Is playing RPG Maker games a requisite to making them?

[TMS]

I have a confession to make, and it may shock some people. I've never played through an RPG Maker game. In fact, my experience with the RPG genre as a whole is only the most casual. Now, to be a good writer, you need to be a good reader. Reading other people's work is a must if you want to improve your writing. Developing a game is arguably more complicated than writing a story, but I was wondering if the same rule might apply to it. Should I familiarize myself with RPG Maker games made by others if I want to make a decent RPG Maker game of my own? How important would you say that is?

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

I myself never played much RM games so far, though I played a number of RPGs and other games in my life... I'd say they give me inspiration and such. 

 

[TheoAllen]

Not required, but recommended.

The reason why you should take a look into someone's game is to take references. Since your engine is RPG Maker, it's recommended to play RPG Maker games to see how is the capability of RPG Maker. 

By playing someone's game, you may start to think 'Hey, this is cool, and it's been proven that RPG Maker can do something awesome like this'

Or even 'Hey, I never thought to do something like this'

 

[Sharm]

If you're not going to play them, you'll at least want someone on your side who does. It's a bit like writing in a genre you're not familiar with, you can still be a good writer, but there are things like tropes and short hand ways of doing things that are common in a genre that people who are familiar with it know and expect or are really tired of. I expect RM games are the same way. You don't have to know those things yourself, but if you talk your project over with someone who does they can help you out without having to do all that game playing.

 

[Shinma]

Everything I was going to say was said in the above two posts. With that in mind, a very brief recap of my personal experience.

Although I have played a lot of RPG's (Dragon Warrior/Quest is still my favorite series), I had not played any RPG Maker games. I started a project and was doing well, but I had so many unanswered questions that I put it on hold a bit. I have since played some other peoples games, and do a lot of testing for someone here, it has greatly enhanced my understanding of the engine. I highly recommend doing so, even if you don't play the games all the way through.

 

[Kes]

I think it comes down to understanding what's going on from the player's perspective, rather than from the perspective of a developer.  A lot of things sound like they're going to be cool, but when you come to actually play them they end up as being anything but!  I think it also helps in terms of pacing; this is something that it's difficult (though not impossible) to get a feel for without some experience.

 

[Lars Ulrika]

I can tell you, my rpg making experience has two eras : before and after I started to play other people's projects. You can't believe how it helped me to understand better how to do efficient maps, balance things up etc. 

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

I think it comes down to understanding what's going on from the player's perspective, rather than from the perspective of a developer.

Yeah... There are some ideas that seems nice but when you get to playtest it, you then decide to scrap it... 

As for understanding the engine, I do prefer working out with the engine itself than playing other games. Yeah, I might get an idea of what is possible but I won't have an idea of how. A lot of things is possible in RM anyway, so I find it easier to simply go about figuring out how to do them rather than asking if it's possible or not.

 

[Galenmereth]

I don't think playing RM games is required unless you're aiming to make an "RM game", that is to say, a game that is very specific about being within the genre of RM games. If you're going to use the default battle system and spell/skill setups, as well as character progression systems, then I'd say playing the highlights of RM games using these systems can be a good inspiration. But not necessarily a necessity.

Personally I haven't played many completed RM games yet, but I have played quite a few "in progress" builds of RM games. But I ended up preferring to learn the engine by playing around with it and seeing how far I could push things without scripting, and thereafter getting a ton of scripts to see what people had done with that part of the engine already. From there I made a few experimental games which I never released, playing around with heavy eventing, custom scripting, and otherwise just pushing limits.

It's also been a huge inspiration to browse these forums, read other peoples' questions and answers to those questions, as well as trying my hand at solving these problems and helping out the community. I will admit that I do feel bad about not having gotten around to playing more of the games the good people here have created, yet

 

[Dalph]

Quite frankly, I played really a lot of rm games...you would be surprised here, I'm actually learning to use rm mostly by playing other people's games.

Noticing and pointing out their mistakes makes me avoid them automatically when I work on my games, of course you need a lot of practice with the Engine too but doing both the things at the same time helps a lot in game making.

I play both good (for inspiration) and bad games (for spotting mistakes), I play everything to understand how things work and how they don't work and besides...someone should play other people's games, the developers need feedback, there's nothing worse for a developer than seeing his\her game to be totally ignored. I see mostly developers around today and not really a lot of players, it's good to be a mix of both the things if you ask me.

Hope my 2 cents help you, good luck with your projects.

 

[Matseb2611]

It really does help to try out other RM games. I can say for sure I've learnt a lot by playing other people's games, for many reasons:

- You can see more effective ways to pull off some game mechanic or any other cool feature, ways that perhaps you never thought of.

- You can get new ideas for inspiration, whether it's plot related or mechanics related.

- You can see the errors and issues. One big problem most of us have is, when we play our own games, we're very biased. We tend to automatically look past many of the annoyances and gameplay issues, but when we play someone else's game, we are a lot more objective and hence we can spot the features that annoy us right away. Once you figure out what's good and what isn't, you can learn from that and make sure you do not make the same mistakes in your games.

In addition, you also get to make new friends and acquaintances in the process, because people love it when someone gives attention to their creations. I'll be very honest, but people who had given my games attention/feedback/support are automatically a lot more likely to get my attention too - I am more likely to read their posts fully when browsing on the forums, more likely to respond to their status feeds, more likely to use their resources, and certainly more likely to play their games.

Also Dalph raises a good point. If everyone was to just develop their own game and not play anyone else's, then nobody's game will be played. I like to see it as upholding the equilibrium. I've released many RM games to the community, and I love it when people play them and enjoy them, so why wouldn't I extend the same courtesy to others? If you want to receive feedback from the community, it's certainly nice if you can also give it back.

 

[whitesphere]

I don't think experience with playing RPG Maker built RPGs is critical.  However, I believe strongly that a good RPG developer must have experience playing RPGs in general --- so I feel that is critical.

In my case, I've played through a variety of commercial JRPGs.  This gave me a crucial understanding of how a good RPG is put together --- how much should NPCs say, how to pace the plot, what does a good town layout look like, how to pace experience, what abilities to give classes, etc.

Now, my games are original worlds and concepts, so I'm not slavishly copying these games.  But, playing them gave me good experience at seeing HOW to put a good RPG together from the many pieces you can use in RPG Maker.    You learn, as a player, what features you like and don't like to see (I hate having to craft every piece of armor for example), and that improves the quality of the games you make.

It's sort of like how a really good writer is also usually an avid reader.  The writer learns what s/he likes, doesn't like, what works, doesn't work, by going through examples.   S/he learns the classic tropes, so when the writer deliberately diverges or subverts the tropes, it is a conscious decision and usually done very well.

And, then if you want your RPG to diverge in a wildly new direction, you have the solid foundation of RPG play experience to know what would be fun to play, not just develop.  Too many new RPG Maker developers fall prey to "shiny toy" syndrome and toss every cool feature in, resulting in a chaotic mess of a game with a ton of half-baked features.  Good play experience will quickly show the developer how silly that is and why even ambitious open world games like Skyrim don't implement every possible feature.

I also agree with Matseb2611 and Dalph though.  What we all as developers need more than anything is playtesters, to see what we did right and what we need to improve.  And if none of us play these games, we'll all be contributing to lower quality RPG Maker games.  Besides, playing another game (if you like the plot idea, etc) is a nice break from creating your own game.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

- You can see more effective ways to pull off some game mechanic or any other cool feature, ways that perhaps you never thought of.- You can get new ideas for inspiration, whether it's plot related or mechanics related.

- You can see the errors and issues. One big problem most of us have is, when we play our own games, we're very biased. We tend to automatically look past many of the annoyances and gameplay issues, but when we play someone else's game, we are a lot more objective and hence we can spot the features that annoy us right away. Once you figure out what's good and what isn't, you can learn from that and make sure you do not make the same mistakes in your games.

You can achieve those via playing any game though, not just RM games...

 

[Matseb2611]

^That is true, but with RM games it's a lot more relevant, because you're using the same engine as the game in question. For example you might think some game mechanic a triple A RPG uses is cool, but it might be too hard for your skillset or even for the engine to pull that off. But if you like something in an RM game, the chances are it's a lot more achievable.

 

[Archeia]

It's a yes and no. But I'd say yes, you should. You'll learn a lot and pickup from their mistakes that you would most likely not even think about. There's also the question of execution and how they bypassed the limits.


Overall, I played over 150+++ RM games before when I was still starting and I think it was worth it. I guess with IGMC you can make that over 1000+++ now.

 

[bgillisp]

I'd say it helps. I started out using the engine having played one RPG Maker game ever (and it was a pretty poor one at that), so I only had an idea what could be done in the engine. So, for my IGMC entry I only had in the game what I figured out could be done.

After the IGMC was over though I downloaded a few of the entries, saw better what could/could not be done in the engine, and made some changes to the game. So I would say it helps to play a few games so you can see what can be done (and what to avoid or annoys you when it is done in this engine), but you can still learn without playing other games, it just might take longer.

 

[Indinera]

I've played some (not including my own of course xD), I wish I could play more, but my schedule often disagrees. 

 

[Tsukihime]

I have a confession to make, and it may shock some people. I've never played through an RPG Maker game. In fact, my experience with the RPG genre as a whole is only the most casual. Now, to be a good writer, you need to be a good reader. Reading other people's work is a must if you want to improve your writing. Developing a game is arguably more complicated than writing a story, but I was wondering if the same rule might apply to it. Should I familiarize myself with RPG Maker games made by others if I want to make a decent RPG Maker game of my own? How important would you say that is?

That's not a very accurate comparison.


RPG Maker is a tool. What you are comparing is a game; and not so much the fact that you're using RPG Maker.


Otherwise it's like saying to be a good writer with a certain type of paper, you must look at other books that were written with the same type of paper.


Or, I suppose more realistic, if you want to be a good painter using certain types of material, you have to look at how others do it.


Personally I just say do whatever you feel is good. You can look at others to get some idea what kind of things would make a game good which you can incorporate into your own game, but in the end, you want to hone your own style just like your stories or your writing techniques.


Plus, like writing, you need to think about your intended audience. A game is a game. It's what type of game you want to present to your players and how you want to present it. So if you want to make a horror game or a fighting game, you might want to have an idea how they work and what people expect.

 

[Lunarea]

My answer is - yes, playing RM games created by others should be an integral part of creating games.

But not so that you could learn from them (though more power to you if you do).

You should play them because you want other people to play your game, and because you want to be a part of the community. If you want someone to invest their time and energy in your project, you really ought to expend that same energy on something that's useful to them. I think this should be common courtesy. Making use of the community - whether it's via asking for feedback or help/support or resources - should be balanced with offering something to the community in return. Taking the time to check out someone's project doesn't require you to be a master (artist/scripter/eventer/instert whatever else here), and it's one of the most helpful things you can do for a fellow developer.

So, go play some games. And then write a post to tell them about your experience.

 

[Indrah]

Play at the very least a few very good ones and a few very bad ones.

They'll inspire and teach you a lot more and a lot faster than doing it by yourself.

And yeah not playing other's games, while not unreasonable, puts out the attitude (as Lunarea said) that you're not really gonna reciprocate the effort. While that may not HARM you, you certainly won't be making any firends by saying "oh, I make RM games, but I won't play them", because, let's be honest, what most people read in that phrase is "Because they are below me" and take it as an insult to their skills, that being actually the meaning or not.

And yeah giving feedback is a great way of connecting with folks. Look at that dastard Dalph up there, the biatch. (with love, Dalph~) he's made more connections without making a single game yet than a freaking subway network.

As for the whole "oh comercial rpgs are enough" argument: cut the crap, of course they're friggin NOT THE SAME. Those have BUDGETS, different ENGINES, TEAMS OF WORKERS. Using the RM engine is a entirely different method than what we imagine commercial games, and it's not going to kill you to check what other people do with it. Sure, you CAN do it alone and by yourself, in the same way you could learn any skill by yourself. But it'll always be easier to have teachers and examples in the same area.

Tl;dr: Play some games. Doesn't have to be a lot. If they're good, you'll be inspired. If they're bad, you'll easily see what mistakes you could make. You can only learn from it.

And it doesn't mean you have to play every single game and demo on the site, just a few. Heck, you don't even have to play them to completion, just check them out to get a feel for the basics. There's more than enough good games to go around.