How Did You Start Out in RPG Maker?

[LycanDiva]

I'm new to RPG Maker on the PC, and am currently using MV, but I started out with the Playstation version. I read about it in a gaming magazine and it immediately piqued my interest because I love RPG's, especially oldschool turn-based games. My first project, Wild Saga, currently lays in an un-finished state on two carefully guarded PS1 memory cards, never to see the light of day, because the Playstation version was just too hard to make custom character sprites with and I got very frustrated with that. Still, my interest in the software didn't wain. I put RPG Maker VX Ace on my wishlist as a "to get" item a few years back, but between money being tight and an inadequate computer, I never got around to it. My situation is a bit better now, and a little while ago I decided to finally buy VX Ace...and I discovered the latest version, MV, so I got that instead. Now, I'm learning to use MV, with some of the stuff I learned in the PS1 version coming back to me and new knowledge flowing in.

So, how did you get into RPG Maker? Was it through a PC version or one of the console versions? Have you been at it non-stop, or have you had a break or two? Share your origin story here.

 

[Ebanyle]

I remember first playing a random demo of a XP project in my brother's PC, and later he showed me a RPG Maker forums. I think it was the biggest RMForum of all even though it was in portuguese, I'm not sure but in any way it was active as heck. Sadly, it was deleted in 2017 and I can't even count how many content was probably lost with that...
I've been messing around with RM for almost 10 years now, but only recently I could really use it properly, I was a brat back then

 

[watermark]

Well...during the dawn of the internet, while I was looking for ways to code a RPG using C, I stumbled upon a tool that makes Ultima-like RPG called DCGames. If you know what that is then we are in the same age group. I remember actually paying like $40 bucks for the official version. That engine was pretty good for its time, and I made my first computer RPG on that. That got me thinking maybe there are other RPG making tools like this. After searching I got my hands on a "shareware" called RPG Maker 95. That opened my eyes.

Then soon after I found another "shareware" by this Don guy called RM2000. Lo and behold there are other people like me using this, and we actually had ghetto forums for it. Nothing official and shiny like this. Everyone made lots of totally illegal games using blatant copyrighted rips. It was glorious. And that began everything.

 

[bgillisp]

My story is similar to @watermark , expect I stumbled across DCGames and made 3 games with the shareware version of it first back in 1992. Then SSI released Unlimited Adventures in 1993 and I made 3 games with that in the years 1994 - 1996. But I always wanted to make a game or two that I couldn't with either engine due to the restrictions in either engine. For the next 15 or so years I just wrote the stories, and dabbled in coding in an attempt to make the game, but never got much further than a basic engine where you moved a @ symbol for the player and the enemies were just letters on the map, as in, D meant Dragon.

Fast forward to 2013 when I decide to buy RPGMaker ACE on an impulse on Steam. I spent maybe one hour in it, and managed to crash my game, but I also had an insane work schedule so I tabled figuring it out until later. Then in 2014 the IGMC was announced and I figured if I don't enter I win $0 guaranteed, so I used it as an excuse to finally figure out the engine and make a game.

I ended up scrapping my IGMC entry 10 days into it. Guess it is true your first project is bad. But I still had 20 days left so I used that to start over, make a game, and been working with it since.

 

[Kokoro Hane]

Back when a certain voice acting forum still existed, I discovered RPG Maker due to some projects asking for voice using the software. Primarily, a title called "Once Upon The End" which I almost auditioned for, but didn't lol but I loved the game (plus two of my VAs from my team were in it) and I got interested in the software that made it. I first got my hands on RPG Maker VX Ace Lite, which you can no longer get anymore. I was making a game called "To Break The Silence" which was a really, really dumb comedic RPG with horrendous mapping.... yes my map skills still ain't great, but the errors I did in that was just damn lol. I finished the first ACT and began on a II but never finished.

I dabbled in a few other projects, actually serious this time, but never finished either. At the time I had no means of purchasing online (no PayPal, no debit card) and I could only purchase online if I could buy a gift card, like Amazon, and when I found a physical boxed copy of VX Ace I got excited, my brother bought it for me. It was in 2017 I was able to finally put it to use for a game jam called So Bad, It's Good, where in 1 week me and my merry band of VAs released Crystal Captor: Memory Chronicle Finale.

One thing I have found is RPG Maker is a fun tool for me that I mostly enjoy creating comedic stories with. I do wish to release a more serious tone one, but it was a comedic, parody-style RPG that introduced me to the software in the first place. I have no shame making games that on the surface look bad, but will hopefully get a laugh out of people. It's fun, it's ridiculous, that's just my style I guess ^^

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

I was college back then, I saw a kid in a computer shop playing one of the Aveyond games.. I liked it so I researched about it and saw it was made using a program called RPG Maker, so there I looked about that program (XP was the latest at that time) and that was how I started. I never really got into it deeply until VX Ace though..

As for the PS RM, I saw the PS2 one during high school but I wasnt yet into game dev at that time, especially not in my PS2...

 

[Aesica]

My first exposure to RM was on the SNES. It was fun as a toy, but obviously nowhere near being developer-quality material, so I dinked around with it a bit, made some short game with about 10 minutes of gameplay, lost the save, and forgot it even existed. Fast forward to steam, where one day, I found VXA on sale for about $20. By now, I knew some people made RM games and sold them, so I figured why not give it a try? Flash (what I used to make games with) was dying, so I figured it was time to move to something new. I expected it to be another dinky toy like the SNES version, but it was surprisingly flexible, but still not quite what I wanted. Then along came MV and it was love at first sight.

 

[TheoAllen]

Started with RMXP and shortly before VX comes out (around 2008 iirc). I blame my big brother for this though. He discovered RM from Aveyond games since iirc it was mentioned that the game made by RMXP so he got curious (ironically, ppl nowadays are trying to hide that the fact they're making games in RM). While in XP and VX era I was just using RM mostly for the luls (making maps, trying what the event command does, etc), I started my actual RPG Making "officially" in 2013, like one/two years after VXA released. The time when I actually produce something in RM.

 

[kirbwarrior]

I remember poking around in the PSX version, but it wasn't how I got started. My start actually came in with Zelda Classic, a game maker built using the engine of the original Legend of Zelda. However, I love(d) rpgs and was trying to build them in ZC. About a year after I found ZC;

I found another "shareware" by this Don guy called RM2000. Lo and behold there are other people like me using this, and we actually had ghetto forums for it. Nothing official and shiny like this. Everyone made lots of totally illegal games using blatant copyrighted rips. It was glorious. And that began everything.

Anybody remember rpg2knet? I'm still trying to find games I played there since I liked them so much (although, I do still have my harddrive from back in the day somewhere around here, wish I could find an easy way to transfer data from it).

 

[Kes]

I discovered RPGs in general and RPG Maker in particular at the same time when I came across Laxius Force 1 and Aveyond. Up until then I had played almost no games at all, of any type. Got hooked with those games, bought a few, found lots of free games.

When this site opened I joined, just as another site where I could get games to play. But as I looked at them I thought "I could do that". Followed up by looking at some others and thinking "I could do better than that". So I bought VX Ace and set out to discover if indeed "I could do that."

 

[Prescott]

I have ALWAYS wanted to make games. I had played around with Flash and Game Maker when I was 8 or so but could never get a hang of them. When I was 10, I found RPG Maker XP and loved how easy it was to make a game. The community was very welcoming and really helped me improve from not knowing what layers were to making incredible maps and I even ended up scripting some stuff when I was a teenager.

My friend and I would work on games side by side for hours and hours. I recently reconnected with him and he downloaded MV, he's been using it a bunch lately. It would be really cool to work on a game and actually finish one with him nowadays.

 

[woootbm]

I was a little late to the party. I think I first saw RPG Maker XP or 2003, I'm not sure which. I screwed around with it for a day, not really considering the wider possibilities.

Years later, I had a friend (who's not a dev and not much of a gamer) who knew about my aspirations for game dev tell me about this great discovery called "RPG Maker". I kinda laughed at first, giving in to the negative stigma the tool has, I guess. But after thinking about it, I realized it was a perfect challenge.

See, I'm not a programmer. And RPG Maker comes with all the assets and a combat engine all in place to just make a game immediately. My primary goal is to be a writer, so it would allow me to showcase the skills I wanted to show!

 

[OgreKiddo]

Starting with the PSX version (in Japanese lol) before really getting 'serious' with RPG Maker 2 for the PS2 & RPG Maker XP. I really really really miss the XP days

 

[Fring Frang]

Nice question and thread, thanks for asking! Interesting to read how everyone got their starts.

A friend (JR) showed me and some others RPG Maker VX back in the day (late 2009). We spent a few weeks making joke projects, maybe about 6 of us. Then afterwards only JR and I still worked on our games. We spent so much time, years, turning these joke games full-length. In hindsight, we spent way too much time on our first games, and both were scrapped like 3 or 4 years after.

Fast forward ten years, and we've both made and released a few RPG Maker games. It's my full-time job since summer 2017, and JR is working on a board game full time. I'm freaking glad he showed us RPG Maker. I'd hate to see my life trajectory if I hadn't started making games, convincing me to switch career paths into game design.

 

[AdamMMS]

I bought the PlayStation 1 version when I was 10 years old. I have vague memories of making a map with 100 moving pits and only one lead to freedom. I've messed around with every version since then for fun.

 

[Paladin-Cleric of Awesome]

I started with what was probably a pirated version of XP. (a friend gave it to me, and I fell in love with it) It wasn't long after that that Ace was coming out, so I immeadiatly preordered it and never looked back (except that I did buy XP when it was on sale because I still love it and I wasn't sure if thwe one i'd had previously was legal).

I only wish I was better at making games with the system. lol.

 

[Milennin]

I don't remember exactly how I got into it, but I do know my first project was in RPG Maker 2003, back in 2004.

 

[kaukusaki]

I've been tinkering with it since super nintendo (showing my age lol)

 

[Bonkers]

The first time was in PlayStation's RPGmaker. Since then it's been in Ace that I really started to understand eventing and everything that went with game making. PlayStation's version was so terribly complicated and the interface was limited by the controller, but I loved the sample game about the goblin, cat and shadow. The shadow explaining the range of motion really helped me understand more about games, but it was still to terrible complex for me to grasp and I was impatient to make a game through the memory card.

 

[atoms]

@LycanDiva
By did I know about the PS1 & PS2, you mean now or when I first found out about RPG Maker?

@Topic Discussion/Conversation

The first RPG Maker I found out about was RPG Maker 2000/2003 illegal versions, but I found out just around when RPG Maker XP came out. I was interested in what I had found, but it was only after VX came out that I tried using RPG Maker.

Since then I've been following it as much as I can, except the times I was really busy with my life and then later than that I also developed something that prevented me really working with RPG Maker at all.

I found out about it through seeing a ripped sonic game made in it. It made me laugh at the time, but when I saw some beautiful games being worked on with RPG Maker XP, I thought I'd just keep an eye on it.

I found out about the older PlayStation versions after, through further research.