A Bit Of Encouragement?

[ArianDynas]

So... It's my first time here, and not exactly my first time using RPGMaker, though it's close enough to it.

In my spare time, I've been working on a side project; just kind of for fun and a love of the medium.

To be honest; I'm discouraged.

I've been making it piece by piece as I go on; I call it "Eras: The Dark Tower" though maybe that needs a bit of explanation.

I enjoyed the game Game Dev Tycoon lately, and a large chunk of the fun was coming up with creative ideas and concepts.

One that I was particularly proud of was an Alternative History/Time Travel RPG I designed of the same name. It went on to 

have a lot of successful sequels, like Eras II: Beyond The Nightmare Gate, Eras III: False Prophet, Eras IV: The Forbidden City,

Eras V: The Tower Of Glass And Ivory, Eras VI: The River Of Blue Fire and finally Eras VII: Otherland. My mind made them out

to be a sort of gestalt; a mixture of Ultima II, The Greystar books by Joe Dever, a dash or two of Stephen King's Dark Tower series, 

a little of Tad William's "Otherland" some Final Fantasy to a degree, a surrealistic and symbolic fantasy that is recognizably fantastic

without needing to be the traditional fantasy setting, which I do love, but like everyone else, occasionally hanker for something different.

So, when a friend introduced me to RPG Maker VX, I got my hands on the trial and started to tinker with it, being a longtime DM; I like

making stories for others to enjoy. Truth be told, I was kind of hankering for a good Final Fantasy 6 style RPG so I figured for lack of one,

I'd make my own. The first few shots I took were primarily just trying to figure out the UI, which I eventually did, abandoning something

rather classical and generic about a lord general's son taking his position that I had made by that point. Likely for the best, as I couldn't 

feel excited about it beyond the broad strokes.

So, lacking for inspiration, I decided to rob my own ideas from Game Dev Tycoon and started work on my current project. For a long while

it seemed to be coming along fine, but over time, I've been getting more and more discouraged as the UI finds new and exciting 

ways to fight me. I've also been looking at other projects of a similar nature, and feeling consistently like mine will fail to stack up

against them, leaving me feeling even less like I would be able to turn out an end product worth enjoying, or worth all the time I

would need to pour into it.

I'm not asking for people to help or form a team or anything of that nature because, to be quite honest, I am certain I would get 

nothing of the sort beyond a bit of n00b embarrassment for deigning to ask, but I suppose I just kind of needed to get my thoughts out somewhere and maybe talk about it, perhaps get a bit of encouragement.

 

[sai]

Hey there! First off, welcome to the forums! Secondly, I can understand your feel being discouraged at first. That was kinda my deal when I first started off using RPGMaker...I gave it a whirl in hopes I could implement a lot of custom graphics and all that hooplah, but I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, lol. To be honest, though, your best bet is to look through any of the resources here if you need any help, and absolutely ask the nice folks here any questions you may have. From my observations, a lot of the members here are eager to help. <:

Also, don't give up on it! Remember that you're doing this project for fun, so keep it for fun. While doing your best for a project is a priority, don't forget you have bumps here and there. And when it comes to comparing your projects with others, I think instead of feeling like your game won't be up to par, just enjoy the creative process. Heck, even I celebrate a little when I get even a little something working right, haha. We all start somewhere, so don't feel down!

 

[Galenmereth]

This is the challenge of any creative endeavour, and no matter what you might've heard, it happens to everyone. And it will happen again. It rears its head in many different ways, but the heart of the beast is called "doubt", and it's natural. You doubt your abilities when compared to others. You doubt you can improve. You doubt you've got "it", whatever "it" is.

But you can do it; all you have to do is punch doubt in the face, perhaps add a dropkick of motivation, and plunge on. Drag your feet through the mud until you arrive at the glorious peak of inspiration. And then you bask in those beautiful rays of light until doubt drags you back down with its many hidden tentacles, trying to swallow you in new and creative ways. But you can learn from that, and use it against it. Every time you fight your way back from the maw of that beast, its job gets harder while your skills have improved. Little by litte, over time, doubt will have become the underdog.

tl;dr: You can do it. And if you can't believe in yourself, believe in a stranger who believes in another stranger. That would be me and then you, in that order.

 

[EFizzle]

Hey! Welcome to the forums!

What you're facing, is the fact that you're new. And there's nothing wrong with that. Everyone was a beginner once. We all were beginners here, and beginners in RM tend to be obvious. But the people here on these forums are welcome to beginners, so feel free to ask questions, and learn from the experts. I've been making games in RPG Maker for 7 years now, 7 years. Almost half my life, and I still come across these AMAZING games that I just cant quite keep up with. I strive to be like them and work towards that goal. So take your time, no one makes these awesome beautiful games the first month they pick up the program, there's a learning curve, and it's pretty steep. So you just gotta keep working, sure your games may not look amazing yet, but the key word there is yet, you'll get there someday, but it takes practice, like all things.

 

[Andar]

As others have said, it's always a lot of work to make a game - and there will always be times when you either aren't interested in continuing or simply can't continue due to real-life restrictions.


But take a look around the forum to the many completed projects - most project with more than an hour of gameplay will have taken months or years to complete, and those developers will have had their own times of problems in them.


So your problem is neither new nor unique - and as others have demonstrated, you can and will find the strength to continue if you're really into game making.


What I usually do is to have a secondary, completely different project on Stand-By. If I can't work on the big one, I usually switch and work for several weeks on the other one until I get better ideas to continue on the primary project...

 

[Makio-Kuta]

Like everyone before me said, these feelings are perfectly normal. Doubt can creep in on anyone whether they are new to something or have 30years under their belt.

So! Chin up! And a word of advice, don't make your first game your dream game. Let's face it, you're new; you're still flexing your muscles with the program and learning the ropes - if you start with a game you've been envisioning for a long time you'll have a hard time satisfying yourself and easily fall into doubt because of it. You'll be finding out the limitations of the program the hard way by learning that something you really want in your dream game is beyond your scope. This is a common mistake, so don't fret.

Start something small and simple. Something you know without shadow of a doubt that you can finish at your level. Once you make one little functioning game you'll be able to say "I've made a game!" and that is a wonderful feeling and will do wonders to boost your confidence.

I hope you enjoy your time on the forums and don't ever hesitate to ask for help. Everyone here is really sweet and enthusiastic about making games and sharing their experience and wisdom to educate and help others.

 

[Minnow]

Just try to remember that the work you're comparing your game to probably wasn't the developer's first game.

There's definitely a learning curve and no one here expects perfection from anyone right out of the gate, so try not to expect it from yourself.

Make your goal right now to just complete a game however good or bad instead of trying to make a masterpiece.

I used rm for 9-10 years before I actually completed anything and posted it because I set standards for myself that were way too high and got burnt out a few weeks into every project. When I finally did complete something it was ngl pretty terrible but I learned a ton of things that I never would have just playing around with the engine like I had been. You might find it beneficial to put your project on hold for right now and try to complete something smaller and shorter, just for the learning experience.

 

[ArianDynas]

Thanks to you all.

 

[West Mains]

This will encourage you to do anything:

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

try to read Indrah's post about this... http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/22392-advice-how-to-get-games-done-and-not-being-a-dofus-part2-game-development-is-up/


It's a bit harsh but if you come alive after all of it, you'll be a better person... and oh well, don't give up! Stay happy and keep life going!

 

[Zoltor]

As others have said, it's always a lot of work to make a game - and there will always be times when you either aren't interested in continuing or simply can't continue due to real-life restrictions.

But take a look around the forum to the many completed projects - most project with more than an hour of gameplay will have taken months or years to complete, and those developers will have had their own times of problems in them.

So your problem is neither new nor unique - and as others have demonstrated, you can and will find the strength to continue if you're really into game making.

What I usually do is to have a secondary, completely different project on Stand-By. If I can't work on the big one, I usually switch and work for several weeks on the other one until I get better ideas to continue on the primary project...

That's downright great advise, this way you wont get rusty, so you can jump back into the other project, whenever you feel reinspired.

Since you're new, I would also like to add, try to think up a story/plot(general direction atleast) first, this will help you get a clear idea what kind of event, and maps you'll want.

While you're you're roughly thinking up thing, familiarize yourself with the database+command options, and learn their funtions.

When you feel ready to start making events, try to stop thinking like a player. Think of the event you want to happen, and break it down to every individual action that happens in the event, a piece it together using the commands(think of it like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle).

Also ofcourse if you are stuck on something, feel free to ask on the forums, noone knows how to do everything  so being stumped is nothing to be ashamed of(hell it even happens to developers working for those trillion dollar companies, that's why there's always delays in the industry, literally always, It's sort of a running joke when someone announces a release date).