RMMV Mini-games for my BA thesis?

[Darniela]

Hello there,

I've always wanted to make an RPG game, so I got this "brilliant idea" to combine my passion for gaming with my BA thesis in linguistics (I am particularly interested in language acquisition). For my BA thesis I would like to make a fairly simple and short game that exploits the side-effect of playing nearly any game in a non-native language - that is the unconscious acquisition of vocabulary, sentence structures etc. For this purpose I need as many minigames I can get to "train" the player in certain linguistic domains without teaching them the explicit grammar rules. Can anybody help either with providing scripts/plugins or any advice in eventing if scripts aren't necessary to achieve similar results? Some of my ideas are listed below:

• tower jumping (+ adding custom text onto the platforms)
• puzzle with custom pictures
• how to make a mode where the player jumps on platforms with inscriptions (Mario style game)
• making "spells" (forming correct sentences from "ingredients")
• guitar hero? the player could choose the correct word (out of the options they are given on the fingerboard - a time-sensitive task) to complete a sentence above the fingerboard
• maybe a tetris? meaning there is a sentence on the ground and a word falling from the sky and the player has to put it at the correct position.
• anything else that you think might be of any use to me (either a mini game or a piece of advice, I'm open to suggestions and constructive criticism )

This is my first actual project in RPG maker MV (until now I've just been playing with it and binge-watching tutorials so I know the very basics - but I'm willing to learn! I also intend to create a proper game in the future...with a story and all ). It is completely non-profit + I can mention you in the credits. I can also pay for some exceptionally good stuff but as a college student I don't have much money to offer .

Thank you for reading this far and (hopefully) for your help

 

[Silva]

The issue you're going to have here, is that from your brief description I would guess a lot of these require a change the the way the core engine works in some way or another, which means plugins, and quite specific ones I would think. You need to look at how the maker actually works and think of what you can do with that. Looking at your list here's my suggestions/concerns

1. Tower Jumping - I actually don't know what you mean.

2. Puzzle with custom pictures - this can be done completely without plugins depending on the puzzle. RPG Maker lends itself to puzzles well. What you need to figure out now is what puzzle you want to do, then someone can give you advice if you get stuck with implementation.

3. Mario Style Platformer - this looks to be the most difficult because well... it's a platformer, that involves physics and non-tile based movement, which MV doesn't do out of the box. I don't know of any plugin that could do this.

4. Making Spells - Depending on how you want to make the "spells" you could use custom crafting plugins that let the player make the "spells" in a menu interface, or you could have blocks on the ground with representing words and make it a puzzle where they have to push the blocks into the correct order.

5. Guitar Hero. This is probably manageable with clever eventing. You'll likely need to adjust the keymapper (how the game interprets key presses) to suit this. I don't know of a plugin that will do this, as personally I would just script this myself. If you need to add a key to the mapper run this code:

Input.keyMapper[keycode] = 'name'

Replace keycode with a number representing the key (See here for codes), and name with whatever command you want the key to represent. So if you were using this to make the colour green to the Y key for guitar hero this would be:

Input.keyMapper[89] = 'green'

How the minigame is set up is again something you yourself need to think of and if you're having trouble with specifics then someone can help further.

6. Tetris (akin) - Change the players sprite to your word block (or change to a new actor with a word block sprite), restrict their up and down movement, have a parallel event running that forces the player to move down once every x seconds for as many tiles as there is from the top and bottom of the map. Once the tile reaches the bottom, restrict all movement, check the player's map coordinates, and if they're in the correct position they win. The only thing that might require a plugin is the movement restrictions but a quick search should turn something up.

Ultimately, my advice to you is try and do something yourself, that way you'll figure out what the engine can do and when you need help you can tell us what's not working and how it should be working, then we can direct you better.

 

[Darniela]

The issue you're going to have here, is that from your brief description I would guess a lot of these require a change the the way the core engine works in some way or another, which means plugins, and quite specific ones I would think. You need to look at how the maker actually works and think of what you can do with that. Looking at your list here's my suggestions/concerns

1. Tower Jumping - I actually don't know what you mean.

2. Puzzle with custom pictures - this can be done completely without plugins depending on the puzzle. RPG Maker lends itself to puzzles well. What you need to figure out now is what puzzle you want to do, then someone can give you advice if you get stuck with implementation.

3. Mario Style Platformer - this looks to be the most difficult because well... it's a platformer, that involves physics and non-tile based movement, which MV doesn't do out of the box. I don't know of any plugin that could do this.

4. Making Spells - Depending on how you want to make the "spells" you could use custom crafting plugins that let the player make the "spells" in a menu interface, or you could have blocks on the ground with representing words and make it a puzzle where they have to push the blocks into the correct order.

5. Guitar Hero. This is probably manageable with clever eventing. You'll likely need to adjust the keymapper (how the game interprets key presses) to suit this. I don't know of a plugin that will do this, as personally I would just script this myself. If you need to add a key to the mapper run this code:

Input.keyMapper[keycode] = 'name'

Replace keycode with a number representing the key (See here for codes), and name with whatever command you want the key to represent. So if you were using this to make the colour green to the Y key for guitar hero this would be:

Input.keyMapper[89] = 'green'

How the minigame is set up is again something you yourself need to think of and if you're having trouble with specifics then someone can help further.

6. Tetris (akin) - Change the players sprite to your word block (or change to a new actor with a word block sprite), restrict their up and down movement, have a parallel event running that forces the player to move down once every x seconds for as many tiles as there is from the top and bottom of the map. Once the tile reaches the bottom, restrict all movement, check the player's map coordinates, and if they're in the correct position they win. The only thing that might require a plugin is the movement restrictions but a quick search should turn something up.

Ultimately, my advice to you is try and do something yourself, that way you'll figure out what the engine can do and when you need help you can tell us what's not working and how it should be working, then we can direct you better.

First of all - thank you for critically analyzing my list of ideas (I really liked your suggestions that helped me a lot in realizing the limitations of implementing my ideas in their current design + possible alterations that need to be undertaken)

1) The Tower Jump is basically a platform game - only the player advances upwards while constantly jumping and cannot return to the lower levels. I assume it has the same drawbacks as the Mario platformer (non-tile based movement, physics...). I came up with a pretty easy solution for the linguistic task I want the player to perform in this mini game after I sent the post - I could make a map with 3 paths on which there will be words laid on the ground. The player would need to pass through this "obstacle" by choosing one of the words. Now the uncorrect word tiles would have an event assigned to them that would be triggered by stepping on them. The player would need to find the right path and would get penalized for stepping on the wrong words.

Spoiler: Illustration Picture

4) I like your suggestions concerning the spell making - I think both options you've proposed are achievable and could even serve as two separate tasks.

I will look into your instructions for "Tetris" and "Guitar Hero".

Thanks to your answer I have a lot to think about and try out! Thank you!

 

[Silva]

I'm still struggling a little with your description of the tower jump game, your image isn't showing so I can't use that for reference either. Either way, you could always still follow the platformer 'style' ie, move sideways (or upwards) and jump over gaps and obstacle, whilst still tied to the tiles, and you could just have a jump be a fixed height and distance removing the need for physics. The gameplay would be different but visually you could probably convey the same information - which is ultimately what you're trying to do.

Regarding your spell making, if you need a crafting plugin you might check out Yanfly's Item Synthesis for the menu based one. There's also this evented crafting system tutorial, if you want something more involved but not quite a puzzle.

 

[Darniela]

I'm still struggling a little with your description of the tower jump game, your image isn't showing so I can't use that for reference either. Either way, you could always still follow the platformer 'style' ie, move sideways (or upwards) and jump over gaps and obstacle, whilst still tied to the tiles, and you could just have a jump be a fixed height and distance removing the need for physics. The gameplay would be different but visually you could probably convey the same information - which is ultimately what you're trying to do.

Regarding your spell making, if you need a crafting plugin you might check out Yanfly's Item Synthesis for the menu based one. There's also this evented crafting system tutorial, if you want something more involved but not quite a puzzle.

Hello again,
Thank you for all the previous suggestions, I've been researching them and improving on my thesis. I have stumbled upon a problem with one of the tasks though - I changed the tetris idea to fit the linguistic task at hand. Here's a screenshot:

Spoiler: falling objects

Basically, what I want is for the player to interact with the captain who then lets them into the boat (I know how to do that). When on the boat, the captain should always say some sentence with a gap, e.g. "I have a present ___ you", the objects in the sky (crystals - I plan to change the graphics for tiles with various prepositions written on them) should start falling down and the player should chose which one to catch ("for" in this case). I tried eventing this (conditional branch : if vehicle: boat is driven > moving route down) but that didn't work. Then I tried control switches (the events surrounding the boat are supposed to turn on the crystal falling event). I also tried Yanfly's Move Route Core plugin but ...maybe I'm using it wrong? I'll be happy for any advice

 

[Restart]

If you haven't taken a look at slime forest, you probably should, since they had very similar design goals.

 

[Silva]

Hi Darniela, glad to see you're still working on your project.

Depending on how you want the falling blocks to move will require different approaches. Do you want them to move one tile for every one tile that the boat moves? Do you want them to move based on a time interval eg. every 2 seconds the blocks move one tile? Or do you have a different idea for how this should work?

I think it might also be helpful to see what you have set up already. Can you provide screenshots of the event pages for the trigger events surrounding the boat and the falling blocks events?

 

[Darniela]

Hi Darniela, glad to see you're still working on your project.

Depending on how you want the falling blocks to move will require different approaches. Do you want them to move one tile for every one tile that the boat moves? Do you want them to move based on a time interval eg. every 2 seconds the blocks move one tile? Or do you have a different idea for how this should work?

I think it might also be helpful to see what you have set up already. Can you provide screenshots of the event pages for the trigger events surrounding the boat and the falling blocks events?

Thank you, RPG maker is my new obsession now
Here are the screenshots (I bet there is some mistake in my chain of thought, I'm still becoming familiar with the switches and variables and such):

Spoiler: screenshots

About the falling object- the object should start falling after the question is given by the captain. It should move based on a time interval, maybe with a possibility of speeding up in time (it would start on 1 tile/2seconds and then speed up to 1 tile/1 second etc.). When I've figured out how to make the object fall I'll also need to make the ship catch it or let it sink (that might require a script for the catching, the sinking can just trigger some stock animation and then the event would disappear - that'll be doable by a simple eventing). Right now I need the object to start falling, the latter will have to be resolved later
Anyway thanks for help and I'll be happy for any advice

 

[Silva]

Ok, a few options but I think the easiest would be to remove the event commands from your crystal events, and set up your common event with the trigger being parallel, this will cause it to loop and won't stop the player from moving. Set the switch to your start falling switch.

In the contents of your common event set a movement route for each of your crystals, each one will contain "Move Down". None of the options boxes should be ticked. After the move routes add in a wait command for 120 frames (2 seconds). Job done. Your crystals will now move downwards.

See below for images (my crystals are events 4-6)

Spoiler: Movement Route

Spoiler: Common Event

If you want to have the common event only move the crystals a set number of times you can add an event command to the events surrounding the boat that sets a variable to 0. Add a new page to these event, it should have no contents and the page condition should be switch 5 is on - this will stop the variable from being reset accidentally.

From there you can add an event command at the end of the common event that increases this variable by 1. Finally add a conditional branch with the condition "if variable >= x" with x being the number of times you want the crystal to move down - within this branch turn off switch 5 to stop crystals falling. From there you can move on to handling checking if the player has caught the right word etc.

Spoiler: Expanded Common Event

Additionally, I'm not sure how your tile passability settings are, but it might be worth considering turning "Through" on for your crystals.

 

[Darniela]

Ok, a few options but I think the easiest would be to remove the event commands from your crystal events, and set up your common event with the trigger being parallel, this will cause it to loop and won't stop the player from moving. Set the switch to your start falling switch.

In the contents of your common event set a movement route for each of your crystals, each one will contain "Move Down". None of the options boxes should be ticked. After the move routes add in a wait command for 120 frames (2 seconds). Job done. Your crystals will now move downwards.

See below for images (my crystals are events 4-6)

Spoiler: Movement Route

View attachment 120104

Spoiler: Common Event

View attachment 120105

If you want to have the common event only move the crystals a set number of times you can add an event command to the events surrounding the boat that sets a variable to 0. Add a new page to these event, it should have no contents and the page condition should be switch 5 is on - this will stop the variable from being reset accidentally.

From there you can add an event command at the end of the common event that increases this variable by 1. Finally add a conditional branch with the condition "if variable >= x" with x being the number of times you want the crystal to move down - within this branch turn off switch 5 to stop crystals falling. From there you can move on to handling checking if the player has caught the right word etc.

Spoiler: Expanded Common Event

View attachment 120109

Additionally, I'm not sure how your tile passability settings are, but it might be worth considering turning "Through" on for your crystals.

Hello again,
Sorry for not replying to your suggestions - I have lost all my data (and then accidentally replaced what was left of the files with files from a new project when trying to recover the old data)! So, I've been forced to let go of some tasks (including the "tetris" one), redo everything from scratch and focus on fewer tasks. I'm nearing the end of my game developement and I would like to ask you about the export. Since I need the game to be as accessible as possible, I was thinking about uploading it on a website (so that the kids won't have to downolad it). My thesis supervisor suggested I let the kids play it during the Christmas break at home. Is there any way of knowing whether the kids will have played the game though? Is there any way to see who's played/finished the game? So, can you please either give me an advice on or point me in direction of some info about how to export the game to a website (and what website should I set up? I'm thinking about Wordpress but I'm not sure) and if there's any way to check on the players?

Sorry if it's too much to ask but you have helped me a lot from the very beginning so I'm asking you once again

 

[Silva]

Hi Darniela, unfortunately I'm not too knowledgeable when it comes to web deployment, or working with websites in general so can't offer much in the way of assistance this time. I did find this tutorial that might be of some use to you though.

https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/inde...ebsite-like-youtube-video.110630/#post-982310

In terms of keeping track of player progress across the board I think it's probably possible but again outwith my abilities - hopefully someone else can chime in with a solution.

 

[Darniela]

Hi Darniela, unfortunately I'm not too knowledgeable when it comes to web deployment, or working with websites in general so can't offer much in the way of assistance this time. I did find this tutorial that might be of some use to you though.

https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/inde...ebsite-like-youtube-video.110630/#post-982310

In terms of keeping track of player progress across the board I think it's probably possible but again outwith my abilities - hopefully someone else can chime in with a solution.

Hi Silva,
Thank you for your swift response, the tutorial you've recommended is pretty helpful (and also beginner friendly, which is just what I need). I'll try asking somebody who specialises in web development about these technicalities, thanks for pointing me in the right direction though