What can you do with RM?

[??????]

@BlackLiquidSorrow - Yea, that is quite the achievement. Pretty complex too. Two hours though, very impressive!

@Sharm - I wish I could create tiles as good as you. Perhaps then I would actually make games that use tilesets

@lemongreen - I've always been kinda tempted to make a character selection/creation type scene (scripted). Just never something I have finalized the idea for.

@kvich - Very nice. Clocks are a pain in the ass to get working sometimes. :/

@Matseb - That is very cool. Someone should totally make a vehicle option in their battle system and script it so it works like that but using less choices and more key presses

@Indinera - Showoff

In your opinion what is the best game of those 27? I'm fairly certain there will be some (likely the earlier ones) that you feel are really bad in certain areas compared to your newer games.

@demonhead - Have you learned much Japanese from it?  How did you manage to do that?

@Jacki - I think I seen a script to do such a thing before. Not to make you feel bad, but if you still cant get it working and want such a feature it may be worth looking for?

@Icon Croc - Thats a pretty nice map you got there dude. Seems you have also done a fair amount with the engine.


You all done some pretty cool things, but I think I've got you all beat though!

 

[Indinera]

In your opinion what is the best game of those 27?

I believe "The Tale of a Common Man", made with Gemelle, and "Moonchild", are both my most consistent games.

I personally like "Asguaard" and "The Book of Legends" very much but those are difficult games, so probably not as "user-friendly" as the aforementioned two.

Kes (of Gemelle) has a double good effect on my production, decreasing my tendency to make difficult games and of course vastly improving the dialogues (it does help greatly to be native english speaker).

Finally, the Millennium series usually resonates well with the players, but it's not a personal favorite, as I prefer stand-alone games.

I'm fairly certain there will be some (likely the earlier ones) that you feel are really bad in certain areas compared to your newer games.

In general it's mostly about the quality of the writing (I wish I was born in an english-speaking country, like most RPG devs) and the assets.

With time, my writing has improved and so have the assets for my games.

 

[??????]

I love how you didn't give a single game

Do you make everything for your games or do other folk do various things too? Like, do you make al the scripts and graphics and such too? That seems like a lot of work for one person, so I assume your have had bits of help here and there?

 

[Indinera]

I love how you didn't give a single game 

Very difficult to single just one out. I prefer to give a detailed feedback.

Do you make everything for your games or do other folk do various things too?

I do most of the work in them (of course, much less when it's a collaboration) but I usually get some outside help from freelancers: scripting, artworks, in general.

Like, do you make al the scripts and graphics and such too?

I'm neither a scripter nor a graphist. I take care of all the mapping though, and I can do some basic script adjustments, if need be.

That seems like a lot of work for one person, so I assume your have had bits of help here and there?

Just a bit, see above.

In the case of a collaboration, of course, I get much less to do.

 

[bgillisp]

@Indinera: I can see why you say that. Out of those you've made and I've played, Tale of a Common Man is my favorite so far. Though I still have yet to play Book of Legends or any of the Minnenium games. I'll try to remember that Book of Legends is meant to be difficult when I play it (something that served me well the time I decided to play Gothic 2).

 

[Indinera]

The Tale of a Common Man is a blend of two very different personalities, that's probably why it comes out as the best.

I'd recommend to play The Book of Legends in casual mode at least. The RPG mode is more for hardcore players or those who have finished the game already and are up for a bigger challenge.

Finally, Moonchild is quite close to The Tale of a Common Man in terms of quality, IMO.

 

[Sharm]

Wow, lots of awesome and interesting things people have done with RM!

@Dekita:  Aw, thanks!  I wish I could script like you do.  I'd fit into my family better for one thing, they all program, I'm the only artistically minded one.  Oh well, can't master everything.  I'll just have to buy your scripts if I want some of your awesomeness.

 

[??????]

@Sharm - Yea, it does seem as though a lot of cool things can be done, and even without scripts the creation of complex events is possible, seems common for fully evented systems to be somewhat inefficient or buggy though.

I dont think that I could handle it if all my family wrote code. They would all be judging me and 'ribbing' me that my code was crap, or even worse, stealing my code as their own!! You could always get some of them to code you some awesome systems though, no?

Funnily enough, the purchasable scripts of mine that I have finished are nothing compared to what I have in the works... I feel I have completely shattered a huge boundary that RM placed before me and am now quickly progressing towards 'revolutionising RM game capabilities'. A strong statement I know, but what I've done is really impressive - at least, for a small time coder like me it is.

Ehh... whilst were all boasting, I may as well give a little sneaky peek at what I can do with RM...  Have fun speculating...

Spoiler

 

[Sharm]

They all program different things so they don't compete.  My dad is planning on helping me with the IGMC, I'm really excited.  He'll need to learn Ruby before then but that shouldn't take him very long.  I bet it only takes him a day.

Dekita, that is seriously cool.  I prefer single player but I understand the difficulty and how exciting this will be for some people.

 

[Kvich]

Just made a interesting steal item system.

No scripts used, and works exactly as I want it to work.

Basically have a "Mug" skill, that deal little damage on it's own, but have the ability to to steal gold/items/weapons.

The skill adds a state to both the attacker and the defender, then it calls a common event, where a switch is turned on, and the agility of the thief is stored in a variable, the thief is called from the state (s)he got from the attack.

Then have a troop event, where another variable store the defenders agility, a third variable roll a random number between 0 and 50.

Then it add the attackers agility, and subtract the defenders agility, to the variable, and checks if it's above a certain value, if it is, a item is stolen, and both the attacker and the defender get the former states removed, and the defender gets a new state, preventing more items to be stolen from that enemy during that battle.

 

[Geoff Moore]

The animations for the post-comp version of Ko (yup, still working on it!), like this one:

Animation is a real pain in RM

 

[??????]

@Sharm - thats a point, I thought you guys werent allowed to compete in this years igmc? Something about favouritism or something?

Or is that only the rednamed webstaff?

Kinda feel like your wanting to get into a 'my father is better' type argument, so to satisfy that... My dad could learn ruby in an hour!! ^_^

@Kvich - That sounds very complex indeed. Was there no easier way to achieve such a system - or was it a case of you wanted to make it from scratch?

@mostly useless - That little fishy is epic!  I want one!

 

[Kvich]

@Kvich - That sounds very complex indeed. Was there no easier way to achieve such a system - or was it a case of you wanted to make it from scratch?

There was likely a different and easier/better way to do it, likely a script or something, but I wanted to a way that all 4 characters if they wanted, could steal from enemies in the same turn, while applying a bit of luck and skill to the attempt, and needed a way to achieve that.

The initial leg work is a bit heavy, but now it's basically just a bit of copy/paste the troop events, and set the common event to all actors when added.

Also I wanted to test myself, and see if i could get it done.

 

[??????]

@Kvich - how long did it take you overall?

 

[Sharm]

@Dekita:  I think that rule is just for staff.  I'm not staff.  I haven't been told I couldn't join. . . . *worries*  As for my dad, no, didn't intend to get into a "mine is better" battle, I just think he's awesome is all.


@mostly useless: Aww, so cute! How'd you do that, one sprite or multiple or an effect animation?

 

[Kes]

@mostly useless, 

As has already been said, that fish is wonderful.  I want, I want, gimme, gimme now!  As well as the animation itself, I love the skull in the water.  That fish has attitude!

 

[Galenmereth]

I keep pushing the personal boundary for what I can do with RM constantly as I go along developing The Vendor. It's gotten to the point now where I have such a comprehensive codebase and comfortability working with Ace that I'll likely stick with this engine for my 2D needs for quite some time to come. Especially if those features we all hope for get added~

 

[Geoff Moore]

Thanks, all!! You won't be waiting too long now, Kes... Can't believe it's almost been a year already!

@Sharm: for that one I made the animation in Game Maker, captured it with a gif capture program, put the separate frames of the gifs into a ton of character sheets then set a custom move route for the event (triggered by another so it continues animating when Ko interacts with it) using Galv's Move Route Extras script to 'turn' the event through each frame of the animation and switch out the character sheets. Took a while, but I'm pleased with the end result.

Would it be possible to do this kind of thing with an effect animation? Any easier/quicker methods would be good to know, I searched around but couldn't find anything.

 

[Sharm]

I haven't tried it yet, but effect animations have a lot more frames to work with and can be called on a map, so it might work better. The only drawback is that the frames are a set size.

 

[Ralpf]

The "best" thing I have done is a full farming system using only 2 parallel processes (not counting the time event), and it will soon only be one parallel process (combining the 2 was obvious after the fact, the change won't take that long). Much less lag when you only have ~65 events on a map with 2 being parallel processes instead of ~105 with ~50 being parallel processes (though I had them so they weren't PP when the character was moving, which helps).

@Mostly Useless: I like the fish, doesn't look like it should be difficult but animating is definitely a pain in RPGMaker, which makes it harder then it should be. Pretty cool. The blinking is a nice touch, too.

@Dekita: Can't wait to see what you are working on, sounds good.