Full Games List
Featured Games
New Games
Reviews
Media
Images
Blogs
Game Updates
Images Feedback Summary
Game Design Highlights
Tutorials
Articles
Scripts
Utilities / Plugins
Resources
Engines
Engine Bulletins
What is Makerscore?
Past Events
Achievements
Misaos
Forums
Post History
Chat
New to RMN?
Full Store List
RMN Music Pack (free)
A RATHER IMPORTANT QUESTION: TO SWITCH OR NOT TO SWITCH?
Posts
Dyhalto
7536
Dyhalto
View playlists
CloseHere's a wall of text of my own.
Everybody's journey is different. But I'll share my progression with Valor Emblem.
I began with the sprite ripping from FE5. I didn't extract quite enough to contribute sheets to shyguy or spriters resource, but I had enough to fill a game of my own.
I also ripped the basic tileset of the Thracia map so I could assemble my own. It may not look it when it's finally seen by others, but it took me a long, long time to actually make it.
Understanding the algorithms used by the maker was important. I couldn't just go around throwing numbers in and hoping everything worked itself out to the player's enjoyment. Getting this shit down to a science is mandatory, not a luxury.
Creating the databases came next. I didn't just add shit as it came to me. Everything was meticulously planned in a wordpad document and then inserted when I felt I had minimized useless junk and optimized for balance/progression.
At this stage, I had a resource kit that I could (almost) immediately begin plugging game data into. I got a chance to test it in the 4-hour Bday contest last year. Reception was generally positive, and I even won too! This was the All Clear as far as I was concerned.
Having a story to follow is nice, but it should be handled in such a way so as to not bog the player down with unbalanced gameplay. Thus, game planning was next. Again, meticulous attention to detail on a brainstorm level is involved here. I knew what I had to accomplish story-wise, but had to find ways to avoid compromising gameplay. In my case, I had to provide the player with a balanced, functional party at the start instead of just going with 10 lance knights cuz da plot sez so. There are also several parts where cutscenes drag on long enough to be jarring. How would I go about shrinking or integrating them? I found a way...
I started the sprite ripping in 2008, and finally started what I consider the second-last phase in late 2011 : Game data insertion. It still involves as-it-happens dialogue writing and proofreading, following up with bug testing and balance tweaking, making it another F'ing long phase.
Some things have been ongoing the entire time, like the custom FE mugs, story revision, and music selection.
And, of course, I ran into issues that required me to stop and fix stuff. Resolution clash was a big one (still will be, portrait-wise). My dark monitor screwing up what I perceived as the color 'black'. A major font issue that threatens the format of everything I've written thus far (hopefully on the verge of being rectified for the better). Plus a few cosmetic changes there were minor, but still required.
So yeah. The TL;DR - I began by creating a foundation of resources, mechanics, and a general game plan. Then the enjoyable parts started.
I spent ~10 years RMing and have diddly squat to show for it, except all kinds of experience making (not making, I should say) games.
author=Xenomic
Alright, let's say I do start from scratch. Let's say I completely stop working on this current game and start anew with 2k3 or VX/XP whatever. Let's say that I focus on one thing and one thing only, whether it be characters, gameplay, monsters, mapping, story, etc. What would you say to start with?
Everybody's journey is different. But I'll share my progression with Valor Emblem.
I began with the sprite ripping from FE5. I didn't extract quite enough to contribute sheets to shyguy or spriters resource, but I had enough to fill a game of my own.
I also ripped the basic tileset of the Thracia map so I could assemble my own. It may not look it when it's finally seen by others, but it took me a long, long time to actually make it.
Understanding the algorithms used by the maker was important. I couldn't just go around throwing numbers in and hoping everything worked itself out to the player's enjoyment. Getting this shit down to a science is mandatory, not a luxury.
Creating the databases came next. I didn't just add shit as it came to me. Everything was meticulously planned in a wordpad document and then inserted when I felt I had minimized useless junk and optimized for balance/progression.
At this stage, I had a resource kit that I could (almost) immediately begin plugging game data into. I got a chance to test it in the 4-hour Bday contest last year. Reception was generally positive, and I even won too! This was the All Clear as far as I was concerned.
Having a story to follow is nice, but it should be handled in such a way so as to not bog the player down with unbalanced gameplay. Thus, game planning was next. Again, meticulous attention to detail on a brainstorm level is involved here. I knew what I had to accomplish story-wise, but had to find ways to avoid compromising gameplay. In my case, I had to provide the player with a balanced, functional party at the start instead of just going with 10 lance knights cuz da plot sez so. There are also several parts where cutscenes drag on long enough to be jarring. How would I go about shrinking or integrating them? I found a way...
I started the sprite ripping in 2008, and finally started what I consider the second-last phase in late 2011 : Game data insertion. It still involves as-it-happens dialogue writing and proofreading, following up with bug testing and balance tweaking, making it another F'ing long phase.
Some things have been ongoing the entire time, like the custom FE mugs, story revision, and music selection.
And, of course, I ran into issues that required me to stop and fix stuff. Resolution clash was a big one (still will be, portrait-wise). My dark monitor screwing up what I perceived as the color 'black'. A major font issue that threatens the format of everything I've written thus far (hopefully on the verge of being rectified for the better). Plus a few cosmetic changes there were minor, but still required.
So yeah. The TL;DR - I began by creating a foundation of resources, mechanics, and a general game plan. Then the enjoyable parts started.
I spent ~10 years RMing and have diddly squat to show for it, except all kinds of experience making (not making, I should say) games.
Xenomic
1752
Hm...since you shared yours, I guess I'll share my story. Might not be as exciting, but if it offers any insight into how I've thought when making the game...
Out of the makers, I started with 2k3 since it was the one I was most familiar with (I had brief experience with RPG Maker 2k years before I started this game, and I worked with RPG Maker on Playstation. That was terrible working 1 1/2 years on a rather piss-poor game but anyways...). After choosing to go with that, I decided on the number of characters I was going to have. I originally had roughly 12-15 characters, which is if you think about it, how many were in FFVI. After setting up the characters, I took a look at skills and decided what skills each character would have, and what they would do. I tried to balance it out where each character would be unique from one another, though this didn't exactly work out as planned (this was using the Level Up system for learning skills). This I'll get into later.
After setting up skills, I decided on inventory and what was going to be used. I had a set inventory set up, for items, statuses that I (originally) had, equipment, etc. Once I got that done, I attempted my first world map (which you can see in my latest blog link in my playlist) and my first few maps, which were terrible but I didn't change them much until later on, since I just wanted a base foundation. Once I set up EACH specific map, I put in the events that I was going to have playing (so for the world map, after making it I set up the starting game event, then with the first map I made after that, the next event, and so on and so forth). I continued this pretty much up through beta2 (changing graphics for the system menus and such, figuring out which ATB bar I wanted to use, portraits, etc.). This was all while I didn't know that much about making abilities and such.
Once beta2 rolled around, I started dabbling into battle animations more since I wasn't happy with the tiny sizes of the default battle sprites, so I learned how to handle that, and then started giving animations to my various skills and such (some of which still need fixed up, but 2k3 can only do so much of course). I also changed various portraits and rebalanced skills and enemies a bit, continued on with everything else, and I think around this time is where I started learning how to do things such as set up Gravity spells and new statuses and other neato things.
Once beta3 rolled around, I started reanalyzing my skill system, and finding it too bland and dull, I decided to go with learning skills via skill books. That took a couple months to implement, but I got that done and was pleased with how it worked. This was also around the time I started to implement more characters into the story than I originally had, as I had events that couldn't be told with the current party members (hence the huge huge cast of characters now. Going from roughly 15-20 characters to 50 characters is a huge jump, but it's all necessary to tell the story). I rebalanced skills and characters to make them even more unique (which I believe I've done a good job on so far), added new animations and equipment and items, as well as a few new statuses to keep the gameplay fresh and add some more strategy. Around this time I learned how to code special abilities such as Steal and Scan, which I was happy to learn as it gave more flavor to the game rather than Attack/Spam Skills/Item, and gave each character more of a uniqueness in battle. Around this time I think my mapping skills started to really start getting better (not to say that they weren't getting better from beta2. Still think Youkai Mountain is the pinnacle of my work so far).
Beta4, which originally was released LAST APRIL, after many bug fixes due to new abilities such as a Sprint Shoes type ability, enemy rebalancing, character rebalancing, completely removing the inventory and starting fresh, rebalancing equipment, character stats, etc., I learned even MORE about some coding such as +% equipment, looping maps (believe it or not, I never messed with looping maps until then), and just overall balancing the game more.
In September, I started doing a fleshed out patch for beta4, dubbed Beta4 version 2.0, in which I was going to add in a crafting system and crafting items (several crafting items could actually be used as spell items in battle, or equipped, so they weren't all useless as they tend to be in games) which took a couple months to set up, and iron out even more bugs, with more rebalancing. However, throughout all of these betas, I never really went back to fix any mapping in earlier betas (the only map I ever tried to fix was Scarlet Devil Mansion, and that was attempted 4 separate times. None of them I liked, and I may be revamping it a 5th time...). This continued until December.
As of February, the current Beta4 version 3.0, I have been working primarily in the database to iron out more bugs, set up even more abilities for characters to diversify them more and give more strategic value to battles, added a couple new elements, and have been adding a crapton of new animations for abilities (several of which will need to be redone since they're not that good admittedly). The current plans are to also fix up the physical damage formula since I did not know all of the formulas for a long time (I read about it a few months ago actually), so that the Attack command is actually viable, fixing up EXP somehow to be useful which has been really hard to do, as well as remapping the problematic beta1 maps which most people have been having issues with.
Also, lots of music added in throughout all of the betas. This was to give each battle and area a sense of individuality without reusing the same theme (though several themes are reused quite often). This also extended to each of the full-time playable and optional characters having a different battle theme (originally, there were specific points in the game where the battle theme would change, akin to Tales of the Abyss).
All of this started due to me wanting to share a story I had in mind. Yes, I intended to show the story through the game, but I never wanted to forsake the gameplay to make it unfun or whatnot. I have been trying to balance it for the 3 1/2 years I have been working on it to be enjoyable and playable. It's just the starting part of the game probably gives the wrong impression because it's so outdated compared to the rest of the game in terms of mapping. That, and I may need to reanalyze balancing enemies again or something...
Wow, that is the longest post I have ever made...I wonder if I shouldn't just put that in a blog post x_x;;
Out of the makers, I started with 2k3 since it was the one I was most familiar with (I had brief experience with RPG Maker 2k years before I started this game, and I worked with RPG Maker on Playstation. That was terrible working 1 1/2 years on a rather piss-poor game but anyways...). After choosing to go with that, I decided on the number of characters I was going to have. I originally had roughly 12-15 characters, which is if you think about it, how many were in FFVI. After setting up the characters, I took a look at skills and decided what skills each character would have, and what they would do. I tried to balance it out where each character would be unique from one another, though this didn't exactly work out as planned (this was using the Level Up system for learning skills). This I'll get into later.
After setting up skills, I decided on inventory and what was going to be used. I had a set inventory set up, for items, statuses that I (originally) had, equipment, etc. Once I got that done, I attempted my first world map (which you can see in my latest blog link in my playlist) and my first few maps, which were terrible but I didn't change them much until later on, since I just wanted a base foundation. Once I set up EACH specific map, I put in the events that I was going to have playing (so for the world map, after making it I set up the starting game event, then with the first map I made after that, the next event, and so on and so forth). I continued this pretty much up through beta2 (changing graphics for the system menus and such, figuring out which ATB bar I wanted to use, portraits, etc.). This was all while I didn't know that much about making abilities and such.
Once beta2 rolled around, I started dabbling into battle animations more since I wasn't happy with the tiny sizes of the default battle sprites, so I learned how to handle that, and then started giving animations to my various skills and such (some of which still need fixed up, but 2k3 can only do so much of course). I also changed various portraits and rebalanced skills and enemies a bit, continued on with everything else, and I think around this time is where I started learning how to do things such as set up Gravity spells and new statuses and other neato things.
Once beta3 rolled around, I started reanalyzing my skill system, and finding it too bland and dull, I decided to go with learning skills via skill books. That took a couple months to implement, but I got that done and was pleased with how it worked. This was also around the time I started to implement more characters into the story than I originally had, as I had events that couldn't be told with the current party members (hence the huge huge cast of characters now. Going from roughly 15-20 characters to 50 characters is a huge jump, but it's all necessary to tell the story). I rebalanced skills and characters to make them even more unique (which I believe I've done a good job on so far), added new animations and equipment and items, as well as a few new statuses to keep the gameplay fresh and add some more strategy. Around this time I learned how to code special abilities such as Steal and Scan, which I was happy to learn as it gave more flavor to the game rather than Attack/Spam Skills/Item, and gave each character more of a uniqueness in battle. Around this time I think my mapping skills started to really start getting better (not to say that they weren't getting better from beta2. Still think Youkai Mountain is the pinnacle of my work so far).
Beta4, which originally was released LAST APRIL, after many bug fixes due to new abilities such as a Sprint Shoes type ability, enemy rebalancing, character rebalancing, completely removing the inventory and starting fresh, rebalancing equipment, character stats, etc., I learned even MORE about some coding such as +% equipment, looping maps (believe it or not, I never messed with looping maps until then), and just overall balancing the game more.
In September, I started doing a fleshed out patch for beta4, dubbed Beta4 version 2.0, in which I was going to add in a crafting system and crafting items (several crafting items could actually be used as spell items in battle, or equipped, so they weren't all useless as they tend to be in games) which took a couple months to set up, and iron out even more bugs, with more rebalancing. However, throughout all of these betas, I never really went back to fix any mapping in earlier betas (the only map I ever tried to fix was Scarlet Devil Mansion, and that was attempted 4 separate times. None of them I liked, and I may be revamping it a 5th time...). This continued until December.
As of February, the current Beta4 version 3.0, I have been working primarily in the database to iron out more bugs, set up even more abilities for characters to diversify them more and give more strategic value to battles, added a couple new elements, and have been adding a crapton of new animations for abilities (several of which will need to be redone since they're not that good admittedly). The current plans are to also fix up the physical damage formula since I did not know all of the formulas for a long time (I read about it a few months ago actually), so that the Attack command is actually viable, fixing up EXP somehow to be useful which has been really hard to do, as well as remapping the problematic beta1 maps which most people have been having issues with.
Also, lots of music added in throughout all of the betas. This was to give each battle and area a sense of individuality without reusing the same theme (though several themes are reused quite often). This also extended to each of the full-time playable and optional characters having a different battle theme (originally, there were specific points in the game where the battle theme would change, akin to Tales of the Abyss).
All of this started due to me wanting to share a story I had in mind. Yes, I intended to show the story through the game, but I never wanted to forsake the gameplay to make it unfun or whatnot. I have been trying to balance it for the 3 1/2 years I have been working on it to be enjoyable and playable. It's just the starting part of the game probably gives the wrong impression because it's so outdated compared to the rest of the game in terms of mapping. That, and I may need to reanalyze balancing enemies again or something...
Wow, that is the longest post I have ever made...I wonder if I shouldn't just put that in a blog post x_x;;
thatbennyguy
1612
Wow, you are good at walls of text.
Anyway, just finish the one you're working on. Clean it up or whatever, downsize it so that you can finish it in a few months if you're that sick of it. But whatever you do, just finish the thing.
Anyway, just finish the one you're working on. Clean it up or whatever, downsize it so that you can finish it in a few months if you're that sick of it. But whatever you do, just finish the thing.
Xenomic
1752
Normally I don't try to do walls of text either ^^;;
I promised to myself that I would finish regardless of how long it took, and I don't intend on breaking that promise, since I really want to do this. I think the main reason I ever get sick of it is due to me constantly working on it even when I'm on breaks (maybe not PHYSICALLY working on it during breaks, but still thinking about what to do on it and whatnot).
I promised to myself that I would finish regardless of how long it took, and I don't intend on breaking that promise, since I really want to do this. I think the main reason I ever get sick of it is due to me constantly working on it even when I'm on breaks (maybe not PHYSICALLY working on it during breaks, but still thinking about what to do on it and whatnot).
Well since we're sharing...
Tundra arguably had its beginnings in 1999. I had been playing around with QBASIC for a while, but I hadn't yet progressed to doing actual graphics so I tended to represent things with ASCII. My friend David and I decided to try making an RPG like those Final Fantasies we loved so much because that would be SUPER COOL YOU GUYS
So we started making this game. I did the coding and David was the ideas guy. He drew some pretty neat little sketches of things like monsters and the protagonist and came up with a concept but I honestly forget what it originally was. I made little ASCII shops and constructed primitive arrays to hold all the item data and made a text-based game that used an internal grid system that was never really described to the player; they just decided which direction to go in and then whichever square they ended up on had its "description" data output so you could explore.
And I coded a little primitive combat engine which used really simple algorithms and more or less did exactly what it needed to and nothing more.
Fast forward to 2001 and Dark Legend: the Path of Death (yeah, we were so original when I was 14) was really taking shape. It was, for all intents and purposes, a finished game in that all of the underlying functionality was done. All that remained was to finish off the map and code in quests and the like.
And then we discovered rm2k.
It was like Christmas, my Birthday and all the world's holidays rolled into one that day, for 16-year-old me. Never in my life had I imagined that such a magical tool might actually exist that was accessible to nobodies like us! Immediately QBASIC was abandoned and I downloaded the holy grail of games creation software.
In those early days, I was a total demon. I was churning out maps like my life depended on it, whizzing through the database work within a few days of the download. It was about this time that we decided our original concept just wasn't RPGish enough and sat down to work through our story.
I can't remember which of us came up with the idea, but regardless the game was now about a world that was turning to ice. We came up with the name Tundra pretty much at the same time as the concept. David named the main protagonist, Giya Vantana. To be honest given later events that occurred with David which I won't go into here I would rather rename him, but he's been named that for so long I feel it would be doing the concept a disservice if I did, so Giya Vantana he'll stay.
At the time, we had this idea that the game would start with Giya hopping down an icy mountain and introducing himself to the player, then going into a flashback detailing exactly how the world was frozen. An evil sorcerer named Morgana had freed an imprisoned ice sorceress, who subjugated mankind and ruled over them with an iron fist. The game would basically be a quest to destroy or re-imprison the sorceress, thus restoring the world to its former state.
...yeah, not exactly going to win any originality awards, but at the time we thought we were the hottest shit. We called our "company" Game Wizards UK. I made a shitty Angelfire website and everything. After Giya's monologue and the hackneyed exposition we had one of the RTP parallaxes scrolling down and to the right as that sad theme from Casper played. I'm really embarrassed to say that when I initially playtested this I got a tear in my eye.
This post has already gotten rather long, so I'll stop there for now. Let me know if you want to hear more of my backstory as there's still a long way to go and I'd rather only tell it if it's not going to result in a TL;DR situation. :P
Tundra arguably had its beginnings in 1999. I had been playing around with QBASIC for a while, but I hadn't yet progressed to doing actual graphics so I tended to represent things with ASCII. My friend David and I decided to try making an RPG like those Final Fantasies we loved so much because that would be SUPER COOL YOU GUYS
So we started making this game. I did the coding and David was the ideas guy. He drew some pretty neat little sketches of things like monsters and the protagonist and came up with a concept but I honestly forget what it originally was. I made little ASCII shops and constructed primitive arrays to hold all the item data and made a text-based game that used an internal grid system that was never really described to the player; they just decided which direction to go in and then whichever square they ended up on had its "description" data output so you could explore.
And I coded a little primitive combat engine which used really simple algorithms and more or less did exactly what it needed to and nothing more.
Fast forward to 2001 and Dark Legend: the Path of Death (yeah, we were so original when I was 14) was really taking shape. It was, for all intents and purposes, a finished game in that all of the underlying functionality was done. All that remained was to finish off the map and code in quests and the like.
And then we discovered rm2k.
It was like Christmas, my Birthday and all the world's holidays rolled into one that day, for 16-year-old me. Never in my life had I imagined that such a magical tool might actually exist that was accessible to nobodies like us! Immediately QBASIC was abandoned and I downloaded the holy grail of games creation software.
In those early days, I was a total demon. I was churning out maps like my life depended on it, whizzing through the database work within a few days of the download. It was about this time that we decided our original concept just wasn't RPGish enough and sat down to work through our story.
I can't remember which of us came up with the idea, but regardless the game was now about a world that was turning to ice. We came up with the name Tundra pretty much at the same time as the concept. David named the main protagonist, Giya Vantana. To be honest given later events that occurred with David which I won't go into here I would rather rename him, but he's been named that for so long I feel it would be doing the concept a disservice if I did, so Giya Vantana he'll stay.
At the time, we had this idea that the game would start with Giya hopping down an icy mountain and introducing himself to the player, then going into a flashback detailing exactly how the world was frozen. An evil sorcerer named Morgana had freed an imprisoned ice sorceress, who subjugated mankind and ruled over them with an iron fist. The game would basically be a quest to destroy or re-imprison the sorceress, thus restoring the world to its former state.
...yeah, not exactly going to win any originality awards, but at the time we thought we were the hottest shit. We called our "company" Game Wizards UK. I made a shitty Angelfire website and everything. After Giya's monologue and the hackneyed exposition we had one of the RTP parallaxes scrolling down and to the right as that sad theme from Casper played. I'm really embarrassed to say that when I initially playtested this I got a tear in my eye.
This post has already gotten rather long, so I'll stop there for now. Let me know if you want to hear more of my backstory as there's still a long way to go and I'd rather only tell it if it's not going to result in a TL;DR situation. :P
