SOLASTILIAN'S PROFILE

Hello there.

I dabbled with RM95 and RM2K years ago (under a different name), but never managed to make and publish a finished game or even a demo – perhaps a familiar story? A few screenshots, custom sprites and game announcements were posted on one or two websites which, it appears, no longer exist.

Back then I was held back by several things, including:

I would start one game, but get an idea for another one then start working on that before finishing the first. I would often only have a premise or a very rough outline to work from, rather than do any extensive planning.

I had a very dodgy computer which suffered from a chronic case of Windows ME. It needed to be reformatted quite regularly as after a few months (as far as I remember) it would start freezing more and more frequently until Windows itself wouldn't load. Back then, I had no CDR drive or external hard drive, so was unable to back up any of my RPG projects.

Each time the computer was freshly reformatted I would start another project. Ideas for systems or characters were often taken over, but with a new story/premise/setting.

I was often overly ambitious. Being relatively artistically talented, I played around with custom sprites and battle animations with varying degrees of success. I also attempted a few custom battle systems and menu systems (with not a great deal of success...).

As far as I can recall, I stopped RPG making around the time of the legal English release of RMXP. A couple of years after that I made another couple of attempts at making a game, for which I was determined to create a sturdy outline first. However, despite initially planning for a simple story, both attempts quickly became overly complicated and ambitious and were not completed. None of my games projects or custom bits and pieces survive, sadly.

Recently the ambition of making a complete RPG Maker game has reignited in me yet again! At first I was planning to use 2K, but now feel uncomfortable with the legality of it – especially as legal English copies of the newer makers are on sale. After a brief spell of research and downloading trials of VX Ace and XP (which I had used briefly around the time it first came out), I seem to prefer VX Ace.

With the RPG making flame alight again, I've had a few brainstorming sessions. I came up with a handful of interesting worlds and premises, but struggled to find a way to feasibly make an RPG from them. Next I started thinking about the sort of gameplay I wanted and developed an outline of a story around that. This seems to have worked.

So the plan this time is to:

Doggedly stick to one project.

Keep it short and relatively simple.

Use predominantly (or entirely) RTP, default menus etc.

If I can manage that and get some good feedback, I'll think about attempting something more elaborate, possibly soliciting some people for a collaboration...

Will I ever achieve this ambition? Will the final game be worth playing? Will this be my only post here before I disappear into obscurity? Who knows!?

Whatever the case, this looks like a superb website. It's a pleasure to register.

Please excuse my long-windedness!