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[RPG MAKER] TWO GAMES, ONE DATABASE?
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Max McGee
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CloseSo, has anyone else ever tried to develop two "sibling" games that share the same resources and the same database ? I know most of you have the good sense to not be developing two (or more than two, or WAY MORE THAN TWO) games simultaneously, but some of you are kind of crazy like me, so I'm curious if anyone else has tried this "trick" and how it's worked out.
My reason for doing it is not so much laziness (i.e. avoiding tedious steps like importing resources and setting tile passability and filling out my ten bajillionth RPG Maker Database) as the idea of being able to make two games side by side that share the same mechanics, mechanical assumptions, and setting. (One is a roguelike like dungeon crawl, the other is a more traditional story based linear CRPG.)
I made an extremely half-assed attempt to do this "Database Sharing" idea retroactively with Starseed and Starseed: Blood Machine. And fully a third of my projects were built "out of the ruins" of other projects. But that's not quite the same. I'm making a much more comprehensive effort at this with the "sister" projects I'm working on now, planning it out from the getgo. And I became curious if anyone else has taken a crack at this concept or if it's even ever occurred to anyone else (it is pretty weird).
My reason for doing it is not so much laziness (i.e. avoiding tedious steps like importing resources and setting tile passability and filling out my ten bajillionth RPG Maker Database) as the idea of being able to make two games side by side that share the same mechanics, mechanical assumptions, and setting. (One is a roguelike like dungeon crawl, the other is a more traditional story based linear CRPG.)
I made an extremely half-assed attempt to do this "Database Sharing" idea retroactively with Starseed and Starseed: Blood Machine. And fully a third of my projects were built "out of the ruins" of other projects. But that's not quite the same. I'm making a much more comprehensive effort at this with the "sister" projects I'm working on now, planning it out from the getgo. And I became curious if anyone else has taken a crack at this concept or if it's even ever occurred to anyone else (it is pretty weird).
I've not heard of the like... though you could check out One Shot (it's on the site) as it does some nifty things that affect computer stuff, so it could give ideas on how to affect another game's inventory.
Wait, you meant database. Huh. How about, if you're using Ace, you could finish one's database then copy the database files over to the other game. They kindly split that all up so it's easy to find and copy over. Actually, I think 2k3 also had a certain file that was just the database files, which you could copy to a new project...
Wait, you meant database. Huh. How about, if you're using Ace, you could finish one's database then copy the database files over to the other game. They kindly split that all up so it's easy to find and copy over. Actually, I think 2k3 also had a certain file that was just the database files, which you could copy to a new project...
They kindly split that all up so it's easy to find and copy over. Actually, I think 2k3 also had a certain file that was just the database files, which you could copy to a new project...
Yeah, that's the idea. : )
I think this was possible in all editions of RPG Maker in the last ten years or so but I really started thinking about it in the VX Era.
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
I've definitely seen this trick used in many, many episodic games.
Due to being a failure as a human being, you could say I "accidentally" did this, more or less, by continually releasing new versions of the same game that had to build off of the databases of older versions. I actually ran into surprisingly few issues despite often recoding massive parts of the game like, oh, the entire skill lists of every single character? The fact that I only had to care about the new version working makes this different though - you would have to care about both games working smoothly, which is more work.
In theory, if the scripts are all the same too, it would probably be easier to literally have them be together in a single executable file, and have the player choose which one to play on the title screen. That way you won't have to manually duplicate every single little change to the database, resources, and scripts.
Due to being a failure as a human being, you could say I "accidentally" did this, more or less, by continually releasing new versions of the same game that had to build off of the databases of older versions. I actually ran into surprisingly few issues despite often recoding massive parts of the game like, oh, the entire skill lists of every single character? The fact that I only had to care about the new version working makes this different though - you would have to care about both games working smoothly, which is more work.
In theory, if the scripts are all the same too, it would probably be easier to literally have them be together in a single executable file, and have the player choose which one to play on the title screen. That way you won't have to manually duplicate every single little change to the database, resources, and scripts.
I thought about that, but the WIP folder is 580 MB big (unused stuff not yet having been trimmed out), and the two games won't be using the same exact slices of those 580 MB of resources (different character sets, different music, maybe some different monsters, etcetera, but a lot of the same tiles), so combining them into one game would make a really freaking huge game. Also the games won't be finished at the same time or see demo releases at the same times, so they're two different .exes right now.
Essentially started that way with Oracle of Tao, and Tales From The Reaper. I modified from there, mostly by making Tales into a "lite" game with only a few common events. Then i went feature-crazy in terms of the battle system, trying to make monsters that can disrupt turns based on your actions (I'm kinda stalled on Tales until I figure out how to finish all the monster edits).
SnowOwl
5188
I share a lot of resources between my games, but I try to do something(s) new in every game I make so rarely there's more than maybe 10% shared between 2 games. And that's mostly just stuff like menu sounds. The most shared thing for me is the scripts I use. But completely identical database and resources for two of my games? Not ever gonna happen.
e: wow I typed that in the wrong tab entirely
Real response: What's stopping you from simply putting both games in one project? It's not hard to simply select what game you'd like to play from the title screen, for example.
Real response: What's stopping you from simply putting both games in one project? It's not hard to simply select what game you'd like to play from the title screen, for example.
I thought about that, but the WIP folder is 580 MB big (unused stuff not yet having been trimmed out), and the two games won't be using the same exact slices of those 580 MB of resources (different character sets, different music, maybe some different monsters, etcetera, but a lot of the same tiles), so combining them into one game would make a really freaking huge game. Also the games won't be finished at the same time or see demo releases at the same times, so they're two different .exes right now.
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