Essay for Surveying Game Industry Class

[HakuroDK]

Hey there! It's been a long time, RPG Maker community, how are you?

Well, I've been accepted into a Game Development program at my local community college and for one of my first assignments this week for my "Surveying Game Industry" class, I had to write an essay about what got me interested in the game industry.

I could have written about my first experience with video games with my Sega Genesis, my first true RPG experience with Super Mario RPG, my first experiences with Pokemon Red Version, but I didn't write about any of that. I wrote about RPG Maker. Because I genuinely feel RPG Maker, ever since Don Miguel brought RPG Maker to the West almost 20 years ago now, gave me an idea of where I want to go in life.

So please enjoy this essay. Feel free to comment or critique it as you like, but do so constructively and at your leisure. Thank you.

DISCLAIMER: While I have used illegal copies of RPG Maker 2000 in the past and state that clearly in this essay, it was purely due to no legal option at that time. As times have changed, I currently own legal (Steam) versions of every iteration of RPG Maker I currently use.

The video game industry saved me during the darkest times of my life and gave me purpose. Certainly, while I was always interested in video games ever since I was a little kid, there was a time when, to me, they were simply there to pass the time and have fun exclusively. Due to a combination of dealing with domestic violence in the home and not really knowing what I wanted to do with my life, I needed video games with more depth to escape reality and give me some sense of self-worth. Role-playing games scratched that itch for me and helped me to escape into a fantastical world of swords and sorcery, of space and lasers, or even into a world of turtles and hammers. While it was role-playing games that helped me escape the toxicity and traumas at home, it was the idea that I could create my own role-playing games with RPG Maker that gave me a feeling of true and honest purpose.

The RPG Maker series of software was developed by Enterbrain, a division of the ASCII Corporation. They were not originally interested in translating RPG Maker for a Western audience. However, a Russian student who went by the alias “Don Miguel” released illegal, English-translated copies of RPG Maker 95 and RPG Maker 2000 for those Western audiences [1]. It was because of this illegal software that I could develop a video game of my own design for the first time. Its ease of access was such that even a child as young as I was at the time could make small games. There have been many further iterations in the RPG Maker software: RPG Maker 2003, RPG Maker XP, RPG Maker VX and VX Ace, and the current version, RPG Maker MV, which I currently use today.

I still have memories of each edition of RPG Maker and what they brought to the table. For example, it was RPG Maker 2003 that had introduced built-in support for side-battlers, such as what you would find in earlier Final Fantasy titles. RPG Maker 2003 was also capable of supporting mp3s for the first time, allowing for higher quality music to be implemented in created games. RPG Maker XP introduced RGSS, or Ruby-Game-Scripting-System, to allow for tinkering with the game engine itself to make something truly unique. RPG Maker VX allowed for more flexibility when using RGSS and VX Ace integrated itself with the Steam Workshop, a service provided by Steam to allow for user created content. [2]. However, it is the current version of RPG Maker that I am currently using.

The current version of RPG Maker is RPG Maker MV and It feels like the greatest iteration to date. It has not only switched gears from RGSS to Javascript, a more widely used programming language, but allows for games to be published for Windows PCs, Mac OS X, Androids, iPhones, and even embedded into websites [2]. This makes it not only far easier to utilize RPG Maker MV, but also allows even more users to play RPG Maker-created games on multiple different platforms. RPG Maker MV also included more robust mapping features to help create more intricate maps as well as a return of the Side-Battler system from RPG Maker 2003. For an RPG Maker fan like myself, this is truly one of the greatest iterations of the software.

I feel like I owe people like Enterbrain and Don Miguel a lot for inspiring me to become a video game developer. Their work on RPG Maker gave my life a sense of purpose and self-worth that I could do something so much greater with my imagination so that I could escape from reality and into a world that was not only fantasy, but a fantasy of my own creation. Game Development is a career choice I did not think I had a chance to enter – It was only this year that I found out otherwise. The fact that I am here today and I have made it to the starting line of this amazing career path is a huge milestone in itself. I am eager to get started.

[1] Zavarise G. The secret history of underdog game engine RPG Maker and how it got its bad reputation. pcgamer. https://www.pcgamer.com/the-secret-history-of-underdog-game-engine-rpg-maker-and-how-it-got-its-bad-reputation/. Published October 11, 2017. Accessed September 1, 2018.

[2] Davison P. RPG Maker MV: Introduction and History. MoeGamer. https://moegamer.net/2016/08/03/rpg-maker-mv-introduction-and-history/. Published August 27, 2017. Accessed September 1, 2018.

 

[Idiot]

Very interesting! Reminds me of the kind of assignments I first got in my Game Design program!

 

[Eleneid]

Very interesting essay, seriously. In fact, domestic violence is unfortunately very common and children are trying to find a way out. It is very good that in your case you decided to play video games and earn money this way. Most people still get bogged down in the virtual world without having the ability to take care of themselves in real life. I studied psychology and when I needed to write a term paper, I chose a topic about the effect of video games on a person. A very interesting topic, in fact, but since I needed to work in parallel to help my parents, I didn’t have enough time to study in detail. But thanks to the 《--snip--》 my work was the best in the group. So you are well done and your essay is very well written. Keep up the good spirit.

 

[Kes]

@Eleneid I have removed the link in your post as we do not allow links to sites of that nature. I almost deleted your entire post as spam. Do not do this again, or you will be treated as a spammer.

 

[YvonneGrant]

Interesting essay, you write very good. I need to write an essay now but I can't find any idea.

 

[MushroomCake28]

@YvonneGrant , please refrain from necro-posting in a thread. Necro-posting is posting in a thread that has not had posting activity in over 30 days. You can review our forum rules here. Thank you.

I'm closing this thread.