tell who's turn is coming up next like in FFX? And how will the algorithm work in that system?
Also, your comment before about multiple battle systems with your program is a real possibility, right?

author=WolfCoder
When this engine is complete, I will pretty much just spend time fixing bugs and adding new battle systems. You'll be able to change battle systems using a syscall even to any battle system you want mid-game to support special battles.

Special battles? Like in Phantasy Star IV where you fought with your vehicle on giant monsters. You might have a first person MODE7 tank shooter system someone wrote for you that you can switch to.

^ That.

Because if its still a 'yes', well, that's pretty fucking awesome.
Wait, there is a homebrew RPG_RT port for the PSP? Really? Where can I find this?
author=MasterTherion
Wait, there is a homebrew RPG_RT port for the PSP? Really? Where can I find this?
I've messed around with it a bit. I don't know how much more advanced it has gotten in the past year or so, but at the time, it couldn't do as much as wolfcoder's engine.
You mentioned before that you're fixing the Agility to be FFX style, with it being turnbased with the possibility of multiple turns. Is there going to be a way for the player to tell who's turn is coming up next like in FFX? And how will the algorithm work in that system?


This is for turn-based battle mode, and it will list them off somewhere the current turn order. I haven't designed anything about this as it's not going to be implemented until all the standard RPGM2003 features are included. The extended turn-based battle system is intended for those who want 20XX to be more like RPGM2000 than RPGM2003.

Also, your comment before about multiple battle systems with your program is a real possibility, right?


It's not a possibility, it's a critical necessity. Everyone and their dog will want a particular battle system and my job after the engine is done is to be adding battle systems that people want.

Wait, there is a homebrew RPG_RT port for the PSP? Really? Where can I find this?


EasyRPG. But as Ramza said, they just barely got to where I am at only they have different things implemented. Both of our engines can play a really rough version of games.

You're going to be waiting a long time to get a good, smooth port for the PSP from them and I'm only targeting the Games for Windows platform so I'll never make anything for another system.