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*blows dust off ancient readme.txt*
Currently working on: The Machine that Breathes https://store.steampowered.com/app/1126210/the_machine_that_BREATHES/ (Please wishlist!)
Currently working on: The Machine that Breathes https://store.steampowered.com/app/1126210/the_machine_that_BREATHES/ (Please wishlist!)
the machine that BREATHE...
A tunneling machine finds itself injected into a body resembling a human.
A tunneling machine finds itself injected into a body resembling a human.
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Hub vs Adventure
I've been thinking about the structure of RPGs lately and what it means to have an "adventure". World maps in RPGs act as a way to speed up or give the sense you are traveling a great distance, but also as sort of a level select. Sometimes there's a reason to revisit an older area and other times it's just a way for players to grab something they might have missed. However sometimes there's a "point of no return" where the story authorizes that a bunch of boulders fell behind you preventing access to a kingdom that accuses you of a crime that you didn't commit. So until the story says you can go back there you're constantly on the run going forward until you find an airship or something. This might not always be about structure so much as a sense of place or context. As someone who's lived in the same city all their life and travels very little, I suspect the need for adventure escapism correlates a lot with that.
There are some extremes to this. For instance an RPG that takes place at a school where you go on adventures outwardly in a hub and spokes format, meaning you go to new places but you always return to the school where your characters have an excuse to do social stuff. As opposed to having a series of hubs or towns you have one hub but many dungeons. Maybe there's just one big dungeon you keep retrying and retrying, like a tower of sorts. So games like Etrian Odyssey, Persona, and Rune Factory fit this bill. I would say this type of stuff usually benefits the designer since you can reuse the same locations that are already made and get away with it. As a player there's a benefit to getting acclimated to a place you've been to before, like IRL going to some appointment on a street you never been to before, but the street is next to a school you spent 5 years of your life so there's a feeling of doing something different in something familiar. Giving more meaning/history to an associated place.
The other extreme is the absolute point of no return, always going forward, rarely ever able to backtrack. RPGs (being exploration and progression based) doesn't always fully commit to this. The only RPG I can think of that commits to this idea is the RM game The Way. Not only does the gameplay forbid returning to previous areas but the lore centers around a religion where most characters are nomadic in nature and true to the title: "finding the way". There's no world map or any sense of a top down view of the world, the plot is also very much reliant on characters on the run or on the hunt, fates intertwining and all. I can think of many games that go this extreme, but rarely RPGs (or I don't play enough RPGs). Though a lot of RPGs do have a sense of merely going forward for forwards sake. From a designer standpoint, it can suck if a place is only experienced once throughout the whole playthrough and you're having to make constant set pieces but once you're done an area, you're done.
The alternative I guess is when time and space is warped. Like in Chrono Trigger you are technically in the same place, but time travel has changed it so much that it's hard to imagine it the same. Or maybe it's super in media res where a character is telling a story that has already happened but jumps forward and back through time so the consistency of where or who you are is different. So the game can potentially be very linear and straightforward but the context of everything happening may or may not be in the same place. I won't elaborate on this too much, but worth bringing up.
An example to further illustrate this is comparing Star Trek TNG to Star Trek Deep Space 9. In TNG the characters are constantly going to new worlds or new situations, the ship itself could be considered a hub in itself, but it is always moving and not always the focal environment. DS9 however takes place on a space station orbiting the planet Bajor, it mostly centers around the space station and reoccurring characters and themes revolve around the occupation of Bajor and it's history. However characters do occasionally go to neighboring planets. A wrench that DS9 throws into the mix is that there's a recently opened up wormhole that allows the characters to occasionally go to the other side of the galaxy and get that "adventure into the unknown" thrill that TNG very much enjoys. The writers put that there probably as a backup whenever they needed to spice things up and to center the plot around. Ultimately I prefer the format of TNG, but DS9 arguably has superior writing and characters (the quality likely having more to do with the writers being more experienced than the format though).
Star trek nerdom aside, what do you feel about the "sense of place" that RPGs give you as a player and a designer? I'm personally more likely to jump into a game that has some notion of forward going adventure and how well it executes that as far as pacing goes. A linear game like that can arguably feel more epic in scope than a given open world game IMO. As a designer I feel regulated to hub based games as they're smaller but also to get the most out of the game I'm making. Thoughts? Ideas I might be missing? Discuss! Whatever!
There are some extremes to this. For instance an RPG that takes place at a school where you go on adventures outwardly in a hub and spokes format, meaning you go to new places but you always return to the school where your characters have an excuse to do social stuff. As opposed to having a series of hubs or towns you have one hub but many dungeons. Maybe there's just one big dungeon you keep retrying and retrying, like a tower of sorts. So games like Etrian Odyssey, Persona, and Rune Factory fit this bill. I would say this type of stuff usually benefits the designer since you can reuse the same locations that are already made and get away with it. As a player there's a benefit to getting acclimated to a place you've been to before, like IRL going to some appointment on a street you never been to before, but the street is next to a school you spent 5 years of your life so there's a feeling of doing something different in something familiar. Giving more meaning/history to an associated place.
The other extreme is the absolute point of no return, always going forward, rarely ever able to backtrack. RPGs (being exploration and progression based) doesn't always fully commit to this. The only RPG I can think of that commits to this idea is the RM game The Way. Not only does the gameplay forbid returning to previous areas but the lore centers around a religion where most characters are nomadic in nature and true to the title: "finding the way". There's no world map or any sense of a top down view of the world, the plot is also very much reliant on characters on the run or on the hunt, fates intertwining and all. I can think of many games that go this extreme, but rarely RPGs (or I don't play enough RPGs). Though a lot of RPGs do have a sense of merely going forward for forwards sake. From a designer standpoint, it can suck if a place is only experienced once throughout the whole playthrough and you're having to make constant set pieces but once you're done an area, you're done.
The alternative I guess is when time and space is warped. Like in Chrono Trigger you are technically in the same place, but time travel has changed it so much that it's hard to imagine it the same. Or maybe it's super in media res where a character is telling a story that has already happened but jumps forward and back through time so the consistency of where or who you are is different. So the game can potentially be very linear and straightforward but the context of everything happening may or may not be in the same place. I won't elaborate on this too much, but worth bringing up.
An example to further illustrate this is comparing Star Trek TNG to Star Trek Deep Space 9. In TNG the characters are constantly going to new worlds or new situations, the ship itself could be considered a hub in itself, but it is always moving and not always the focal environment. DS9 however takes place on a space station orbiting the planet Bajor, it mostly centers around the space station and reoccurring characters and themes revolve around the occupation of Bajor and it's history. However characters do occasionally go to neighboring planets. A wrench that DS9 throws into the mix is that there's a recently opened up wormhole that allows the characters to occasionally go to the other side of the galaxy and get that "adventure into the unknown" thrill that TNG very much enjoys. The writers put that there probably as a backup whenever they needed to spice things up and to center the plot around. Ultimately I prefer the format of TNG, but DS9 arguably has superior writing and characters (the quality likely having more to do with the writers being more experienced than the format though).
Star trek nerdom aside, what do you feel about the "sense of place" that RPGs give you as a player and a designer? I'm personally more likely to jump into a game that has some notion of forward going adventure and how well it executes that as far as pacing goes. A linear game like that can arguably feel more epic in scope than a given open world game IMO. As a designer I feel regulated to hub based games as they're smaller but also to get the most out of the game I'm making. Thoughts? Ideas I might be missing? Discuss! Whatever!
Being in charge of your stats before the game even begins
This topic is largely going to center around western RPGs though I think a lot of JRPGs potentially have this trait too. The most fun part of WRPGs for me is the character sheet much like tabletop games, but when you actually play the game well... things don't go as planned, maybe bypassing conversations with a charisma stat is super underpowered and not enough to get through the game, maybe there's a weapon type you don't even see til half way through the game and you dumped all your character's college years studying them but just given a wrench for 25% of the playthrough. Basically it's hard to plan out a character or a party if you don't really know what the game is like, or what the level designers actually placed in the areas for you to take advantage of. You got infinite underwater breathing but there is like one mandatory swimming section in the game. Sure you can get through the game in spite of that choice, but it'd probably feel like a letdown.
Aside from "just make a good game that accounts for every build possible" I'm wondering about how to deal with the player making choices with unknown consequences. Sure another solution is to just make builds reconfigurable at a moments notice like you're some kind of stat fluid chameleon but some would argue that's less RPGy. There is something fun about rolling with what you got, or just like 'hey i have this character who is only good at talking to rats, wouldn't it be funny if that was enough to save the world?' A human DM (who is open enough) is likely good at facilitating that while still not having to adapt the entirety of a campaign to it.
One answer to all this is having a tutorial (like Deus Ex Human Revolution) show you all the instances of every mechanic/activity/stat use, then get them in a freak accident and do the whole "so fill out these medical papers to make sure I got this right..." *surprise stat screen* Though I think the problem is that a brief tutorial isn't always enough, it doesn't inform the player of what will actually be ahead. Will there be a hacking section REQUIRED for a side quest to be completed? (HR actually does this) No idea, but the game taught me what a hacking mini-game is like i guess.
It does seem though that the whole point of "builds" is that you're meant to replay the game several times to see the different results pan out. Lot of people say that about games when praising their open-endedness. Though I wonder if that's their brain using imagination to fill the gaps of hiding how rigid the game really is. If you were put in a psychology experiment where you were to play a game where the configurable stats actually did nothing at the start and you went on to play a mostly well paced game with few road blocks, would you even notice? This hypothetical assumes a lot but it's interesting to think about.
I guess I'm not just looking for solutions per say, but wondering about questions like: what are your immediate assumptions when being able to customize somewhat permanent stats at the start of the game? is there something you expect throughout an RPG to be relevant to your exact choices? Do you feel like you're buying advantages or identifying hard with the character? Do you just play the "meta"? (ie this stat seems OP im just gonna get it) Or is there some mindset you have I might not have considered?
Aside from "just make a good game that accounts for every build possible" I'm wondering about how to deal with the player making choices with unknown consequences. Sure another solution is to just make builds reconfigurable at a moments notice like you're some kind of stat fluid chameleon but some would argue that's less RPGy. There is something fun about rolling with what you got, or just like 'hey i have this character who is only good at talking to rats, wouldn't it be funny if that was enough to save the world?' A human DM (who is open enough) is likely good at facilitating that while still not having to adapt the entirety of a campaign to it.
One answer to all this is having a tutorial (like Deus Ex Human Revolution) show you all the instances of every mechanic/activity/stat use, then get them in a freak accident and do the whole "so fill out these medical papers to make sure I got this right..." *surprise stat screen* Though I think the problem is that a brief tutorial isn't always enough, it doesn't inform the player of what will actually be ahead. Will there be a hacking section REQUIRED for a side quest to be completed? (HR actually does this) No idea, but the game taught me what a hacking mini-game is like i guess.
It does seem though that the whole point of "builds" is that you're meant to replay the game several times to see the different results pan out. Lot of people say that about games when praising their open-endedness. Though I wonder if that's their brain using imagination to fill the gaps of hiding how rigid the game really is. If you were put in a psychology experiment where you were to play a game where the configurable stats actually did nothing at the start and you went on to play a mostly well paced game with few road blocks, would you even notice? This hypothetical assumes a lot but it's interesting to think about.
I guess I'm not just looking for solutions per say, but wondering about questions like: what are your immediate assumptions when being able to customize somewhat permanent stats at the start of the game? is there something you expect throughout an RPG to be relevant to your exact choices? Do you feel like you're buying advantages or identifying hard with the character? Do you just play the "meta"? (ie this stat seems OP im just gonna get it) Or is there some mindset you have I might not have considered?
Balancing Agility + ATB
I'm programming my own Grandia inspired battle system from scratch in Godot (side project). Similar to Final Fantasy except you can see the enemy's atb (in Grandia's case you see everyone in a timeline). There's a bunch of other divergent snowflake ideas I have but for the moment assume I'm just recreating the bog standard ATB here. Characters each have a time gauge that are independent to each other and whoever gets filled up gets to act.
I'm not using any of the RPGMaker programs. However I don't really know where to start in regards to an agility stat's influence on this whole thing. I'm wondering if any of you had experience using an ATB (in the scriptable newer RPGMakers) in which Agility makes a difference but isn't a total shitshow if some character is acting 1 time for every 5 times one actor gets to attack. There are probably solutions to put a "cap" on things but probably some pros and cons that I can only guess at. Is there any particular plugin that just nailed good formulas that were reliable throughout a ton of testing and throughout development? I've checked the popular ones but I don't have the time to make an entire game in RPGMaker to learn from. Just hoping for some anecdotals on the general state of ATBs. I assume we all know default RM2003 is an example on what NOT to do and we're leaving that behind us... because yeah.
My thinking so far is this: At the start of battle, take the highest agility stat actor and make them the default fill speed that's comfortable (we'll consider this 100% agility). Then decrease everyone else's fill speed via some kind of weight/percentage math but don't exactly make it so someone at 50% agility acts once every 2 turns of the highest (maybe fudge to the lower 30% for that?). If there's any agility or speed buff, the highest agility at the start of the battle is still considered 100% and someone at 150%ish will still feel empowering to feel worth it. I'm also thinking in regards to the starting fill (at the start of battle), where obviously the high agility gets the advantage but with slight RNG to not make it feel samey.
Think 90% of my concerns are going to be answered with "depends on how you tweak it" but I'm still wondering if there's any rule of the thumbs or obvious things I might be missing here or just general ATB philopshy (that someone has a hypothetical phd in).
I'm not using any of the RPGMaker programs. However I don't really know where to start in regards to an agility stat's influence on this whole thing. I'm wondering if any of you had experience using an ATB (in the scriptable newer RPGMakers) in which Agility makes a difference but isn't a total shitshow if some character is acting 1 time for every 5 times one actor gets to attack. There are probably solutions to put a "cap" on things but probably some pros and cons that I can only guess at. Is there any particular plugin that just nailed good formulas that were reliable throughout a ton of testing and throughout development? I've checked the popular ones but I don't have the time to make an entire game in RPGMaker to learn from. Just hoping for some anecdotals on the general state of ATBs. I assume we all know default RM2003 is an example on what NOT to do and we're leaving that behind us... because yeah.
My thinking so far is this: At the start of battle, take the highest agility stat actor and make them the default fill speed that's comfortable (we'll consider this 100% agility). Then decrease everyone else's fill speed via some kind of weight/percentage math but don't exactly make it so someone at 50% agility acts once every 2 turns of the highest (maybe fudge to the lower 30% for that?). If there's any agility or speed buff, the highest agility at the start of the battle is still considered 100% and someone at 150%ish will still feel empowering to feel worth it. I'm also thinking in regards to the starting fill (at the start of battle), where obviously the high agility gets the advantage but with slight RNG to not make it feel samey.
Think 90% of my concerns are going to be answered with "depends on how you tweak it" but I'm still wondering if there's any rule of the thumbs or obvious things I might be missing here or just general ATB philopshy (that someone has a hypothetical phd in).
Moon
If you have a Nintendo Switch I strongly recommend picking up Moon that has a translation officially released today. It's originally a PS1 game made back in the days of prerendered backdrops made by ex-Super Mario RPG devs.
I bring this topic up cause I think it's worth discussing within the context of RPGMaker since this game had an influence on games like Undertale (not made in RPGMaker I know but, you get where I'm coming from with this) Some say this makes fun of RPGs or is the "anti-RPG" but I personally think it's more of an exploration of the genre. Objectively speaking it's not an RPG at all, but rather an NPC schedule game similar to Majora's Mask. Aside from the real time system it's actually a relatively simple game just with a very meta narrative hanging over it that has implications... Regardless I think it's worth playing for anyone interested in making RPGs or games sort of in that format. It certainly left an impression on me when I played this with a limited translation guide awhile back.
Some warning though, the beginning is a bit rough. Your life decreases as you explore the town and you basically die before night fall. It's essentially trial and error figuring out which tasks you can do within the time limit, then expanding that time limit when you complete them. My advice is to read the downloadable manual and get certain tasks out of the way (minor gameplay spoilers):
Though part of the game is taking your time and figuring out how the world works, just know what you're getting into is all I'm saying. Though the intro before the actual game is extremely enjoyable and straight forward.
Anyway discuss if you played it (or trying to figure something out), I'm curious on what people's thoughts are.
I bring this topic up cause I think it's worth discussing within the context of RPGMaker since this game had an influence on games like Undertale (not made in RPGMaker I know but, you get where I'm coming from with this) Some say this makes fun of RPGs or is the "anti-RPG" but I personally think it's more of an exploration of the genre. Objectively speaking it's not an RPG at all, but rather an NPC schedule game similar to Majora's Mask. Aside from the real time system it's actually a relatively simple game just with a very meta narrative hanging over it that has implications... Regardless I think it's worth playing for anyone interested in making RPGs or games sort of in that format. It certainly left an impression on me when I played this with a limited translation guide awhile back.
Some warning though, the beginning is a bit rough. Your life decreases as you explore the town and you basically die before night fall. It's essentially trial and error figuring out which tasks you can do within the time limit, then expanding that time limit when you complete them. My advice is to read the downloadable manual and get certain tasks out of the way (minor gameplay spoilers):
You want to deliver the bread to the Grandma as soon as you can, rest, then talk to the king when he's in his throne room to get his card, which then basically unlocks a whole bunch of stuff that'll give you a better clue on what to do next. You can eat food along the way to make this a bit easier. Also the talkable pink bird will basically hint at this.
Though part of the game is taking your time and figuring out how the world works, just know what you're getting into is all I'm saying. Though the intro before the actual game is extremely enjoyable and straight forward.
Anyway discuss if you played it (or trying to figure something out), I'm curious on what people's thoughts are.
Video Game Critic Wager 2020
So I noticed you people like pretend betting on very superficial things like sports and movies. So why not apply the same to the next best superficial thing? Video games. Similar to fantasy football, someone devised a most foul creation: Fantasy Critic. It's basically Fantasy Football but with Video Games!!, instead of player performance we deal in Opencritic (Simular to metacritic basically) average review scores. Obviously the most important objective thing when determining a game's quality.
How it works:
This page explains it better than I can, so we pick games we think we'll do well throughout the year (and ones that might not do well). It's not necessarily about game quality or sales, but how well we think they'll pander to reviewers (websites and magazines). Which is interesting to speculate on as the games aren't out yet and there are several factors to predict. There are some pitfalls to watch out for, if a game isn't even released this year (delayed into the next year) that will count as a zero. There are ways to drop a game before it releases, but there are restrictions on such a thing. If you're feeling risky you can also counter pick someone's existing pick. Other things to note is that I've set rereleases, yearly sports games, remasters (non-remakes), etc. will not be included. The list will likely focus on new mainstream releases. Some of the rules might be hard to keep in mind, but we'll figure it out together. The main thing is to just have fun.
How to partipate:
1. Sign up for an account (Prefably make your display the same as your forum user)
2. Ask me to invite you to join this league (Post your display name and # here)
3. Create a publisher name (Basically the pretend banner your putting your games under, a fictional brand)
4. Wait for others to join up, draft order will depend on who joined first
5. We then take turns drafting, we'll probably do it passively much like a forum game than in real-time (each person will get 8 games to start)
6. Sit on our asses and wait for the games to come out and occasionally pick more up as the year goes on.
This is all done inside the system so nothing has to be organized here other than who's joining (post your display name+#). The soft deadline date for drafting will be January 1st, I can extend it depending on how the interest goes. It's mainly so we get a clean 2020 start.
Entrants---
1. Darken
2. Shinan
3. AtiyaTheSeeker
4. lordbluerouge
5. kory_toombs
THE RMN LEAGUE
Optional Alternatives - A Different Substitute
So most exploration design in games basically boil down to this: You take the optimal path forward to where the next story/progress beat is, but evidently there are alternate routes to find all the extra goodies you can before moving on. These can either manifest in giving more power/items to the player or simply filling out a checklist (prefebably a stamp collection that makes a satisfying ding noise). You may not be 100%ing the game, but I feel players are always conditioned to check the dead ends almost every time. Pretty much any game with a character that explores an environment follows this format, even games that probably don't need it (ones that have a lot of "place of no return" bs). I don't actually want to discuss the pros/cons or merits of all of this.
What I want is to basically discuss/brain-storm any potential ideas for a game (structure wise) that actually feels different to play. When I say structure wise I mean when you're making a map or a level, how they're not only laid out but also how they connect. The litmus test being, if you can play this hypothetical game without once wavering between 100%ing or minimally beating the game. The biggest wrench in this if your game is on a platform with achievements or that players find a way to make their own fun (replaying the game for exterior reasons), but lets just assume that isn't a problem.
I'll knock out perhaps the obvious:
The game is actually linear. In a sense there's no reason to go back to a place before moving on, there's still a variety of ways to get through an area (due to the nature of obstacles and enemy AI) so it's only linear in that a hallway is. Some early NES platformers may follow this (but even they had scoring methods or optional life pick ups at times).
The optional stuff is the optimal path. On the other end of the extreme is that everything can literally be played out of order, but every collectible spotted is mandatory. Open world games do this to an extent but they also have an excess amount of optional stuff to boot. I'm imagining an absolute "you're supposed to check that waterfall" design however. Collect the 7 magical crystals, but that's the only thing you actually collect etc.
Pick one path, miss others Take your Star-Fox or classic Castlevania. The levels/segments are linear on their own, but at the end of each one you pick the next level (let's say 2A), but you forgo playing 2B or 2C. There's no collectible reason for this, other than maybe a certain level is easier or you just prefer a gimmicky level over the more vanilla one. The first thing comes to mind is arcade games, but this can also be applied to choices in WRPG/story games. Though some of them ultimately become collectathons in how many possibilities you can find or unlock. A game with options, but every one of them locks out others.
Any ideas or any existing games you feel goes against the optimal+optional trend or philosphy would be appreciated. Again, don't want to really talk about whether these are actually good/bad, but if there's something fundamentally different out there or another design mindset . Maybe this is all there is to it and most games are a blend of these extremes. I don't know how else to frame this topic other than to please just go galaxy brain as much as you can.
What I want is to basically discuss/brain-storm any potential ideas for a game (structure wise) that actually feels different to play. When I say structure wise I mean when you're making a map or a level, how they're not only laid out but also how they connect. The litmus test being, if you can play this hypothetical game without once wavering between 100%ing or minimally beating the game. The biggest wrench in this if your game is on a platform with achievements or that players find a way to make their own fun (replaying the game for exterior reasons), but lets just assume that isn't a problem.
I'll knock out perhaps the obvious:
The game is actually linear. In a sense there's no reason to go back to a place before moving on, there's still a variety of ways to get through an area (due to the nature of obstacles and enemy AI) so it's only linear in that a hallway is. Some early NES platformers may follow this (but even they had scoring methods or optional life pick ups at times).
The optional stuff is the optimal path. On the other end of the extreme is that everything can literally be played out of order, but every collectible spotted is mandatory. Open world games do this to an extent but they also have an excess amount of optional stuff to boot. I'm imagining an absolute "you're supposed to check that waterfall" design however. Collect the 7 magical crystals, but that's the only thing you actually collect etc.
Pick one path, miss others Take your Star-Fox or classic Castlevania. The levels/segments are linear on their own, but at the end of each one you pick the next level (let's say 2A), but you forgo playing 2B or 2C. There's no collectible reason for this, other than maybe a certain level is easier or you just prefer a gimmicky level over the more vanilla one. The first thing comes to mind is arcade games, but this can also be applied to choices in WRPG/story games. Though some of them ultimately become collectathons in how many possibilities you can find or unlock. A game with options, but every one of them locks out others.
Any ideas or any existing games you feel goes against the optimal+optional trend or philosphy would be appreciated. Again, don't want to really talk about whether these are actually good/bad, but if there's something fundamentally different out there or another design mindset . Maybe this is all there is to it and most games are a blend of these extremes. I don't know how else to frame this topic other than to please just go galaxy brain as much as you can.
Top Games Of the Decade?
So 2010-2019, what were the most memorable or long lasting video games for you personally? Either just straight up good or something that felt new and defining. Without thinking too much about it, just grab anything that pops in your mind. OR google: "games in 2010s" (or go year by year for a detailed list) if you can't remember anything. This random person's list might help with your memory as well. This is basically the later half of the ps3/360/wii era and the ps4/one era onwards for reference.
For me off the top of my head (Top 10):
Dark Souls
Inside
Kero Blaster
Rain World
Journey
Super Mario Maker
Into the Breach
Gravity Rush
Nier: Gestalt
Horizon Zero Dawn
I'd like to do an rpgmaker version of this topic, but don't wanna distract too much from the misaos until Januaryish.
For me off the top of my head (Top 10):
Dark Souls
Inside
Kero Blaster
Rain World
Journey
Super Mario Maker
Into the Breach
Gravity Rush
Nier: Gestalt
Horizon Zero Dawn
I'd like to do an rpgmaker version of this topic, but don't wanna distract too much from the misaos until Januaryish.
Talk about RM Games! Mid-Year Misao Discussion Topic
SO...
It's almost half way through 2019 and you didn't play any RM games this year and you probably forgot that the nominate function exists.
Let's just spend some talking about RM games! Doesn't have to be super critical opinions or feedback, could just be a casual impression of what you played so far / game you want to play or a "What RM games are you thinking about" equivalent. Ultimately though it might also be a good chance to fill up your nominate lists (even if super relative) and talk about your personal favs, what might win overall, or even what you hope might get released in time. If you did a review of a recent game, feel free to share it! Post what you've been browsing and how you've been choosing which RM games to play lately.
Games I've Played:
Theia - The Crimson Eclipse
Given that it's been featured, this game needs little introduction. It's an epic Italian RPG Maker game recently translated and fully playable in English! I've been playing it off and on and it's really a treat, feels like a super pretty RM game you'd see posted in screenshot topics never to be released because of how polished it is. Only now it exists! I enjoy a lot of the visual details and how the animations all come together, there's some pretty cool stuff. I'll probably post more opinions when I get farther into the game, I've also been meaning to set this up to be played on my TV with a SNES controller because I'm one of those people.
Slimes
A GAME where you fight SLIMES and... that's it, there's no literal title joke that's actually all you do. I think the low download count is a bit sad considering there's some really cool stuff worth appreciating here. It's set in a fictional country with a heavy religion thematic backstory involving a slime epidemic. The slimes start to develop a very continuous personality throughout the demo and I like a lot of the world building documents you get for clearing every floor. It's got a bleak outlook on JRPG tropes but I think it has its own voice regarding the dynamics of how society chooses to deal with an impending threat. I highly recommend it.
Steamed Hams, but it's RPGMAKER2003!
The meme game to cap off the decade of what we thought was a good idea to make youtube edits of. It's actually quite enjoyable playing this and being amazed that this is happening inside of an RPG_RT and almost checking to see that this isn't some elaborate mole box prank. As someone who's seen all that RM2K3 has to offer, it's cool to see the amount of detail that went into condensing all of this inside of rm2k3's rather limited (and "beloved") default battle system.
Games I've been meaning to play:
Final Fantasy: Sky Warriors
I'm not big on fan-games, but I think the fact that this is made by a very oldschool RMer has me interested (also what RM game isn't a fan game these days ohohoho gotem). I remember when RM2K3 had a bit of a phase where people were making 8bit games left and right (Dragon Fantasy, Hellion, Ocean Blue) and it makes me nostalgic for... games that were trying to be nostalgic. I also think the battle charset edits look pretty cute.
Crescent Prism - Chapter 1
So I'm getting to the demo/episodic category of games that I admittedly hold off on because there might be more content later. But given the recent shift in development maybe I should just sit down and play the first damn chapter. It looks like fun little romp that resembles a Nintendo-like RPG if mario didn't exist or something. I keep seeing good things about it and the creator's other games.
Weird and Unfortunate Things are Happening
Saw this on everyone's recent greatest game of all time lists. It has a recent 60% update eligible for a demo award at least, so good time as ever to give this a shot. It also looks really good. I think I was out for most of the RMN 2013-2016ish period so I missed out on a lot of games.
2019 Likely Hypefuls (Games that aren't released yet (({but might be*})):
*: lol
I Want to Bring Her Back to Life but I Don't Know Where to Start
Not a joke game and not just able to nab the best title award if the author gets another demo out this year, but is actually quite an interesting anomaly for several reasons. It has a CBS, it has a very specific tone when it comes to dialogue, weird on rails exploration and just everything about its sensibilities perplexes me. It came to my attention a little too late last year but I hope it gains more notice this time around. Regardless of what timeline you're in, it'll be a rm2k3 DYNRPG killer app for all time.
Villnoire
"Wait people still make games like this?" Yeah man, yeah man, they do. Rocking the FSM chipsets and settling for nothing less than ambition. The game quietly made itself to 80% completion and while that might be some bs a teenager would put in their gamingW sig years ago... I choose to believe. Your so called rational mind will lack the glory of being right on the money when you see that bright green Completed status one day.
Edit: the prophecy came true
Psi Dogs: Suns of Antares
FMVs... the final frontier. Very rarely do I see someone putting their Blender skills to pre-rendered use while still taking advantage of the many VN-like qualities RPG Maker tends to have. This game reminds me of what 9 year old me thought Starcraft would be when I was blankly staring at the campaign menu interface and having no clue what an RTS was. There's a charm in this games look that I admire. Hopefully this goes where no one has gone before.
Alright now its your turn to talk about recent RM games, go on, jog your memory if you have to. (You don't have to be as elaborate or screenshot pasty as me btw).
It's almost half way through 2019 and you didn't play any RM games this year and you probably forgot that the nominate function exists.
Let's just spend some talking about RM games! Doesn't have to be super critical opinions or feedback, could just be a casual impression of what you played so far / game you want to play or a "What RM games are you thinking about" equivalent. Ultimately though it might also be a good chance to fill up your nominate lists (even if super relative) and talk about your personal favs, what might win overall, or even what you hope might get released in time. If you did a review of a recent game, feel free to share it! Post what you've been browsing and how you've been choosing which RM games to play lately.
Games I've Played:
Theia - The Crimson Eclipse
Given that it's been featured, this game needs little introduction. It's an epic Italian RPG Maker game recently translated and fully playable in English! I've been playing it off and on and it's really a treat, feels like a super pretty RM game you'd see posted in screenshot topics never to be released because of how polished it is. Only now it exists! I enjoy a lot of the visual details and how the animations all come together, there's some pretty cool stuff. I'll probably post more opinions when I get farther into the game, I've also been meaning to set this up to be played on my TV with a SNES controller because I'm one of those people.
Slimes
A GAME where you fight SLIMES and... that's it, there's no literal title joke that's actually all you do. I think the low download count is a bit sad considering there's some really cool stuff worth appreciating here. It's set in a fictional country with a heavy religion thematic backstory involving a slime epidemic. The slimes start to develop a very continuous personality throughout the demo and I like a lot of the world building documents you get for clearing every floor. It's got a bleak outlook on JRPG tropes but I think it has its own voice regarding the dynamics of how society chooses to deal with an impending threat. I highly recommend it.
Steamed Hams, but it's RPGMAKER2003!
The meme game to cap off the decade of what we thought was a good idea to make youtube edits of. It's actually quite enjoyable playing this and being amazed that this is happening inside of an RPG_RT and almost checking to see that this isn't some elaborate mole box prank. As someone who's seen all that RM2K3 has to offer, it's cool to see the amount of detail that went into condensing all of this inside of rm2k3's rather limited (and "beloved") default battle system.
Games I've been meaning to play:
Final Fantasy: Sky Warriors
I'm not big on fan-games, but I think the fact that this is made by a very oldschool RMer has me interested (also what RM game isn't a fan game these days ohohoho gotem). I remember when RM2K3 had a bit of a phase where people were making 8bit games left and right (Dragon Fantasy, Hellion, Ocean Blue) and it makes me nostalgic for... games that were trying to be nostalgic. I also think the battle charset edits look pretty cute.
Crescent Prism - Chapter 1
So I'm getting to the demo/episodic category of games that I admittedly hold off on because there might be more content later. But given the recent shift in development maybe I should just sit down and play the first damn chapter. It looks like fun little romp that resembles a Nintendo-like RPG if mario didn't exist or something. I keep seeing good things about it and the creator's other games.
Weird and Unfortunate Things are Happening
Saw this on everyone's recent greatest game of all time lists. It has a recent 60% update eligible for a demo award at least, so good time as ever to give this a shot. It also looks really good. I think I was out for most of the RMN 2013-2016ish period so I missed out on a lot of games.
2019 Likely Hypefuls (Games that aren't released yet (({but might be*})):
*: lol
I Want to Bring Her Back to Life but I Don't Know Where to Start
Not a joke game and not just able to nab the best title award if the author gets another demo out this year, but is actually quite an interesting anomaly for several reasons. It has a CBS, it has a very specific tone when it comes to dialogue, weird on rails exploration and just everything about its sensibilities perplexes me. It came to my attention a little too late last year but I hope it gains more notice this time around. Regardless of what timeline you're in, it'll be a rm2k3 DYNRPG killer app for all time.
Villnoire
"Wait people still make games like this?" Yeah man, yeah man, they do. Rocking the FSM chipsets and settling for nothing less than ambition. The game quietly made itself to 80% completion and while that might be some bs a teenager would put in their gamingW sig years ago... I choose to believe. Your so called rational mind will lack the glory of being right on the money when you see that bright green Completed status one day.
Edit: the prophecy came true
Psi Dogs: Suns of Antares
FMVs... the final frontier. Very rarely do I see someone putting their Blender skills to pre-rendered use while still taking advantage of the many VN-like qualities RPG Maker tends to have. This game reminds me of what 9 year old me thought Starcraft would be when I was blankly staring at the campaign menu interface and having no clue what an RTS was. There's a charm in this games look that I admire. Hopefully this goes where no one has gone before.
Alright now its your turn to talk about recent RM games, go on, jog your memory if you have to. (You don't have to be as elaborate or screenshot pasty as me btw).
Post some old shit
Was going through my old photobucket account, post anything you somehow still have from old times, can be RMN, old screenshots, or internet in general (plz no rickroll memes or whatever).
rmn2 front page back when balmung cycle was featured
the biggest sig ever made (from RRR)
opera 4 lyfe
when rmn added banners (before CSS was added I think)
no idea what this was for, i think suggestions for RMN3?
a cry for help on charas
the biggest sig ever made (from RRR)
opera 4 lyfe
when rmn added banners (before CSS was added I think)
no idea what this was for, i think suggestions for RMN3?
a cry for help on charas
Game Magazines
inspired by this post recently: https://rpgmaker.net/games/8/media/5872/?post=874153#post874153
Yo tell me your game mag memories, it's a media that still sorta exists but not in the same relevancy that it was in the 90s. Even though the internet was in circulation in the 90s, magazines were still pretty much the best way to find out about games and what they looked like. It was just enough to see a screenshot of a game and to imagine what it could be was it's own entertainment separate from actually playing it.
I didn't have a subscription or anything (though I think I got a weird deal where I got 3 issues of GMR, which I think might count?). But I do have fond memories of random circumstances where I happen across a magazine that ends up being a window to another world.
This specific issue I think I begged my mom to get this for me at the grocery store we don't normally go to, it's that or I got good grades idk. I mainly got it for the Pokemon Gold and Silver preview. But the magazine also included coverage on Neo Geo games a console I had no idea existed, and it showed a lot of japanese only game screenshots that kind of made video games an even more mysterious and vast thing. Nowadays you can look up any game library, get a whole summary of a console and find a torrent somewhere housing all of the roms for it pretty easily.
Also I didn't really play much of Link's Awakening at the time but a lot of knowledge of that game I got from this magazine's walk-through. We live in this weird age where more people probably watch games than actually play them, but it's interesting how imagination becomes it's own content in itself.
This is not a magazine, and barely a guide. People shit on this thing because it basically told you to go online to get pretty helpful tips using provided keywords on Squaresoft's website. This was during the .com boom where WEBSITES had to be integrated into everything, even if they weren't that practical. Gamefaqs was in circulation at this point, but guides like this were a way to get firsthand info on 100%ing the game and making sure you got everything.
But the thing is, I didn't own FF9, nor did I own a PS1 at the time even. FF9 was the only ps1 FF that wasn't on PC, so I thought the PC version would come out eventually right?* I ended up just reading through the magazine, looking through the screenshots and just imagining the story and the world. It literally displayed every background and how they connected along with pretty illustrations. It was an odd experience when I finally got to play FF9 that a lot things played out differently than I thought. It's like watching a version of a movie where the camera angles are all different even if the story plays out as expected. People shat on this book for the playOnline bullshit, but for me it served a completely different unintended use.
But yeah those are my childhood poverty** gaming memories in a nutshell. Feel free to share yours.
*(by 2016)
**as in 5 dollars a month for doing chores
Yo tell me your game mag memories, it's a media that still sorta exists but not in the same relevancy that it was in the 90s. Even though the internet was in circulation in the 90s, magazines were still pretty much the best way to find out about games and what they looked like. It was just enough to see a screenshot of a game and to imagine what it could be was it's own entertainment separate from actually playing it.
I didn't have a subscription or anything (though I think I got a weird deal where I got 3 issues of GMR, which I think might count?). But I do have fond memories of random circumstances where I happen across a magazine that ends up being a window to another world.
This specific issue I think I begged my mom to get this for me at the grocery store we don't normally go to, it's that or I got good grades idk. I mainly got it for the Pokemon Gold and Silver preview. But the magazine also included coverage on Neo Geo games a console I had no idea existed, and it showed a lot of japanese only game screenshots that kind of made video games an even more mysterious and vast thing. Nowadays you can look up any game library, get a whole summary of a console and find a torrent somewhere housing all of the roms for it pretty easily.
Also I didn't really play much of Link's Awakening at the time but a lot of knowledge of that game I got from this magazine's walk-through. We live in this weird age where more people probably watch games than actually play them, but it's interesting how imagination becomes it's own content in itself.
This is not a magazine, and barely a guide. People shit on this thing because it basically told you to go online to get pretty helpful tips using provided keywords on Squaresoft's website. This was during the .com boom where WEBSITES had to be integrated into everything, even if they weren't that practical. Gamefaqs was in circulation at this point, but guides like this were a way to get firsthand info on 100%ing the game and making sure you got everything.
But the thing is, I didn't own FF9, nor did I own a PS1 at the time even. FF9 was the only ps1 FF that wasn't on PC, so I thought the PC version would come out eventually right?* I ended up just reading through the magazine, looking through the screenshots and just imagining the story and the world. It literally displayed every background and how they connected along with pretty illustrations. It was an odd experience when I finally got to play FF9 that a lot things played out differently than I thought. It's like watching a version of a movie where the camera angles are all different even if the story plays out as expected. People shat on this book for the playOnline bullshit, but for me it served a completely different unintended use.
But yeah those are my childhood poverty** gaming memories in a nutshell. Feel free to share yours.
*(by 2016)
**as in 5 dollars a month for doing chores
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