RPG Maker Needs To Break Its' Limits

[RATED-RKOFRANKLIN]

Commercial RPG Maker games have major limitations. They're just computer games. You're missing a large portion of the gaming community. The RPG Maker does not support systems such as Xbox Live and apps. Our commercial games would be more public if we can extend our boundaries.

Enterbrain allows us to sell games. We don't have much room to sell games in. The program is too limited outside of computer gaming. They don't offer additional programs to allow us to make our games for gaming consoles and apps. Personally I would not mind paying more for an extended program to allow us to extend our boundaries. Does anyone know if such a program exists?

 

[sabao]

They ran a survey about XNA support a while back, and I heard something along the lines of Android/mobile compatibility in IRC a while back, so I'm guessing there's something along the way. Those aside, there's a healthy supply of other options for developing on other platforms.

 

[sipac]

Absolutely agree. It'd be amazing to port games onto an android or iOS platform or even PSN/XBL. However, before this happens, I'd much rather see some (in my opinion) much needed upgrades to the RPG Maker. I'd like to see an option to Playtest a specific map rather than playtesting from the beginning. Every time I want to play a certain part of my game during testing, I have to mess around with the hierarchy in order to get a simple task accomplished. If that could be fixed before they made a big leap over onto mobile platform compatibility, that'd be great.

 

[Indinera]

I agree. The ability to port to other platforms would be the greatest addition of all. RM games have a great potential and this potential should be used to its fullest.

 

[Levi]

Well... the Indie Scene has, for most of it's existance, been primarily on PC.

Why? It was (and arguably, still is) the easiest place to distribute games. Every aspect of releasing games on PC [as opposed to consoles] is easier, so that's where the majority of the commercial indie games will be. We've only recently had the ability for "joe-blo" to release games on consoles and mobile devices, so it'll take time to catch up.

But there is now a very large audience for Indie/Small Team games on consoles [Xbox Live, iOS, Andriod/Ouya] so I agree that it'd be cool to be able to release on those platforms. But there are tons of things that EB! will have to consider if/when they make this transition. I don't know if it'll be any time soon. Even the simplest of development workflows are different when developing for consoles. Just think of the control interfaces alone. Various controller layouts, touch control etc. Consider OS, hardware etc.

But, if open a pole poll on this my answer will be "Hell yeah!"

 

[Genii Benedict]

Even the simplest of development workflows are different when developing for consoles. Just think of the control interfaces alone. Various controller layouts, touch control etc. Consider OS, hardware etc.

That, as they say, is a "nice problem to have". I'm more than happy to contend with a huge amount of re-jigging and customization, if that means my game is now available on XBLA, Android or iOS. Just IMAGINE the audience you gain, once you move from one platform to another...

GB

 

[sabao]

I'd like to see an option to Playtest a specific map rather than playtesting from the beginning. Every time I want to play a certain part of my game during testing, I have to mess around with the hierarchy in order to get a simple task accomplished.

Err, 'Set as Starting Position'? Plus you can manually change switch and variable values in test mode by pressing F9. I'm not entirely sure what you're looking for, but these have worked for me just fine for years.

 

[RyanA]

Maybe a good feature would be to let us put games we make on our PC versions on to the XBLA or whatever it is. I'm sure some PC magic somewhere could make that happen ;3

While we're on the subject of breaking limits too...I'd like to have a VX tile system...with a second layer. You click it in the top bar and it opens up a new layer, so we can do stuff that we do with events now ;3 I'd also like....half step tiles!! Yes I'd like to have the tile grid as it is now, but with half a step in between each tile instead of a full step...I'm sorry if I didn't explain it right, but it would be like...having 2 flowers on two tiles right next to each other, but then having one in the middle too, if that makes sense? :3 That would be wonderful~

 

[sabao]

Sorry, lost track of what I was supposed to say on the topic earlier, but here goes.

At most, I'm hoping for mobile support--Android or iOS. I've no knowledge on the newer portables, and I'd stay away from console dev. HD graphics and all that. I'd rather not. But yeah unless something's already in the works, a new RM may take a while. Unlike with previous iterations they may have had a base to start with, but this time around they may need to build an entirely new engine from scratch.

 

[Lunarea]

As far as I know, something is in the works to allow for porting to X-Box. Not sure how far along it is, but it's being worked on.

 

[Genii Benedict]

As far as I know, something is in the works to allow for porting to X-Box. Not sure how far along it is, but it's being worked on.

I am - officially - throwing my hat in the ring as a challenge. Enterbrain, if you're reading this, I challenge you to finish your port programming before I finish my first commercial release.



GB

p.s. (pretty please?)

 

[Mitchell]

We are currently testing an XBox XNA exporter but have run into some issues.

The biggest issue (in my mind) is that third party (user created) scripts aren't going to work by default.

They need to be converted into C# first.

We are looking at possibly talking to the developers of the most popular scripts available for commercial use

and seeing if we can work out a deal to get them converted.

That being said, one of our testers was able to get his game up and running fairly smoothly on an xbox.

I will continue following up on this with EB.

I am pushing hard to have the following created/worked on in the next year.

- xbox

- mac OS

- android

- ios

- vita

Any other suggestions?

thanks,

Mitchell

p.s. we would most likely have to charge for these exporters but we are hoping to keep the costs for them fairly reasonable.

 

[Indinera]

That's great news, although those changes won't affect XP unfortunately, so for me personally it's not that great (yet).

You're right though, each custom script is going to be a complication when exporting the game to new platforms.

This is probably the main problem devs are going to face.

 

[Necromus]

Why exactly would custom scripts be a problem, aslong they only add to the already existing functions and classes of the default scripts and don't tool around with API?

 

[Fomar0153]

Why exactly would custom scripts be a problem, aslong they only add to the already existing functions and classes of the default scripts and don't tool around with API?

Because the xbox doesn't run ruby but it can run c# and xna. What this means is that NO existing script will work on the xbox. I know I'm going to have fun tracking down every single instance of the script call event I used. Anyway I'm quite likely to port most of my scripts, I already have experience using C# and XNA. Biggest concern for me is that C# is no where near as flexible as ruby, as such I can't imagine any way where we can just release scripts in a copy paste format.

Edit:

Optimistic me would love to see rpg maker on the Ouya if it delivers.

 

[Shaz]

PLEASE do it for XP too, and not just Ace.

 

[Indinera]

PLEASE do it for XP too, and not just Ace.

PLEASE

 

[crimcrim]

Would the additions to expanding the platform market be an add-on or it's own maker? As in, would there be an addition to ACE to convert existing games to Mac, XBL etc or would it have to be it's own maker.

 

[Shaz]

Mitchell described it as an "exporter" - sounds like there would be one for each platform. Maybe not even an add-on, but a tool completely separate to the editor, is what I'm thinking when I read his post.

 

[BigEd781]

Absolutely agree. It'd be amazing to port games onto an android or iOS platform or even PSN/XBL. However, before this happens, I'd much rather see some (in my opinion) much needed upgrades to the RPG Maker. I'd like to see an option to Playtest a specific map rather than playtesting from the beginning. Every time I want to play a certain part of my game during testing, I have to mess around with the hierarchy in order to get a simple task accomplished. If that could be fixed before they made a big leap over onto mobile platform compatibility, that'd be great.

You can already do that by simply changing the player's start position. It seems to me though that what you really want is a way to start the game at any logical point, i.e., the state of various variables/switches/etc. would be modified to what they would logically be when the player first entered an arbitrary map. Unfortunately there is no way that the editor could possibly know what state the game should be in when a map is entered for the first time.

Biggest concern for me is that C# is no where near as flexible as ruby, as such I can't imagine any way where we can just release scripts in a copy paste format.

Yes, it's called static typing, which is a mechanism that catches (and prevents) certain classes of errors before the program is ever run instead of occurring at runtime, which crashes your application. It's a good thing, really.