HOW DID YOU GET STARTED IN RM ?

Brotheeeer!!! Wuuuuuuu...
I don't wanna make.
Sometimes i wish this wasn't downloaded at all...
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My brother DL it, and then I got "addicted" to it. I had been wanting to "make games" since childhood, and made some "attempts" like using Excel's macros lol!, or making batch files (.bat). None of those got to something, but with RPG Maker... well, since it is an actual game maker...

Doing shit that works is more addictive than drugs.

I downloaded some games that were made by the owner of Kamain's world which is now dead, and discovered RPG Maker 2000 and soon after played Don's Adventure and got hooked.

With enough effort you could make games in Hyperstudio, which was like the mac equivalent of Powerpoint, except you could add some things like animations and buttons. I made a couple of those before discovering RPG Maker 95.

I'm pretty sure my first "projects" consisted of an overworld map with one town on it, some random battles against the default built-in enemies, and a little girl sprite who when you talked to her said something with heavy innuendo and then let you ride on her as a vehicle. The hero's name was probably something like Reverend Peewee Herman.

A few other similar figure-this-stuff-out type projects later and I started brainstorming with a friend about my first actual game. And we started working on Double Trouble. And then just over a year later I finished it. My first attempted game was a 40 hour epic RPG, and I finished it! This NEVER HAPPENS.

By the time I finished it RM2000 was out, so I started on the sequel in this exciting new program. I called the sequel Double Trouble 2: The Third. Then I eventually realized my first game was beyond awful and making a sequel to it was a terrible idea, so I reworked the RM2K game into not being a direct sequel, and changed the name. Surprisingly astute of me.

I don't actually remember how I stumbled upon RPGmaker, but I know 2k3 was the first that I downloaded, but 4 or so years after it had been out?
I know I wanted to make a zombie game, and besides like one or two novice games I started work on the very first version of Infection, which was horrible.

My only regret is that I didn't join the RM community ten years ago.

This is how I feel too. I always wanted more people to play my game besides friends and family, and I did start off in forums but didn't make my way into RMN until a year later.
It's shame, cause' this place is awesome.

I am not 100% sure actually. I have always wanted to play around with games, one day I stumbled across A BLURRED LINE and figured out what RPGMAKER was, but previously I liked writing stuff down about games and playing with .bat files, which I still cannot functionally operate. About 2 months before I discovered rm, I was forced into a mandatory computers class and learned of Hyperstudio. (bleh)

This was a year ago, but yes it is. I have it on my computer, my school has it on their computers, and I bet one could download it easily. We spent two weeks with that program.
edit:
though I am sure they don't support it anymore

i am ashamed to say that I probably found out about rpgmaker through the first laxius power, so I got 2k/3 (don't remember which one, since I think both were out) in 2003 from some thai site. I joined rpg2knet initially and kind of migrated to GW with some shitty projects here and there (my first one was fucking horrible and didn't see the light of day, fortunately). and from there i've been using the damn thing on and off. I've made three shitty demos of basically the same game since then.

I went from making board games using paper and pencil when I was 9 years old to games on powerpoint; action games, rpgs, even a full ff7 style battle system using .gif files, midi files, shape tool, buttons when I was 11 years old. At 12 I discovered RPG Toolkit and I was in awe at all the cool things you could do with that engine...create full towns with interactive npcs and side view battle systems, treasure chests and even animations. At 12 I discovered Rpg maker and delved into 2000 and 2003 after that. The possibilities seemed endless and I felt like I could create my own worlds with those tools at my fingertips. Over the years I played around with Xp, VX, now VX Ace. I also tinkered with Mutlimedia Fusion 2, Unity 3d, UDK, Torque 3d...even Flash professional and simple games using basic and java. I tried rpg maker for the playstation 2 though that was a big disappointment. I went on to parallax mapping after honing what we consider mapping skills with chipsets in rpg maker. I went from drawing maps on paper and scanning them into the computer and then to the game engine to creating maps using Photoshop and now finally to creating objects and meshes in 3d software and than using photoshop to touch up and map before importing into rpg maker. I've been working on my game Eden Gate for a year now and am amazed at how even now I learn new things and possibilities in Rm2k3. Eden Gate is my final rpg maker project and is the dream rpg maker game I have always wished I could make. After this project I plan on making my own games for ios and starting an indie game company!

To answer how it all began I'd have to credit that to games like Final Fantasy and animes like Dragon Ball Z. I was amazed at how immersed I was into their respective worlds and I began to seek ways to create my own universes =]

I was bored a number of years ago, so I downloaded 2k. In that respect, nothing has really changed between then and now.

I got started by watching an RM2K3 series named killer7SINdrome.
Since then I started making games.