Is RPG Maker just a cookie cutter?

[Parallax Panda]

@DarkEspeon

RPG Maker IS a cookie cutter. It's in the name. It's a MAKER. For EVERYONE. It's not an engine for making anything you want, it's literally a set of cookie cutters for RPGs. It has its own limitations, and if you want something cool you are better off doing it from scratch on actual engines. I'm making a game too, but I use it for prototyping. RPG Maker is a great way to make a prototype, test it out, see how everything works, balance out the enemies and stats, and that's about it, honestly. If you want something good - you're better off using another engine like Game Maker. It ain't easy of course, but the results will be much better. Of course there are great examples of good games on RPG Maker, but their sheer amount, which is stupidly low, should give you a hint on where you're thinking wrongly.

Ehum, You think Game Maker is much different than RPG Maker? It's a cookie cutter! It's in the name. It's a MAKER. For EVERYONE. Yes, I'm not even joking. I've actually used Game Maker a little (as well as Multimedia Fusion1&2, Ren'py and other "easy-to-use" engines). We can call them cookie cutters if you want, but praising Game Maker while barely accepting that RPG Maker is an "engine" is the pot calling the kettle black.
I know that Game Maker is a little bit more complex and a little bit less restricted... buuuut, if we're going to be elitist it's still a a cookie cutter.
But that doesn't really matter because a well optimized cookie cutter saves you time and money when making cookies. Unless you NEED something that RPG maker can't provide, like I dunno, multiplayer? ...then RPG maker will probably do the work just fine. As would Ren'py if you wanted to make a visual novel.

Ok, enough of that. I'm not going to dedicate my whole post to you.

@LightDivider

There is nothing wrong with RPG maker or making games in it. You can sell rpg maker made games and make money like many others have before you. If your family does not believe you then show them some successful RM games though Steam Spy. Keep in mind that it's not exact numbers, but when some games have sold over 100.000 copies... well that'll most likely have generated some serious money.

But it's also good to keep in mind that as an small indie dev you don't actually NEED hundreds of thousands of sales to be successful. You could opt for simple quick-to-make games with a lower price tag and still manage to live on it. As someone above said, learn marketing and the business side of things. That'll probably have a greater impact on your sales as an indie dev than what engine you're using.

BUT, that being said I don't know if RPG maker is the right tool for you. It is for me, but is it for you? I don't know. It depends what you want out of it. Do you want to work at a famous game studio? Do you want to make cool AAA games in the future? Or at least very high-end indie games?
If that's what you really want then follow the advice your family gave you and learn some programing (or character design, or music composing, etc). Do that as well as start researching a more complex engine. Maybe something like Unreal Engine or Unity? That will help you get to your end goal faster if your end goal is to work at the top layers of the industry. But if that's your goal you'll need to ask yourself what part of game developing that interests you because when you work on big titles with hundreds of people you'll end up with a very specific task. It's very different from working by yourself in something like RPG maker.

 

[Matseb2611]

People who say RPG maker is cookie-cutter are usually quite uninformed (to put it nicely) or downright stubbornly ignorant (to put it not so nicely) about at least one of the following: a) what RM can do, b) the game industry, c) the development process. Usually it's the ignorance regarding all 3 of those categories. Countless engines nowadays are designed to make things easier and more convenient. What is the point of re-inventing the wheel? Coding something from scratch, spending aeons just to put together a very basic menu before you even get to the main aspects of your game. It's just not practical anymore when there are better ways of achieving the same goal.

I'd say just do what you do, so long as you keep improving yourself within your chosen sphere and from time to time take calculated risks and experiment with new things.

 

[LightDiviner]

@DarkEspeon


Ehum, You think Game Maker is much different than RPG Maker? It's a cookie cutter! It's in the name. It's a MAKER. For EVERYONE. Yes, I'm not even joking. I've actually used Game Maker a little (as well as Multimedia Fusion1&2, Ren'py and other "easy-to-use" engines). We can call them cookie cutters if you want, but praising Game Maker while barely accepting that RPG Maker is an "engine" is the pot calling the kettle black.
I know that Game Maker is a little bit more complex and a little bit less restricted... buuuut, if we're going to be elitist it's still a a cookie cutter.
But that doesn't really matter because a well optimized cookie cutter saves you time and money when making cookies. Unless you NEED something that RPG maker can't provide, like I dunno, multiplayer? ...then RPG maker will probably do the work just fine. As would Ren'py if you wanted to make a visual novel.

Ok, enough of that. I'm not going to dedicate my whole post to you.

@LightDivider

There is nothing wrong with RPG maker or making games in it. You can sell rpg maker made games and make money like many others have before you. If your family does not believe you then show them some successful RM games though Steam Spy. Keep in mind that it's not exact numbers, but when some games have sold over 100.000 copies... well that'll most likely have generated some serious money.

But it's also good to keep in mind that as an small indie dev you don't actually NEED hundreds of thousands of sales to be successful. You could opt for simple quick-to-make games with a lower price tag and still manage to live on it. As someone above said, learn marketing and the business side of things. That'll probably have a greater impact on your sales as an indie dev than what engine you're using.

BUT, that being said I don't know if RPG maker is the right tool for you. It is for me, but is it for you? I don't know. It depends what you want out of it. Do you want to work at a famous game studio? Do you want to make cool AAA games in the future? Or at least very high-end indie games?
If that's what you really want then follow the advice your family gave you and learn some programing (or character design, or music composing, etc). Do that as well as start researching a more complex engine. Maybe something like Unreal Engine or Unity? That will help you get to your end goal faster if your end goal is to work at the top layers of the industry. But if that's your goal you'll need to ask yourself what part of game developing that interests you because when you work on big titles with hundreds of people you'll end up with a very specific task. It's very different from working by yourself in something like RPG maker.

All I wanna really do is tell stories through classic style RPG's. And I think this program is perfect for just that. I've always loved telling complex stories.

 

[LightDiviner]

People who say RPG maker is cookie-cutter are usually quite uninformed (to put it nicely) or downright stubbornly ignorant (to put it not so nicely) about at least one of the following: a) what RM can do, b) the game industry, c) the development process. Usually it's the ignorance regarding all 3 of those categories. Countless engines nowadays are designed to make things easier and more convenient. What is the point of re-inventing the wheel? Coding something from scratch, spending aeons just to put together a very basic menu before you even get to the main aspects of your game. It's just not practical anymore when there are better ways of achieving the same goal.

I'd say just do what you do, so long as you keep improving yourself within your chosen sphere and from time to time take calculated risks and experiment with new things.

Yeah. They're trying to say ALL companies are ALWAYS making new engines for EVERY game.

 

[Dalph]

A Cookie what? Tell that to all the super popular games made with it like:
To the Moon, A Bird Story, Yume Nikki, Corpse Party, Ib, Lisa, One Shot, etc.

Also psst Undertale is made with Game Maker (aka not from scratch, except graphicwise).

 

[bgillisp]

@Matseb2611 : I think you forgot one, which might explain why it is parents saying this:

d) They used either the Bard's Tale Construction Kit, Unlimited Adventures, Neverwinter Nights, or DCGames Construction Kit when they were younger and think all game making engines nowdays are still like that, where all you can make are very identical games as many of the key features are hard coded and cannot be edited by any method, so all that you can change up is the story that is told.

 

[DarkEspeon]

Yeah. They're trying to say ALL companies are ALWAYS making new engines for EVERY game.

That's stupid.
I still stay strong with my point that RPG Maker is a cookie cutter, not a real engine.

 

[starlight dream]

@DarkEspeon Can't argue with your first post. I never tried Game Maker so I can't agree/disagree about that.

Like you said, it really depends what the person wants to create.
For classic rpg style, RPGM is perfect. (And for other game types too). But it can't support every type of game idea obviously.

And most of us agree that it's a (efficient) cookie cutter. And we want to eat cookies NOW! (Danish Butter Cookies for me, yum yum yum).

 

[LightDiviner]

@DarkEspeon Can't argue with your first post. I never tried Game Maker so I can't agree/disagree about that.

Like you said, it really depends what the person wants to create.
For classic rpg style, RPGM is perfect. (And for other game types too). But it can't support every type of game idea obviously.

And most of us agree that it's a (efficient) cookie cutter. And we want to eat cookies NOW! (Danish Butter Cookies for me, yum yum yum).

I do enjoy me some butter cookies.

 

[starlight dream]

All this talk about cookies... It must be subliminal advertisement by Mr.Christie.

 

[LightDiviner]

All this talk about cookies... It must be subliminal advertisement by Mr.Christie.

No idea who that is but OK.

 

[starlight dream]

Did you ever have an Oreo cookie?
Or maybe more than one?
It's the company that makes them (and a whole bunch of other cookies like, chips-a-hoy, social tea, arrowroot... yes it's okay to "taste" Arrowroot as an adult too... Ritz, and much more!)
See this IS a hidden ad for them after all!

And if a mod tells me to stay on topic: well, cookie is kind of the topic...

 

[Shaz]

I only read the first post, not all the replies - sorry, haven't had my first cuppa for the day yet.

Is your goal to make a game from scratch with everything done by you? Are you programming from scratch, creating art from scratch, creating music from scratch? If it's okay to get someone else to make art and music for you, why should the coding be any different? Doing it all yourself would take years to get a game done.

Or is your goal to release a game for people to play? If THAT is your goal, who cares how it happens, as long as the end result matches what you wanted to do?

I have a friend who has been in the indie game industry for many years. He and his buddy built a game development company from the ground up, and they made their own game engine in C++. Each time they made another game, they used that same game engine - they didn't start another one from scratch. He told me once that if he ever had to start over, he would use Unity. He said he wished Unity had been available when they started, and they would never have built their own engine. They had 20+ people on staff, all doing stuff from the ground up, and he wished Unity had been available when they started.

Most people making games will use some sort of game engine - Unity, Unreal, there are a number of 2D engines. RPG Maker just happens to provide a bigger framework for that type of game so you don't have to do it all yourself.

Work smarter, not harder. If there is a tool that will help you get the job done better and faster and with fewer bugs, you'd be foolish not to use it due to pride.

 

[ChampX]

I also should have mentioned in my post earlier that RPG Maker can be also a good tool for learning and starting out with. I started out with RPG Maker 2003 as a teen with game development. It taught me concepts about game development and just got me thinking logically. It also inadvertently taught me some programming logic to that helped me understand programming C++ when I first started learning it late high school. Without RPG Maker 2003, I don't see myself having been able to learn programming which means I would have then never found myself in a professional software development position. You could say RPG Maker changed my life . Yea the tool is limited, but it did what it needed to do and that's what really matters. Maybe one day you'll be able to move onto something with more power and flexibility to if desired, though you certainly don't have to.

Remember to worry about the needs and requirements of YOUR game and only your game. Other people aren't making your game (unless you hire them of course).

 

[LightDiviner]

I also should have mentioned in my post earlier that RPG Maker can be also a good tool for learning and starting out with. I started out with RPG Maker 2003 as a teen with game development. It taught me concepts about game development and just got me thinking logically. It also inadvertently taught me some programming logic to that helped me understand programming C++ when I first started learning it late high school. Without RPG Maker 2003, I don't see myself having been able to learn programming which means I would have then never found myself in a professional software development position. You could say RPG Maker changed my life . Yea the tool is limited, but it did what it needed to do and that's what really matters. Maybe one day you'll be able to move onto something with more power and flexibility to if desired, though you certainly don't have to.

Remember to worry about the needs and requirements of YOUR game and only your game. Other people aren't making your game (unless you hire them of course).

You see with me, it already has everything I could need or want. The type of game I wanna make is top-down RPG's, like what Square Enix did back in the day. Lots of people these days have forgotten the glory of the classic style top-down JRPG, and I wanna bring that beauty back to the world.

 

[FleshToDust]

You see with me, it already has everything I could need or want. The type of game I wanna make is top-down RPG's, like what Square Enix did back in the day. Lots of people these days have forgotten the glory of the classic style top-down JRPG, and I wanna bring that beauty back to the world.

You definitely only need rpg maker then! the only reason you would choose another engine would be if you want something that is hard to do in rpg maker (like real time attacking and dodging rather than turn based)

 

[bgillisp]

@FleshToDust : Right. The secret to being a good game developer is to learn what your engine is good for, and what your engine is bad for, and use it for what it does well. For example, I don't think you could use RPGMaker to make a pinball game easily, though we used to have a coder on here I think that could have done it, and would have just to be funny.

 

[LightDiviner]

@FleshToDust : Right. The secret to being a good game developer is to learn what your engine is good for, and what your engine is bad for, and use it for what it does well. For example, I don't think you could use RPGMaker to make a pinball game easily, though we used to have a coder on here I think that could have done it, and would have just to be funny.

I actually remember someone who was able to make a working megaman game with RPG Maker.

 

[Bricabrac]

I actually remember someone who was able to make a working megaman game with RPG Maker.

My favorite "let's break rpgmaker" game is the Picross game made with rpgmaker 2003!

However, even if you can do stuff like this in rpgmaker, it doesn't mean you should. This kind of experiments are usually done for the fun of breaking a system, or in case the programmer is so skilled with rpgmaker that using it for something "strange" is, paradoxically, quicker for them than learning to use another, more apt engine. Because every engine has its ups and downs, but personal experience counts as well.

Having said that, if you want to make story-rich rpgs, just keep using it! The strength of your game will be the story, anyway, not mind-blowing gameplay. Focus on the plot.

I think it's possible to earn a more mainstream appeal even if you use rpgmaker: your game just doesn't have to feel like it has been made with it. Hide/replace all the standard parts of the engine (the default menus, the battle system etc) and people wouldn't think about the engine you used. Small things like replacing the standard font can do wonders.

 

[LightDiviner]

My favorite "let's break rpgmaker" game is the Picross game made with rpgmaker 2003!

However, even if you can do stuff like this in rpgmaker, it doesn't mean you should. This kind of experiments are usually done for the fun of breaking a system, or in case the programmer is so skilled with rpgmaker that using it for something "strange" is, paradoxically, quicker for them than learning to use another, more apt engine. Because every engine has its ups and downs, but personal experience counts as well.

Having said that, if you want to make story-rich rpgs, just keep using it! The strength of your game will be the story, anyway, not mind-blowing gameplay. Focus on the plot.

I think it's possible to earn a more mainstream appeal even if you use rpgmaker: your game just doesn't have to feel like it has been made with it. Hide/replace all the standard parts of the engine (the default menus, the battle system etc) and people wouldn't think about the engine you used. Small things like replacing the standard font can do wonders.

Yeah I've been doing my best with the graphics, but it's near impossible to change 2003's battle system. If I could, I would.