RPG Maker Forums

Hello, as I've got the official release of the RPG Maker 2003, I wanted to introduce myself

But first, just do not get mad over possible mistakes in my language, please. English ain't my first language. Thank you ^^ Corrections are appreciated nonetheless!

When my older brother has got the RPG Maker 2000 (inofficial english version) I was very interested in it, too, and began creating my own little games. Back then I was at the age of eight or nine. Today I am 22 and I still are creating my own content with the RPG Maker.
 

I never finished a decent game and never considered a decent story for my games. All games I've started ended up being cancelled, because they were just some gadgets. There are two games which had become my longlife task when I just entered puberty. These indeed had custom menues, a custom battle system... all in all advanced scripting techniques, but, yup, and that is what I considered the problem of all my games, I just was too young, too naive, too infantile to plan a decent story. But now I have concept for a project, a concept which I am still having randomly kicking in brainstorms for. Ideas that make me shiver, that give me goose-bumps, because they just - like a flash - cross my mind. I never have been so deep into brainstorming for any of my previous games.
 

The first game that I have put much effort into, which had more than a few minutes playtime (dunno how much, would have to play this crap again to be sure), was called "Save the World". Yeah, a pretty dull title, right? Right. It had a really minimalistic battle system in which you simply needed to touch the enemy for a single exchange of blows. And that over and over again until the enemy is defeated. Just a linear, repetetive, dull RPG. Soon I cancelled this project. It had a lack of a story, because I just came up with... something. The same for the next game, which became a lifelong task for me when I was 15. It is called "Mistakes" and this was the first game with a more or less considered story, but this game too was just started to be a gadget and later I gifted it a story just caught on the fly. It had the same battle system by the way. I presented it on the forums of RPG-Atelier.net and the first thing that was given feedback on was the battle system. It did not really appeal to their taste

My brother soon started programming with Blitz 3D, but I kept stuck to the RPG Maker. Now my brother has learned proper programming languages, interfaces (DicrectX, OGL) etc and is a programmer in a game making studio called exDream. I have been studying computer science for half a year now when I have finished my school education last year (A-Levels/Abitur) and in my spare time I am working on my RPG Maker titles. Believe it or not, but the RPG Maker prepared me for my computer science study. It helped me understand the logic behind programming language, behind their algorithms. Ofc, the RPG Maker lacks of many possibilities and you have to improvise for many things, for instance, if you need an array, well, bad luck, you need to use an interval in the variables array and make it big enough (for instance for a custom menu [inventory]).

First I just copied and pasted some scripts from other games, but soon I started considering my own algorthims. Can you even call a script in the RPG Maker algorithm? xD And now I consider myself as an expert and as a veteran of the RPG Maker 2000/2003. For many years I have sticked to the RPG Maker 2000, as in the German RPG Maker community there has been released many patches for instance for creating a custom title screen, for more pictures, mp3 support, a key patch that allows mouse support etc. But soon I switched to the 2003 version, because it offered more Picture IDs, native mp3 support etc. Many things that had really hard limits in the RPG Maker 2000 have been improved in the RPG Maker 2003 (except for the sideview battle system, you are still better off by doing your own custom battle system ). But the main reason were the patches finally being released for the RPG Maker 2003 also. It was possible to make the patches made for the 2000 work for the 2003. But someday, when I was 17/18, I began making Let's Plays on YouTube and I was no more keen on gamemaking. Sometimes I just opened the RPG Maker, but it was a stagnation in motivation and I doubted I would ever be keen again on continuing making games. That was until a random idea crossed my mind. A plot complex started building up in my brain, almost automatically. It is beeing extended still today at random times automatically That was about two years ago, when I slowly started working with the RM again.
 

Today I am using the official version of the RPG Maker 2003 and in my opinion, I really do not need the gadgets like mouse support, more keys (the ones the rm2k3 has, are enough) or even a custom title screen anymore. It is what makes the RPG Maker games, the characteristics that I do not want to "disturb" anymore. Of course I would be glad to have pointers for Picture IDs. It would make things muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch easier, so patches that would lever out such limits which make the scripting slower and more difficult I would still use, but never remove the standard title screen or something like that anymore.

But all in all, I indeed are thankful for all the improvements that have been made to it, for example 1000 picture IDs instead of 50. You may not think it, but I already used up almost 100 of them in my current game. Of course, the RPG Makers XP and newer do not need that anymore, because of RGSS, but I am so much used to the RPG Maker 2003 and it's my personal preference also, that I am glad for every improvement. Currently I have paused the development of my game "Altered Royalty", because I have started the project with the inofficial version and I wanted to adjust the picture IDs used, but Cherry, the guy from the German community who has written all patches for the 2000 and 2003 inofficial versions, told me that there indeed a picture id pointer patch is to be implemented. Cherry with the help of Degica made the improvements that you can see in the official release now and in collaboration with Enterbrain made the official release possible. That's because I am waiting for the PicPointerPatch (for using variables as Picture IDs) and currently I am working on a not-so-deep game Let me tell you: Pointers are a BIG help in automating algorithms.

When I have finished my concepts, a handful of that is, I am going to switch to proper gamemaking. At least, that's the plan, but until then, I want to put my concepts into RPG Maker games

I do not really want to present my concepts already, but I can say there is planned:

-A zeldalike action adventure.

-A JRPG with a CTB system slightly similar to Paper Mario's

-A dystopian Sci-Fi JRPG.
-A horror game. (Which is planned to be presented to big YouTubers like Markiplier, if it is ever finished)
-Currently: A furry themed (more or less) Action RPG... yes, furries. Deal with it.

I am considering switching to the VX Ace for the Sci-Fi JRPG and to the XP for the Horror game. To my opinion the XP is really suitable for creating atmopsheric horror games, especially because it has alpha channel support, which makes lighting effects possible.