RMMZ of Destiny (Series) Seeking Help!

[ZenStarwalker]

For 15 Years I have been working on stories, music, characters, plot, etc.. for a JRPG & Anime/Manga series called: of Destiny
I've tried UE4 and other engines only to get stuck learning coding and being useless with 3d modelling.
I thought all hope was lost til' I discovered RPG Maker MZ.
I've already learned a lot in a short time & got my music in game and took my HD map and drew it in pixel form in RPG maker.
I would love some help, I would really appreciate any help I can get as this project is very ambitious with a critically deep storyline, strong enough to make waves in the JRPG scene.
Heavily Inspired by Chrono Trigger/Cross, Final Fantasy & the Tales of Series. I already have a good line of stuff to show @ofDestinySeries including art, concepts, title screen, map and a partially released OST.
I make all my own music, not just in gaming but also in the genres of Hip Hop, EDM & Metal @ZenStarwalker6ix

Engine: RPG Maker MZ

Synopsis: The game will have many elements from games such as final fantasy 5-10, chrono trigger, chrono cross, tales of series and wild arms though everything will be completely original. The story (without giving too much away) is based on a world where everyone is at war and non human species are being hunted down, killed, traded, used in trafficking and one boy from another world & the guardian deity from the current world are their only hope. The mechanics will be similar to the above mentioned games, however the turned based battle system will be active and have a certain twist never seen before in a rpg (I can disclose what publicly). The story is very deep, heart breaking, empowering and sad and a lot of elements of the game revolve around music, art & deeply involves magic. The series also has its own language and alphabet which took me 6 years to complete, and no object in the game has a native English word. water is not called water, magick is not called magick, grass is not called grass, a sword is not called a sword (you get the idea). Another mechanic feature id like to implement is a active day/night cycle where certain enemies, quests and events only happen as day, night, dusk, dawn and a special time that happens once a month which the name and mechanic i can not disclose at this time. I am also aiming to have all assets, tiles, characters, spells, effects & buildings be custom and not available for the public until after the games launch.

Positions/Roles Needed:
- Some help learning the engine deeper than what I can learn in tutorials
- Someone who can draw clean anime characters & bonus if you can do motion animation too for cutscenes (I want to learn too)
- Someone who can make pixel art & custom assets (I can do stuff like grass/trees/flowers/mountains, etc.. just not characters)
- Someone who can make motion pixel art for custom battle effects (I can handle all sound effects)

My Role(s)/Position(s): pixel art (im not good at character but everything else is learnable), writing (I wrote and continue to write the whole story, additional ideas negotiable), music (ive already created several songs and am making more), mapping (Already have the base map done in HD graphics and just finished the basic map in pixel in engine), character design (though I can not draw very well or color/shade), plot, etc...

 

[EchoTULF]

I've messaged you some questions! Your game looks cool!

 

[HexMozart88]

OK, so let me preface this by saying that I think it's promising that you have social media for this.

There are some things that you need to fix in your post.
1. People don't usually buy into "This is going to make waves" when you have a couple of drawings and a very vague description to show for yourself. I'd like to help you, but I'd like to see you actually start the game first.
2. "Based on Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy" is usually an instant turnoff for people looking to help you. *What* is based on Chrono Trigger? Usually that denotes "I have made the most basic RPG possible and I have not put any time into changing the game"
3. I understand you don't want to spoil the whole game, but you gotta tell us *something*. You're not really giving much to go off of here.
4. Spending 6 years on a language system is cool, but irrelevant to the game. It's background lore. People want to see the *game*.
5. Seems like the typical thing here of "I'm making a huge, million dollar game, but I can't pay anyone to work on it." I can't say much here because I normally do free work myself, but you're asking for animated cutscenes for FREE. As a hobbyist animator, just doing an 8 frame walk cycle is a huge amount of work. If you truly believe in this game and believe it will make it somewhere, make a Kickstarter, make something playable, and people will give you money to hire professional help.

In short, I think you have a good thing here, I just want more of it before I devote myself to a free project. Also, sorry if this sounds really mean, but I'm trying to save you from going through what I've gone through, which is lots of flakiness from volunteers and wasted time.

 

[RCXGaming]

... Right. Let's put on the critic goggles for this one.

Spoiler: Spoiled because it's quite long

this project is very ambitious with a critically deep storyline, strong enough to make waves in the JRPG scene.

Starting off with this line is enough to kneecap interest in your game because it's extremely presumptuous even if your writing were actually decent.

No person that makes JRPGs goes in thinking that their product will be so good that it will "make waves" across the scene. Ignoring the fact that this is just going to set you up for disappointment if it turns out not to be true, you have this being your first project working against you too.

There's a big reason people on the forums here say to not make your first project your most ambitious one. It's that your first game will almost always be your worst take due to not having experience with either the engine or game design dealing with the types of games this engine outputs.

Simply playing the games you were inspired by isn't good enough, which brings me to my second point:

The game will have many elements from games such as final fantasy 5-10, chrono trigger, chrono cross, tales of series and wild arms though everything will be completely original.

Don't do this specific thing. Comparing your games to successful, often landmark titles in the JRPG scene is actually a common cliche that only winds up making you look derivative and shallow.

Primary reason being that... yes, I know about these games... but what exactly are you taking from them? The art? The combat system? Mechanics? The story structure and character personalities?

I hear Chrono Trigger in particular passed along all the time along with Earthbound, but it often comes off as a buzzword to trick people since in practice a lot of the "inspired" games wind up taking superficial aspects or don't understand how those games actually worked.

The story (without giving too much away) is based on a world where everyone is at war and non human species are being hunted down, killed, traded, used in trafficking and one boy from another world & the guardian deity from the current world are their only hope.

This sounds like a very typical isekai story. You genuinely have to sell people on this premise with your writing, based on how big you're building this up to be.

however the turned based battle system will be active and have a certain twist never seen before in a rpg (I can disclose what publicly)

So... ATB (Active Turn Battle) with some twist? I severely doubt it's "never been seen before", even if it's something weird and out of the ordinary.

My concern would be "is it fun? Does this twist make playing the game more fun than a game that doesn't have it?"

the series also has its own language and alphabet which took me 6 years to complete, and no object in the game has a native English word. water is not called water, magick is not called magick, grass is not called grass, a sword is not called a sword (you get the idea).

*deep breath*

Alright. So... I appreciate the valor that goes into developing your own language system, but I feel this will just alienate people who try to play your game, especially if the new words are almost completely detached from what we as players will recognize.

It just comes with the territory of making something completely original, and I fear this might be a lot of work for not much in return, especially if your players don't care about the lore of your world. (Which is quite common, since a lot of people just want to play the game)

Another mechanic feature id like to implement is a active day/night cycle where certain enemies, quests and events only happen as day, night, dusk, dawn and a special time that happens once a month which the name and mechanic i can not disclose at this time.

This seems like quite a lot of work, especially for a first project. Wouldn't it be smarter to make a game in this universe that doesn't have this big of a scope so you can familiarize yourself with MZ and have feedback before you actually try this kind of thing?

Positions/Roles Needed:
- Some help learning the engine deeper than what I can learn in tutorials
- Someone who can draw clean anime characters & bonus if you can do motion animation too for cutscenes (I want to learn too)
- Someone who can make pixel art & custom assets (I can do stuff like grass/trees/flowers/mountains, etc.. just not characters)
- Someone who can make motion pixel art for custom battle effects (I can handle all sound effects)

What are you paying for each position? Because if you expect volunteers to help you for free, especially for something as hard and time-consuming as art and animation, then this might not end well for you.

Just ask any of the artists here what their rates are.

I wish you godspeed.

 

[TheAM-Dol]

Let's put on the critic goggles for this one.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

make waves in the JRPG scene

The series also has its own language and alphabet

Yeah mate, that sounds terrible. I'm thinking of all the games that I have played that thought they were cute by changing established naming schemes and only wound up frustrating me because I was basically forced to add a layer of interpretation to my vocabulary. I already struggle enough learning the real language of the country I live in, and here I need to learn the language otherwise...you know...I can't communicate with folks (although Google-sensei does an okay job to help me get by). The last thing I want is to be forced to learn a language just to play a game.

I would like to direct you to this very valuable and informative thread:
Valuable Thread for Learning

I'll give you the same advice RCX gave you and probably a bunch of other folks will give you:

Make a small game, learn the engine.
Your story reminds me of myself. I too wanted to make a game, I wrote out my magnum opus on a massively long design doc explaining the ins and outs of the mechanics of the game, then I set out to learn Unity...and failed to grasp programming...so I tried Unreal...and failed to grasp Blueprints...so I tried Unity again...made a garbo game and....still felt like I didn't understand.
So I moved to RPG Maker, but I didn't start with my magnum opus. My first RPG Maker game I never released publicly, it's...it's really bad. 3 small rooms, some unbalanced fights, and a bunch of poorly placed tiles.
My second RPG Maker game is slightly more competently put together, though still has their air of "amateur" about it.
I'm working on my third game and while more complete of a package by a country mile than the previous 2 games, is still mostly an exercise in learning for my magnum opus - which, likely my magnum opus won't even be the next game I make.

You and I both come from a music background too, so I can appreciate all the similarities we have...but...uh...yeah, good luck with this, I think diving head first into game design without understanding your tools is going to lead to frustration, development hell, and a poor product if it even manages to be seen to the end.

p.s.
My first RPG Maker game was called "Fidel & The Little Game", the second game "Fidel & The Maker's Trial", the current game I am working on "Fidel & The Pauper's Paradox"...can you guess what my magnum opus might be about? As RCX has mentioned: there's nothing wrong with just building your first, small games, in the world of your magnum opus. You get the pleasure of realizing this world you have dreamed about, but without the high stakes of making an ambitious game.

 

[Arthran]

Most of what I'd tell you has already been covered by everyone else, so I'll just mention a couple of additional things.

Firstly, there's the part where you say that you've been working on the game for 15 years. In your mind, maybe that is supposed to show us how serious you are about the project or something. But in my mind, it kinda does the opposite. 15 years is a really long time, and if all you've got to show for it is a title screen and a few concept sketches, it's hard not to have some questions about your drive, focus, and aptitude. I don't mean that as an insult... I'm just saying that people are going to be reluctant to climb aboard a ship if it doesn't seem like it's actually going to go anywhere. Since, for all practical intents and purposes, this project has not even reached a stage that could be called "infancy", it might be better to just drop the "15 years" and "6 years" tidbits out of your pitch.

Then there's the part where you mention that you've hopped around between multiple engines. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that, but personally, I'd view it as a bit of a red flag when considering joining a project, because how do I know that you're not going to jump ship a month from now and decide that you'd rather do the project in Godot or something? You're asking people to devote a lot of time and effort to your project, and I think they'd generally be reluctant to get invested if they don't feel confident in your stability. It might be in your best interest to cut that little tidbit out of your project pitch.

In any case, the best way for you to alleviate these concerns is to start making a game, so that you've some progress to show people. If all you're lacking is art, then there's no reason why you can't get started on the other stuff. You can use the RTP, or some cheap DLCs, as placeholder art for now, and just replace it later.

 

[ZenStarwalker]

1. The more i give out, the more can be stolen and used before I can get it out there. I agree there's not a lot to go off, but i've given out too much already.
2. inspired by, not based on. and not gameplay wise, story rich wise.
3. I have NDA's for that very reason
4. Tell that to the millions of people who speak and write in elvish and clingon lol.
5. I had offered money but the MOD told me I can not. This is a free help forum and payments is against TOS. And sadly the last 4 artists i've paid up front never delivered anything, and ceased communication, i'm even in a dispute with an artist through paypal right now cause i paid up front, she told me 3-5 days for a drawing and then vanished. And yes I understand how hard animation is, i've dabbled, and I can draw some pretty amazing stuff if you go look at the instagram, but I can't draw cell shade anime so im stuck there. and Yes the purpose of the Art piece is to have something amazing as the cover to put on a crowdfunding campaign. I've tried that route before and got 1 donation of 19$ when I was trying to raise 5000. and sadly if you don't have a ton of money to throw at kickstarter and gofundme promo, good luck getting anyone to see it besides friends and family.

I would have no problem revealing more after the signing of the NDA.

 

[ZenStarwalker]

Right. I get where you are coming from and that's a lot to respond to but jus trust that I've poured my heart and soul into this, to the point where ive spent hours of sleep deprivation developing it and the music for it. i've even picked my pen back up and started designing new character and enemies. as far as my most ambitious, i wouldn't say that, considering it is my first project, but its ambitious enough to not just be another rpg maker game. and rpg maker is just a placeholder to release a simplified version of the game as I am going to college for game development and design in january. but this is the first game in the series and like the trails games, i want to start with the roots, classic style jrpg. The similarities to chrono trigger, final fantasy, etc.. only go as far as it being a very deep story. the language as well, seems like this whole deal cause things have different names but its no different than calling magic: mana, or calling water: aqua. and its about as involved as al-behd language is in final fantasy 10. as far as payment as i told someone else on here, i had my thread held and a mod said i can't offer money. and also the last few artists who promised they could deliver and i paid them up front, ghosted me. so i rather see who actually wants to be involved then go from there.

... Right. Let's put on the critic goggles for this one.

Spoiler: Spoiled because it's quite long

Starting off with this line is enough to kneecap interest in your game because it's extremely presumptuous even if your writing were actually decent.

No person that makes JRPGs goes in thinking that their product will be so good that it will "make waves" across the scene. Ignoring the fact that this is just going to set you up for disappointment if it turns out not to be true, you have this being your first project working against you too.

There's a big reason people on the forums here say to not make your first project your most ambitious one. It's that your first game will almost always be your worst take due to not having experience with either the engine or game design dealing with the types of games this engine outputs.

Simply playing the games you were inspired by isn't good enough, which brings me to my second point:



Don't do this specific thing. Comparing your games to successful, often landmark titles in the JRPG scene is actually a common cliche that only winds up making you look derivative and shallow.

Primary reason being that... yes, I know about these games... but what exactly are you taking from them? The art? The combat system? Mechanics? The story structure and character personalities?

I hear Chrono Trigger in particular passed along all the time along with Earthbound, but it often comes off as a buzzword to trick people since in practice a lot of the "inspired" games wind up taking superficial aspects or don't understand how those games actually worked.



This sounds like a very typical isekai story. You genuinely have to sell people on this premise with your writing, based on how big you're building this up to be.



So... ATB (Active Turn Battle) with some twist? I severely doubt it's "never been seen before", even if it's something weird and out of the ordinary.

My concern would be "is it fun? Does this twist make playing the game more fun than a game that doesn't have it?"



*deep breath*

Alright. So... I appreciate the valor that goes into developing your own language system, but I feel this will just alienate people who try to play your game, especially if the new words are almost completely detached from what we as players will recognize.

It just comes with the territory of making something completely original, and I fear this might be a lot of work for not much in return, especially if your players don't care about the lore of your world. (Which is quite common, since a lot of people just want to play the game)



This seems like quite a lot of work, especially for a first project. Wouldn't it be smarter to make a game in this universe that doesn't have this big of a scope so you can familiarize yourself with MZ and have feedback before you actually try this kind of thing?



What are you paying for each position? Because if you expect volunteers to help you for free, especially for something as hard and time-consuming as art and animation, then this might not end well for you.

Just ask any of the artists here what their rates are.

I wish you godspeed.

 

[ZenStarwalker]

Couldn't have said it better myself.





Yeah mate, that sounds terrible. I'm thinking of all the games that I have played that thought they were cute by changing established naming schemes and only wound up frustrating me because I was basically forced to add a layer of interpretation to my vocabulary. I already struggle enough learning the real language of the country I live in, and here I need to learn the language otherwise...you know...I can't communicate with folks (although Google-sensei does an okay job to help me get by). The last thing I want is to be forced to learn a language just to play a game.

I would like to direct you to this very valuable and informative thread:
Valuable Thread for Learning

I'll give you the same advice RCX gave you and probably a bunch of other folks will give you:

Make a small game, learn the engine.
Your story reminds me of myself. I too wanted to make a game, I wrote out my magnum opus on a massively long design doc explaining the ins and outs of the mechanics of the game, then I set out to learn Unity...and failed to grasp programming...so I tried Unreal...and failed to grasp Blueprints...so I tried Unity again...made a garbo game and....still felt like I didn't understand.
So I moved to RPG Maker, but I didn't start with my magnum opus. My first RPG Maker game I never released publicly, it's...it's really bad. 3 small rooms, some unbalanced fights, and a bunch of poorly placed tiles.
My second RPG Maker game is slightly more competently put together, though still has their air of "amateur" about it.
I'm working on my third game and while more complete of a package by a country mile than the previous 2 games, is still mostly an exercise in learning for my magnum opus - which, likely my magnum opus won't even be the next game I make.

You and I both come from a music background too, so I can appreciate all the similarities we have...but...uh...yeah, good luck with this, I think diving head first into game design without understanding your tools is going to lead to frustration, development hell, and a poor product if it even manages to be seen to the end.

p.s.
My first RPG Maker game was called "Fidel & The Little Game", the second game "Fidel & The Maker's Trial", the current game I am working on "Fidel & The Pauper's Paradox"...can you guess what my magnum opus might be about? As RCX has mentioned: there's nothing wrong with just building your first, small games, in the world of your magnum opus. You get the pleasure of realizing this world you have dreamed about, but without the high stakes of making an ambitious game.

its not a layer you have to learn, its very much less involved than that which will progress over the series. its just a added addition. and yes as this being the first game in a series over over 10 games written so far, its not meant to break the internet, just to give people who love jrpgs, a breath of fresh air which it seems AAA devs aren't willing to do anymore. and I agree and ive been learning and im going to college in jan for game dev/design. but I was told by many people, if you dream it, someone will want to see your dream come to life and thats why i am here. and ima check ur games out lol

 

[ZenStarwalker]

Most of what I'd tell you has already been covered by everyone else, so I'll just mention a couple of additional things.

Firstly, there's the part where you say that you've been working on the game for 15 years. In your mind, maybe that is supposed to show us how serious you are about the project or something. But in my mind, it kinda does the opposite. 15 years is a really long time, and if all you've got to show for it is a title screen and a few concept sketches, it's hard not to have some questions about your drive, focus, and aptitude. I don't mean that as an insult... I'm just saying that people are going to be reluctant to jump aboard a ship if it doesn't seem like it's actually going to go anywhere. Since, for all practical intents and purposes, this project has not even reached a stage that could be called "infancy", it might be better to just drop the "15 years" and "6 years" tidbits out of your pitch.

Then there's the part where you mention that you've hopped around between multiple engines. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that, but personally, I'd view it as a bit of a red flag when considering joining a project, because how do I know that you're not going to jump ship a month from now and decide that you'd rather do the project in Godot or something? You're asking people to devote a lot of time and effort to your project, and I think they'd generally be reluctant to get invested if they don't feel confident in your stability. It might be in your best interest to cut that little tidbit out of your project pitch.

In any case, the best way for you to alleviate these concerns is to start making a game, so that you've some progress to show people. If all you're lacking is art, then there's no reason why you can't get started on the other stuff. You can use the RTP, or some cheap DLCs, as placeholder art for now, and just replace it later.

15 years of me working full time and trying to balance my music career, family life and game development on my own. and 98% of everything ive done hasn't been posted or shown off for fear of the concepts and ideas being stolen. this is why i have a NDA written up for people who want to be involved.
and as far as using this engine, its only for the first game and maybe a few side projects, im going to college for game dev/design in 3 months. this is just the first game of 10, and its meant to be this style and rpg maker makes that easy to accomplish. ive been learning a lot, mapped out the whole map, started messing with changing everything down to the very core.

 

[Trihan]

There actually is a classifieds forum you can post paid work requests in, but you need 30 messages on your profile to access it. Participate a bit more in forum posts and you'll be there in no time! (but don't post just to pad your post count for that forum, obviously).

Here's the thing, and take this from someone who's been working on and off on the "main" game idea I had when I first found rm2k since 2001: your lack of experience with and knowledge of the engine and the market you're trying to break into are causing you to assign the effort you're putting in more value than it actually has. And I don't mean you're not working *hard* or doing anything worthwhile; what I mean is that you're thinking "and I even designed some new characters and enemies!" as something impressive, when it's literally just part of game development that every single one of us does to varying degrees. You will avoid an awful lot of misplaced expectations if you take a step back, take stock of how much you don't know, and accept just how long the road you're travelling truly is. Try not to artificially inflate the parts past their value as a whole, and you'll do just fine.

 

[ATT_Turan]

Just as a quick note, we're not supposed to double-post (and yours was a triple header!). You can reply to multiple people by simply clicking Reply on each post while you're typing - or you can use the +Quote buttons, or @tag people.

Please understand that no one is trying to insult you, but for those of us who have been around for a while, we see sentiments and descriptions like yours a lot, and our suggestions are based on experience.

1. The more i give out, the more can be stolen and used before I can get it out there. I agree there's not a lot to go off, but i've given out too much already.

No one wants to steal your ideas. Seriously, that almost universally doesn't happen. Ideas are cheap - how you implement them is what makes a game worth playing. Playing secretive and not giving actual information on why we should find your concept interesting will result in...no one being interested.

3. I have NDA's for that very reason

Just to share the impression, this stuff makes you come off as more concerned about being protective of your brainchild than in making a good game. I'm not saying you shouldn't ask people to sign something while they're working on your project but seriously - if you are a college student working on RPG Maker with no budget to hire people, you also clearly don't have the budget to sue people

4. Tell that to the millions of people who speak and write in elvish and clingon lol.

It's Klingon. And this is similar to what @RCXGaming said, where comparing yourself to Tolkien and Rodenberry with nothing to show off does nothing but make you look something between naive and pretentious (with no insult intended by either word, they're simply the accurate words).

And neither of those people designed either of those languages for heavy use in their respective creations. Go through the Lord of the Rings and tell me how many actual words in Elvish there are. Watch Star Trek and tell me how many Klingon words there are. The whole dictionary bit for both of those wasn't made until much later.

It's nothing like replacing the names of common items or words, because that's how people relate to something they're reading.

i'm even in a dispute with an artist through paypal right now cause i paid up front, she told me 3-5 days for a drawing and then vanished.

This, again, shows a lack of experience. Why are you agreeing to pay strangers an entire fee up front for a service? I would expect to put down a deposit, get shown some proof of work with watermarks or something, then pay the remainder to get the unmarked/full resolution version.

I've tried that route before and got 1 donation of 19$ when I was trying to raise 5000.

I don't know what you did for advertisement or what your Kickstarter said, but if it read anything like this post (especially with all the talk of secrets where you can't tell me why I would like the game), I wouldn't have pledged either. I think that's what most people here are telling you.

I'm not trying to discourage you from game design (no one here is), but I we're trying to get you to realize how your pitch comes off as unrealistic.

Anyway, good luck with your endeavors!

 

[woootbm]

I hate to pile on here, but there's a lot. And there's still a couple things to say that haven't been mentioned yet. Please understand we're trying to help you. These are all people who have been down these roads or seen them travelled many times before

So, first thing: the title. There's already a game called Destiny and another called Tales of Destiny. I suppose this is different enough to avoid an issue, but considering you mention "Tales of" as an influence, this seems like a bad idea.

- Some help learning the engine deeper than what I can learn in tutorials

The best way, as others have hinted at, is to make a game. Just make a small 30 minutes - 1 hour game. The reason being is that you will learn a lot from how to translate the ideas in your brain into something practical, and then which ideas work and which don't. There's always a ton of nuance that can't be taught by school or others. You just have to make it and see how it turns out. This is more important than simply learning the tool. Also, this is literally the easiest game making tool out there (that actually gives you full publishing freedom and is super-mod'able).

The game could be a little prologue, or something completely detached from the main game. If you want to flex your creativity, this should be a very reasonable task to undertake.

and yes as this being the first game in a series over over 10 games written so far, its not meant to break the internet, just to give people who love jrpgs, a breath of fresh air which it seems AAA devs aren't willing to do anymore.

10 games? Is this an episodic game where each game is like 2 hours? This is an insane number. Have you actually fully planned these out or just as ideas in your head? Regardless, for now only focus on finishing ONE game. Those other games are absolute BS for now.

I'm really not sure what the second part is supposed to mean. Sounds entirely vague. I suggest giving more concrete details like, "no manual saves" or "no microtransactions" or something that tells people what your stance is. There are innumerable reasons for people to complain about AAA gaming, 99% of which don't apply to games made in RPG Maker.

ive been learning and im going to college in jan for game dev/design.

I mean are you going to learn Unreal/Unity there? What's even the point of this project if you're going to do that so soon?

 

[TheAM-Dol]

ima check ur games out

They're pretty rough (even though I actually just released an update to fix a few bugs just last week), but sure, feel free to.

Good luck with your game project. I think everything that has been said has been said, so it's really up to you whether you want to make a change or not.

I'll leave you with one last bit of advice:
if you have trouble trusting people with payment, you can use Fiverr to hire folks. Fiverr will act as a middle man and hold your money until the commissioned artist has finished your drawing and you click the "accept" button; only until those conditions are met will the artist receive your money. Any dispute and you can have your money returned. But, imo; it's more expensive (and it's pretty tough to find a quality artist). I met my artist on Pixiv. I just reached out to her in a private message. She asked to see some social media to prove I was a real person, I asked to see a draft before I paid her. We built our work relationship on trust and I think we're both way more satisfied with the results.

 

[Soul_Narrative_Games]

What I am going to say is something similar to what other people has said. Start small, if you are just starting out. Maybe, take elements (story to gameplay integration, setting up atmosphere, etc )from this project and make a 10 to 20 minute game game so you can see what you really want from this project before committing to it. Maybe, by doing this you can further refine the state of game and cut out things that won't enhance your vision of world.

I am have been using the RPG Maker engine for 3 years (not as long as other users on the forum) and I still sometimes struggle to reign in my ambition. However, if you remain disciplined and work within reason you will be able to accomplish your goals.

As for hiring people, I think you should offer some form of compensation otherwise no one will want to work for you. For example you can do a trade with someone, where you make a song for their game and they make a character design for you.

Lastly, if you are dead set on this game and you won't waver, you should make a demo of the game a 10 to 15 minutes demo of your game (minus the flourishes like custom art and stuff and playthrough it.) You will learn a lot about a game if you strip back all the flourishes. I did this method with a game I made a month ago (Game B ) and learned that game wasn't as fun to play and the story didn't feel engaging. My previous game (Game A) I was working on. So I went back to game to Game A felt more fun to play and the story was more engaging. Both games were both bare in some spots so I was able to judge them equally.

 

[knightron]

This is going to sound harsh but honestly the pictures you provided looked pretty bad.

I did like the structure of your world. That looked good. You deserve props for that. Well done. Reminds me of Dragon Quest I a bit, but even if you did take inspiration from it, it's different enough and looks great.

The girl looks likes they were drawn by a 16 year old thinking they're a genius for putting a galaxy into the iris.
The title looks like Windows XP. As a lover of Windows XP, it better not bring any Vista vibes otherwise I'm coming for you with a knife.
For real though, that title brings hella Microsoft XP vibes and needs a change urgently. I can't believe that hasn't even been mentioned before now.

If you want help, you're going to have to disclose fragments of your game.
ATT_Turan said it beautifully;
"Ideas are cheap - how you implement them is what makes a game worth playing."
Don't be afraid to disclose a few more details. Look at what others are offering showing off their demos to get an idea.

At the least, if you really want help, look at what you've post and think to your self what have you post that gives another person any incentive to contribute to your project?

I'll leave you with that to ponder. Good luck.

 

[Nelneo]

I have to posts here. I thank for everyone who's been giving advices on @ZenStarwalker here as I've needed the same advices and suggestions, one, and two, if @ZenStarwalker still needs assisistance, I can offer help in making maps, or maybe alil bit writing, but bear with me ya cus I'm still very amateur..

Edit: on second thought, nvm, @ZenStarwalker hasn't been online since last October