RPG Maker 20XX Engine

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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.
The weather effects have been working for quite some time
He totally made this thing
Aaaaaa voices in my head!!
Where's the evil homunculus?

Posts

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ldida1
1497
03/17/2011 03:04 AM
author=Kaempfer
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).


Yep, thats better than no pixel movement.
WIP
I'm not comfortable with any idea that can't be expressed in the form of men's jewelry
11338
03/17/2011 05:02 AM
Pixel movement is almost worthless without 8 directional movement. And when you get into that, you will run into issues with pure box collisions. I can't think of a game with 8 direction movement with pure square box collision. All the games you can typically think of (Zelda, Chrono Trigger, etc.) have diagonal collision boxes as well.
WolfCoder
1515
03/17/2011 05:36 AM
I know all of this sounds difficult to implement, but it's really not. I have a method that checks for the ability to pass from one tile to another. It would still take me a while to do though, but it would really just be four rays extruding in the movement direction from the corners of the sprites' bounding boxes. Since everyone is the same size, it wouldn't really make a bit of difference.

Remember it would take me quite some time to implement, though. Think of how you would have to write the events' movement commands.
Magi
Resident Terrapin
1028
03/17/2011 10:35 AM
author=ldida1
author=Kaempfer
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).
Yep, thats better than no pixel movement.
IDK. Seems kind of worthless from a design standpoint if there is no explicit reasoning behind it. Most people just want pixel movement because "cool, different!" other than having a practical use for it.
Dudesoft
always a dudesoft, never a soft dude.
4873
03/17/2011 11:25 AM
author=Magi
IDK. Seems kind of worthless from a design standpoint if there is no explicit reasoning behind it. Most people just want pixel movement because "cool, different!" other than having a practical use for it.

It would be pretty sick for minigames and bullet dodging? Also, why not? It would further increase how different this is from 2k3, with one more Ooo! Different! feature.
tardis
is it too late for ironhide facepalm
308
03/17/2011 05:59 PM
i am pretty indifferent about pixel movement and just thought i'd bring it up for the sake of discussion (because ooh! it's cool!)

in general though, just get battles up and running and i will be a happy camper. you got this!!!
narcodis
hello
2685
03/17/2011 06:22 PM
I don't know if this has been discussed before, but would a feature similar to VX's "Self Switches" be possible with 20XX? Meaning, switches that are specific to single events?

(For example, I make a switch that gives you an item and turns on "Self Switch A", and then the chest is open when Self Switch A is on. I can copy and paste this event a million times and they will all work properly.)
WIP
I'm not comfortable with any idea that can't be expressed in the form of men's jewelry
11338
03/17/2011 06:27 PM
author=Dudesoft
author=Magi
IDK. Seems kind of worthless from a design standpoint if there is no explicit reasoning behind it. Most people just want pixel movement because "cool, different!" other than having a practical use for it.
It would be pretty sick for minigames and bullet dodging? Also, why not? It would further increase how different this is from 2k3, with one more Ooo! Different! feature.

It adds a lot of unneeded complexity to the engine that is purely tile-based movement and collision. Pixel movement and collision itself are not difficult. But smashing it into an engine that plays games built under the pretense of tile movement is not a very good idea.
InfectionFiles
157
03/17/2011 06:27 PM
author=narcodis
(For example, I make a switch that gives you an item and turns on "Self Switch A", and then the chest is open when Self Switch A is on. I can copy and paste this event a million times and they will all work properly.)

^ I would love this feature, so freakin' much.
WolfCoder
1515
03/17/2011 11:53 PM
Problem is I'm not sure how to safely implement it in the save file.
tardis
is it too late for ironhide facepalm
308
03/20/2011 08:05 PM
errybody so excited
WolfCoder
1515
03/21/2011 12:11 AM
I already posted that I wasn't going to make it this 20th though, and I'm behind on too many other things.
tardis
is it too late for ironhide facepalm
308
03/21/2011 09:14 AM
oh wow, i actually hadn't even noticed it was the 20th when i posted that, i was just keeping 20xx in my HEART OF HEARTS
Rukiri
0
03/23/2011 07:25 AM
I think pixel-movement would be a good idea but I think this would require an external map editor..

One thing that has always plagued rm2k/3 was the fact you get 2 walking animations, many games like Chrono Trigger or Seiken Densetsu will have 4+. So having a way to have customizable charsets would be a great addition.

16X16 isn't too bad but having pixel-movement especially if you're making an action based game would be better.

Though having to recode the map system for rm2k might be a bit of a problem as it's closed source.

It might be easier to just code a new gui for rm2k3 using your own engine, giving rm2k a new look and a better back end. Also gives you more room down the road when you decide to add scripting or give tutorials on where to add such and such if a user needs it.
Rave
like a walking version of the intro from Zero Wing
260
03/23/2011 09:53 AM
WC, could you prepare demo game for 20XX (you must have one which you use for tests since you have screenshots)?
WolfCoder
1515
03/23/2011 12:57 PM
Though having to recode the map system for rm2k might be a bit of a problem as it's closed source.

I'm recoding everything since this is a project from scratch. I'm building, this isn't a crack or a patch.

WC, could you prepare demo game for 20XX (you must have one which you use for tests since you have screenshots)?

http://rpgmaker.net/games/2917/
J-Man
1622
03/23/2011 01:23 PM
Something else just occurred to me, by some chance will the program be able to run GIFs? Like animated GIFs? For those who want to have animated monsters instead of using space for the battle animations? (then again, using the battle animations would be a more precise thing, be even then.)
WolfCoder
1515
03/23/2011 03:16 PM
GIF is a horrible format to use for animations, you're better off using Battle Chars. Then you can have charset, animation, or a mix of both. My program doesn't care how tall your animation sheets are either, so if you hack your editor to allow large sheets of battle animations, it will already work.
J-Man
1622
03/23/2011 03:31 PM
Well, I meant GIF's for monsters instead, battle charsets are fine the way they are. :p But if we are even able to animate even the monsters with battle animations then that's fine. :P
Feldschlacht IV
jazzy nyc
671
03/26/2011 05:24 PM
So I've been gone for two months, can anyone update me on this?
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