Making an RPG

[madsavage]

   Okay so, by the Title of the Post, I'm sure you know at least where this will begin. I really need some advice from this community.I have been working for a while (paper and pen) on production of a game. From System to skills/classes/etc. (lots of etc...) I have minor experience in general Basic/Visual/C++ programming. That being said, learning more in-depth programming isn't an issue for me. My question boils down to choices. I have decided to use a "game maker" to put paper to CPU. Which one should I use? Following is a bit of info and rough ideas... hoping it's not a TLR moment, but...

  >> Old-School Style RPG (which it seems RPGMaker is all about...)

  >> Sort of non school Concepts (kind of think like Elder Scrolls item/spell/etc creation.)

  >> Ability to use different battle system styles

  >> Ability to have the world change based on player choices independant of pre-set programming (yeah, I know, I'm not being specific enough for this. For specific info I'd rather not post publicly, but a PM or email communication would be more specific if needed.)

  >> Using Sprite sizes and tile sizes between 8x8 and 64x64 not always in square feature (16x24, for example.)

   There's a lot more, but I'm trying to keep it short. :/

   Now, I've been playing with "Game Maker Studio" a bit, which I think is fantastic, and the compile version is less than RPGMaker by twenty dollars. I don't know if I can even ask talk about this, so apologies.if so. All I know about RPGMaker comes from a much older versions (probably the original one from all I know...) and the "Ace Lite" version I just downloaded. I don't know if the full (compile) version has more abilities, but just from the menus it doesn't SEEM to have a lot of flexibility outside of all Nostalgic Final Fantasy-esque JRPG's. Now that's an opinion based in ignorance of the product, to be sure, but what I have gathered so far from the options available. 

   I just need to know opinions of whether I should stay with Game Maker Studio (if you know anything about it) or hop over to RPGMaker VXAce. 

   Both have decent community support forums available so neither wins in that category for me, but I have spent a week (about 60hrs of time.) working on GMS tutorials+sprites+game code so I'm hesitant to "cross over" without more information from users of the product. Thanks and I appreciate your time!

**EDIT (If you read this far...): After looking through the pages a little closer, it seems RPG maker is strict on all aspects I would like different. LOL! I'm wondering if it is as appears, or is it used as a selling tactic? (IE: the battle system is Dragon Quest-style and I'd mostly prefer Final Fantasy style... Fromjust reading on the site, it seems it's only that way...) Anyway, any help is still appreciated, even if I were to use RPG Maker merely as a limited sandbox environment for what I want to do, that would still be great...

 

[Warpmind]

Well, using scripts, you can change the battle system, from the view to the actual combat mechanics; pretty much, the sky's the limit. (Within reason.)
If you're planning on an old-style JRPG, I'm pretty sure RPG Maker is the superior choice to Game Maker, merely as an aspect of specialization.
Having the world change based on player choices "independent of pre-set programming", whatever you mean by that, well, there's a lot you can do with proper Eventing alone.
Not sure how much you can do with non-standard tile sizes, though.

 

[Andar]

After looking through the pages a little closer, it seems RPG maker is strict on all aspects I would like different.

You should check the 30-day-trial instead of the lite version.
The lite version has no time limit, but is extremely limited by turning off the script access and limiting the maximums on the list.


The 30-day-trial is time-limited (30 days), but has no other limit and contains the full functionality including scripts. You can find it in the download area top right on the site.


And by using scripts, you can change anything in the game - there are scripts that turn RM Ace into an action-RPG with on-map battles, into a jump'n run sidescroller or whatever you think. The master script list contains about a thousand different scripts for adding or changing the default functions of the RM engine.

 

[madsavage]

   Thanks for the information, I'll download the trial version and play around with it. From what I've read just browsing the forums, I'll probably end up making something very script heavy if I go with RPGMaker all the way. Another questions, though.. (and thanks for reading and responding!) 

   First, I've downloaded a game from here to test. It was a nice game (winner of a contest, I wish I could remember who/what) but through playing it, I was wondering... The "F1" button called a menu with buttons ABCXYZLR, which are set to keyboard keys. This feature looks built in to RPGMaker to carry through to games. My question was, could things like this be changed via scripting the game? Could full control mapping of the keyboard for specific functions be done?

   Going to download the 30-day trial shortly and thanks again!

 

[Andar]

The "F1" button called a menu with buttons ABCXYZLR, which are set to keyboard keys.


My question was, could things like this be changed via scripting the game? Could full control mapping of the keyboard for specific functions be done?

yes, there are keyboard scripts that do that - by default, the RM engine simulates game controllers from consoles.
Follow the link in my signature, it will guide you to some sample games and gives the link to the master script list - from the short descriptions there you can see what has been done before.


The only thing that has failed so far are tries for MMO-scripts - mostly because all online and multiplayer features require a lot of work. But the first scripts for accessing online data are available already (they just aren't good enough to handle real-time multiplayer yet).