HIDDEN MAPS IN PROJECT FILES

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Hello

When I used to play RM2k3 games semifrequently I would always run them through the editor and if the game wasn't holding my attention do a quick scan thru the map directory listing so see some of where it was going and look for secrets.

I remember seeing games which had things like: top level container maps which were just RTP smiley faces or "hello" written in tiles, little warnings in map names like "DONT READ THIS" or "SPOILERS" or "GET OUT NOW" and I always thought it was the cutest thing. Unfortunately I don't remember any of the games that had this.

I am sorry for bad topic but would like to know if anyone remembers good examples of this or names that I could see them again. Does this still happen with XP/VX things or are the project files always hidden away for those? Or is there anything else that made good effect of the tendency for people to play RM2k/3 games in test mode and poke around as they were doing so.

Thank you,
Stephen
I'm pretty sure my projects have some unused maps ; P Like testing maps etc - I'm just too lazy to delete them. XD
Yeah, I sometimes use maps (or even common events) to hold information in the form of messages within events that I want to keep in mind, testing maps and sometimes just maps that never made it into the main project but that I wanted to keep because they weren't bad. Hell, the way I set up my games usually have blank maps for seperating different kinds of maps that I sometimes just map on for fun. (Towns > Dungeons > Other > Scenes > Introduction)
no this is a really good topic, ive been snooping for these recently

http://jeramyu.homestead.com/files/TheWayGuide_2_.html

a lot of hidden dev notes, poetry, tons of easter eggs, NPCs that arent in the game but not deleted either, test rooms, FUCKING telephone codes, dev talking to his own characters in comment format, behind the scenes stories on how the way was thought up, old girl crushes

some highlights:

author=TheWay
53987. 53987. 4 9474 69
847466 63 968 927 8783.
968 9373 76 232884385.

Decodes to: “Lexus. Lexus. I wish my vision of you was true. You were so beautiful.”


author=TheWay
In every episode since Episode 3, four WAV files have been included in The Way’s Sound folder: “WayVoice1”, “WayVoice2”, “WayVoice3”, and “WayVoice6”. They are used a few times in episodes 3, 4, and 6 in cutscenes related to auras. When played in reverse at double speed, the files seem to be distorted English voices.


author=TheWay
Pits Sub #8 (011,072) EV0016:
Note: It's a late night, but I'm almost finished. Watched some movies tonight with the neighbor
girls. Man, I've got to add enemies to the Forest area after this. I think I'll easily finish
before the end of February. Might do some special stuff for Lexus quest.
Note: Episode 3 got released just a little while back, been getting about 2 or 3 letters a day.
Trying to help everyone who is asking me questions as best I can.
Note: I'm still feeling lots of pressure to do something that "matters". Games are considered to
be silly and childish by a lot of people around me. Or maybe it's just me.
Note: They don't see it the way I do. That's all right.
Note:
Note: Lun

February 9, 2003
Play SE: SEarthquake

Variable Ch: Set, 12
Variable Ch: Set, 800
Recieved 12 CTP
and 800 AR.
Change Switch: -ON Set


for the longest time ive been meaning to c/p stuff like this from rm games i like. idk prob do this soon after the contest.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
I generally add a map early in my games called "Quick Get" that have treasure chest types and other commonly used events that I can quickly grab ^_^
Ah yes, I use them in some projects where there are systems that need to be used a lot, over and over. I've also noticed them in a few other games.

I love the idea of developer rooms that you can visit either during or after a game is over, just as an insight to the creator's mind and how they did things, who they worked with and the like. I mean, okay, credits are fine and all, but gimme little sprites of the people who meant most to a project and letting them have little lines or tell you about things they found troublesome or thought were interesting... I love stuff like that.

But fuck those devs who include 'cheat' chests where you have to cheat to get them and then insta-game over. That's just cruel. I fell prey to one of those in Legion Saga II and it'd been over an hour since my last save. I was steamed!
It'd be kinda neat to keep a dev diary in game some time, with what you were thinking about or what you'd just eaten or what was going terribly wrong each time you worked on the game. It'd be an exercise for both player and developer.

Also I just read through like 10 pages of catmitts posts on RMN and it was a real trip down memory lane. REMIND ME TO PICK UP 50 SHORT GAMES even if I never play them you've earned $5 or whatever for being my gateway into weird short games all those years ago
http://rpgmaker.net/media/content/users/204/locker/forest.png

http://rpgmaker.net/media/content/users/204/locker/jester.png


various unfinished forest maps in Angel of Exodus. Jester is copy pasted in most of them with the dialogue "What is it that brings you to my forest?" likely cutscenes still being worked on forever across illustrious's dreams ZING that joke probably went over most people

also an entire mine dungeon with teleport events and everything but no random encounters. seem to be lifted off from FAD. I will do a proper write up on this game later since I have some info and thoughts to share.
Rave
Even newspapers have those nowadays.
290
Actually, I have some of this in my game. Most of which are failed event-based minigames, but there's also devroom (accessible during normal gameplay) and some easter eggs (actually I aim for Duke3d/Retro City Rampage amount of eggs).

//edit: Project most certainly won't be encrypted as I like players to play it the way they like. If that means cheating gold/items in by using editor, so be it. Also I think I left some debug code there, justin case.

Anyway, one of eggs is so complicated to access, that even I forgot how to do that.
InfectionFiles
the world ends in whatever my makerscore currently is
4622
I do this on a regular basis with my projects, if people checked in a editor they would find something!
remember that battle engine test project on ggz called BEP by qheretic? remember how it was just a forest full of random battles and not much else? no? who cares!!! you played the wrong game. moving the start position to map called opening will give you what kindred saga was originally gonna be (not ff7). then i guess there was a need to make ff7. though i think loading the save files also works? idk

also I recall q making a bahamut lagoon sprite tutorial reverse engineering byuu's sprite. which so happens to be the main chara of not-kindred-saga. Also i just realized Seade is very similar to Slade. Seade is kind of cooler imo.

http://rpgmaker.net/media/content/users/204/locker/Untitled4.jpg

http://rpgmaker.net/media/content/users/204/locker/ks2.jpg

http://rpgmaker.net/media/content/users/204/locker/ks23.jpg

http://rpgmaker.net/media/content/users/204/locker/ks24.jpg


i like that in both versions of kindred saga, the main protag is sleeping at the start. also Q tends to like desaturation for some reason, esp on charactersets.

http://rpgmaker.net/media/content/users/204/locker/trivial.png


in the real ks, angel of exodus main character is spotted. archaeologists high fived at this discovery
Ocean
Resident foodmonster
11991
In Chain of Retribution, we had a few unused maps, or just test maps for various events/things. As the game was passed along from one person to another, we'd also write some jokes, notes or replies to each other in it too. Some of it serious notes on how to work a system, some of it just being silly. "The gem tutorial pics are too large, but my program can't resize it effectively so someone should take care of that" "Ocean: I'm hungry" or "Damn you guys I made this map all for nothing"


Some maps unused that say "LOL" on them written with tiles, there's some things to find if you poke around that project!

We also had a thing where if you try to cheat and get a treasure chest that you're never supposed to reach, you have to fight an incredibly tough optional boss. Which you can't win.

I don't remember if it's accessible but we had a devroom too where we all talk about how it was like to make our parts. Hahaha just looked back and all k-hos did in the devroom was post a wikipedia article about cheese.

"\>\cOcean:\c\<
And the biggest mystery: How did we
end up with a sewer level? Where did
we go wrooong?"
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
If you asked me which areas of Vindication were left accessible via the editor and which weren't, I'd have to look it up. I think there's a "Void" subfolder of maps containing all the deleted maps? Maybe?

I know there's a fully functional airship where all your party members hang out. The game didn't have an airship in the final release, it was cut due to pacing issues. But you can summon it (to the world map or even to a dungeon) via the debug menu.

Start the game in test mode. Press F9 to manually change the switches. Turn on switch 9 to turn on debug mode which will let you trick your party out, then change variable 20 to a value of 1 to turn on HYPER DEBUG MODE!!11 which will let you summon the airship or add characters to your party, including I think some of the dummied-out characters? Originally the evil emperor was supposed to be transformed into a little girl, and I'm pretty sure she's playable.


edit: Okay so it turns out the only other deleted scene is probably the Xenogears chair scene. Remember the parts of Disc 2 of Xenogears where they didn't have enough budget to actually make the game, so they just had Fei sitting in a chair in outer space describing what happened? Yeah. In unfinished beta versions of the game, when you got to the end of what I'd made so far, that was what happened.
My initial reaction to the Xenogears chair scene was that it was an interesting story-telling mechanic, and it helped show the similarities between Fei and Elly. I actually enjoyed it... at first.

But after awhile, it seemed to drag on, and then it went from one story segment to another, with no game play in between.

I won't speculate whether the chair scene was intended or not due to a lack of budget, but the rest of the second disc sure felt as if it was rushed compared to amount of content in the first.
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