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Hey GAF, let's make an RPG Maker Game Competition!

BGBW

Maturity, bitches.
I've always wanted to build something in this just for fun, and this may be a good chance to do so! Don't know when I can pick up that bundle because my wallet is pretty flat, but once I do I could see myself participating.
Well you have three days left. At worst, go for the dollar option.
 

esterk

Member
So...I can forsee that the toughest part of creating this (for me) will be game balancing. Anyone have any tips/advice on that end? Or just test the hell out of it?
 

Rapstah

Member
Auto-tiles are pretty smart, I originally thought they were a pain in the ass and just wanted to bypass them entirely, but they end up pretty useful in practice.

Doing a space RPG with some what I consider fun ideas but I'll wait a while to share pictures because it's still very rough.
 

Aon

Member
So...I can forsee that the toughest part of creating this (for me) will be game balancing. Anyone have any tips/advice on that end? Or just test the hell out of it?

Passed a certain point self-testing doesn't even work as well as you'd think it would for something that's just hard numbers. Gotta get other people, perhaps us in the thread, testing that stuff.
 

PsionBolt

Member
So...I can forsee that the toughest part of creating this (for me) will be game balancing. Anyone have any tips/advice on that end? Or just test the hell out of it?

Rigorous testing is of course a must, but if your game is any kind of sizable, you'll go mad trying to test everything by hand. It's important to be able to math your way through "testing" without actually playing the game.
A little tip that I always reccomend is think about damage in terms of "hits", not raw numbers. For example, against an ememy with 100 HP, there's no actual difference at all between dealing amounts of damage 50 ~ 99. It'll take two hits.
When balancing your damage and HP numbers, compare skills directly to the monsters they'll likely be used against, and think in hits. After that, all you have to do is work out a rough average resource consumption per turn (HP, MP, items, etc.), and then you can balance encounters around how many turns they take to complete, and therefore balance skills around how many hits of them you'd need to kill things. It all ties together in the end.
 

RPGCrazied

Member
Good luck all. I love 16-bit, 32-bit RPG's. So many memories. I have like 0 creative talent, so I'll just play some of them if they get made.
 

nicoga3000

Saint Nic
Steam sale ends in 2 hours, right? I want to buy the DS and DS+ resource packs. Also, I just found the Samurai Resource Pack on my external! I forgot that they gave it away shortly after release for some promotion.
 

esterk

Member
Steam sale ends in 2 hours, right? I want to buy the DS and DS+ resource packs. Also, I just found the Samurai Resource Pack on my external! I forgot that they gave it away shortly after release for some promotion.
June 5th, so there is still a few days left.

Thanks for the input on testing out guys. The problem I have is with numbers - I'm not bad at math but keeping all of them in relation to each others is kind of tough for me. PsionBolt, I'll try and think of them in those terms - that's a pretty good idea, thanks!
 

pompidu

Member
Subscribed. Can't wait to see the final results, I've always wanted to dabble in rppg maker but can never find the time.
 

Dusk Golem

A 21st Century Rockefeller
June 5th, so there is still a few days left.

Thanks for the input on testing out guys. The problem I have is with numbers - I'm not bad at math but keeping all of them in relation to each others is kind of tough for me. PsionBolt, I'll try and think of them in those terms - that's a pretty good idea, thanks!

He means the Steam sale as those DLCs aren't in the RPG Maker Bundle.

And yes, the RPG Maker Steam Sale ends in an hour forty minutes from this post. If you want to pick-up any DLC 75% off, now is the time to do it.
 

BrettWeir

Member
Always wanted to try the RPG Maker games, so I got the $12 Humble Bundle. After installing everything, then opening up the program, I feel completely overwhelmed......
 

Dusk Golem

A 21st Century Rockefeller
Always wanted to try the RPG Maker games, so I got the $12 Humble Bundle. After installing everything, then opening up the program, I feel completely overwhelmed......

Just take some time to get to know the interface. The tutorials in the OP should be helpful, some video guides too.
 

nicoga3000

Saint Nic
He means the Steam sale as those DLCs aren't in the RPG Maker Bundle.

And yes, the RPG Maker Steam Sale ends in an hour forty minutes from this post. If you want to pick-up any DLC 75% off, now is the time to do it.

Sorry, yeah - this is what I was asking. Bought the $12 bundle, but the DS and DS+ packs are amazing. I love them. My lunch is in ~30 minutes, so I'll head home and grab those then.

Any other resource packs you guys like that weren't included in the bundle? I won't bother with the music packs because there is a TON of free music out there with proper credit...
 

esterk

Member
He means the Steam sale as those DLCs aren't in the RPG Maker Bundle.

And yes, the RPG Maker Steam Sale ends in an hour forty minutes from this post. If you want to pick-up any DLC 75% off, now is the time to do it.
Oh my bad. I'm gonna go check that out then!
 

BrettWeir

Member
Just take some time to get to know the interface. The tutorials in the OP should be helpful, some video guides too.

Thank you. I definitely have the tutorials bookmarked. Finding the time to start investing is cumbersome.

Just bought 5 or 6 add ons/packs since they were on sale. I think I need them in order to create what I want to do.
 

Dusk Golem

A 21st Century Rockefeller
Sorry, yeah - this is what I was asking. Bought the $12 bundle, but the DS and DS+ packs are amazing. I love them. My lunch is in ~30 minutes, so I'll head home and grab those then.

Any other resource packs you guys like that weren't included in the bundle? I won't bother with the music packs because there is a TON of free music out there with proper credit...

In my personal opinion, the three best tileset DLCs for RPG Maker is the two DS Resource Packs (for those who don't know, there was an RPG Maker on Nintendo DS (which only was available in Japan), the DS Resource Pack makes all the RTP resources from that version of RPG Maker work and available for RPG Maker VX Ace.) The first DS Resource Pack was all the default RTP stuff made for the DS RPG Maker, converted.

The DS+ were additional tiles that were released from the original developers, from a few officially licensed fan packs, and including tilesets the creators of Corpse Party made (basically they made all the tilesets they used on the old Corpse Party game (NOT the PSP one, the original RPG Maker one) available for anyone to use who purchased the pack). And all been converted for RPG Maker VX Ace.

Besides the two you were already looking into, the one I'd mention is the Samurai DLC pack. It's got some interesting character sprites, tilesheets, and works well with the default RTP, but very different stylistically.
 

nicoga3000

Saint Nic
In my personal opinion, the three best tileset DLCs for RPG Maker is the two DS Resource Packs (for those who don't know, there was an RPG Maker on Nintendo DS (which only was available in Japan), the DS Resource Pack makes all the RTP resources from that version of RPG Maker work and available for RPG Maker VX Ace.) The first DS Resource Pack was all the default RTP stuff made for the DS RPG Maker, converted.

The DS+ were additional tiles that were released from the original developers, from a few officially licensed fan packs, and including tilesets the creators of Corpse Party made (basically they made all the tilesets they used on the old Corpse Party game (NOT the PSP one, the original RPG Maker one) available for anyone to use who purchased the pack). And all been converted for RPG Maker VX Ace.

Besides the two you were already looking into, the one I'd mention is the Samurai DLC pack. It's got some interesting character sprites, tilesheets, and works well with the default RTP, but very different stylistically.

Cool - sounds like DS and DS+ will do me well. Thanks!
 

ss_lemonade

Member
As a personal challenge, I will try to refrain from using 3rd party scripts. I'll try to get a real time battle system in my game, something zelda-ish. An hour or 2 in, I've got 8 way movement working now and even moved away from tile by tile movement since that looks clunky for what I'm trying to achieve.

Now I'm stuck figuring out how to get collisions working properly again with events because the default setup uses tiles to tell if there's an event or not in a certain spot T_T
 

kai3345

Banned
Starting work on my first dungeon (Hospital) today

FouPldj.png


SsRYep3.png
 
Update about the prizes.

I've decided on a prize-pool system. Basically there will be a total number or prizes (which will be completely selected before September 11th 11:59 PM before they all go out), there will be 13 winners. The 13 winners will receive a certain percentage amount of the total prize pool, which will be split like this:

1st place will receive 25% of the games in the pool.
2nd place will receive 20% of the games in the pool
3rd place will receive 15% of the games in the pool
4th place will receive 10% of the games in the pool
5th place will receive 7% of the games in the pool
6th place will receive 6% of the games in the pool
7th place will receive 5% of the games in the pool
8th place will receive 4% of the games in the pool
9th place will receive 3% of the games in the pool
10th place will receive 2% of the games in the pool
11th place will receive 1% of the games in the pool
12th place will receive 1% of the games in the pool
13th place will receive 1% of the games in the pool

The first 7 winners will also get to select a number of games from the pool in order of positional place of winning. This exact number is to be decided when the total game count is accounted for. I know for a fact I'll be able to provide at least 200 games, maybe more, and some people may donate games for the event, but basically 1st place will be able to claim a few games from the prize pool first for themselves, then 2nd place, then 3rd, and so on to seventh, then the rest will go down the line (this will all be done through PM).

Also everyone who develop & submits a game for the competition will receive a copy of Cthulhu Saves The World+Breath of Death VII, regardless of position in the 'ranking'.

I purchased a few of the games for the giveaway today, so I know that the games will include:
Alpha Protocol
Dead Space Collection (Dead Space 1 & Dead Space 2)
Dementium II HD
Enslaved Odyssey to the West
The Forest
Guilty Gear Isuka
Killer is Dead
Obscure Collection (Obscure 1 & Obscure 2)
Resident Evil 4
Resident Evil Revelations
Vampire The Masquerade Bloodline
White Noise Online

Among very many others, but what I have my hands on already.

So the main update is that we'll do a prize pool system, and that there will be 13 winners. A lot of the details of specifics won't be known until we have the full game pool, which won't be seen until September.


So the grand prize winner will receive a minimum of 50 free games from Dusk Golem alone?

Geeeeeeeez.



In the spirit of competition, I've decided to contribute to the prize pool.


I'll give the 1st-place winner of the RPG Maker Game Competition a $100 cash grand prize, gifted to them through PayPal after the voting ends (sometime after September 11th).


I feel like $100 is enough to be somewhat noteworthy (you can buy a brand new, $60 game with it!)
But at the same time, $100 isn't completely ridiculous as a prize for a fun GAF competition.


This is designed to do three things:


1) Give some extra oomph to the grand prize. A highest percentage of games for the Grand Prize winner is great, but I wanted to do something to make winning the whole thing a little more valuable

2) Help foster competition.

3) Give back to GAF. This competition is a real blast to compete in, and I'd like to help out a fellow GAF member who makes something really special.



Terms and conditions:


  • The winner MUST be a GAF Member (at least 300 posts + has been on GAF for 3 months). If you're a Junior Member because you just joined GAF, then become a regular Member by September 11th at 11:59 PM PST. If you're a Junior Member because you're permanently juniored by the mods, that's fine. I want this prize to go to a member of the GAF community, not someone who just joined for the money. I'm going to be strict with this requirement (i.e. I will not make an exception for 299 posts + 2.5 months / no exceptions for people who barely meet the requirement but their tag hasn't switched over), so if you're still a new Junior, make sure you acquire the full Member tag in time.
  • If for whatever reason you're banned on September 11th and can't PM me, you can do so when your ban is lifted as long as you will come back relatively quickly (for example: 1 week ban is fine, 3 months ban is too long). If it becomes clear that you're permanently banned or going to be banned for a while, I reserve the right to give it to the second place winner. I will not give it to someone who is trying to collect on behalf of the winner, or to someone from a different GAF username claiming to be the winner.
  • Will give $100 to ONE PayPal account (only the account given to me by the GAF member who submitted the project). If multiple people collaborated on a project or the winner wants to give the money away, it's up to the winner receiving money to split it accordingly. I am not doing anything with the money other than giving it to the winner.
  • MUST have a PayPal account that can receive monetary gifts. I'm not going to use any alternative method of payment.
  • MUST correspond with me through GAF after the contest to send me your PayPal email address for transfer.
  • MUST give me your correct PayPal email address. If you mess it up and I transfer money before you can correct it, that's not my problem.
  • MUST be okay getting paid in multiple installments...but it's most likely going to be all at once.
  • MUST be okay with me posting a screenshot on GAF of the completed transfer (with all personal information blacked out, of course).
  • The transfer is performed at my discretion. That is, I reserve the right to give it to 2nd place, 3rd place, etc., especially if for whatever reason the competition has significant vote manipulation or any other funny business.
  • I'm not going to give the prize to someone who submits a project they've significantly worked on prior to May 30th...that's not the point of the competition. Here are some scenarios:
    - Submit a well-regarded, already-completed RPG just for the money = No prize if you win
    - Improve on / Finish an RPG that you created over 10 months with a dedicated 5-person team = No prize if you win
    - Submit a 30-hour RPG you had ideas for / worked on it for a little bit beforehand...but you did the good majority of the work developing it for this competition = $100 prize if you win
    - Submit a 30-hour RPG you started on May 30th that you worked many, many hours on with another GAF member = $100 prize if you win
    - Submit a 3 hour RPG you started on May 30th as your first RPG Maker project = $100 prize if you win​


This post has been given the green light by Dusk Golem, so hopefully it could be added to the OP. ;-)
 

Damaniel

Banned
I can't wait to see everybody's really bad adventure games and/or cookie-cutter jRPGs.

There might be a few for sure, but I plan to give as many games as possible a fair shake come judging time. Making *any* game is a hard endeavor, even with something like RPG Maker, and there's a lot of RPG Maker newbies here (myself included), so I'm not expecting 'To The Moon' quality games all around.

That said, my game will be neither an adventure game nor a cookie-cutter JRPG. My biggest issue will probably be art assets - there will be no dragons, orcs, demons or slimes in my game (there will be werewolves, there will be buffalo, and as for what else - we'll see...) :)
 
I went ahead and picked this up so I can earnestly intend to contribute, fail miserably after spending 5 hours trying to draw one sprite, continue to follow the thread dejectedly as a reminder of my failure, and forever live with a game called Sweet Lily Dreams showing up in my Steam Library
 

esterk

Member
That's awesome of you Aquamarine! Great idea!

I would like to offer a giftcard to the second place person as well, as long as everyone is okay with me also competing (I don't play games on the computer really, so I won't be taking any steam games unless it's Terraria since my buddy has been begging me to play, so I'm just in it for fun and now the $75).

I'd like to throw a $20 steam or psn or xbox currency to second place. Their choice, but it cannot be subbed out for cash. The stipulations are the same as Aquas - has to be a GAF member, not extensively banned, not a new junior by sept 11, etc. If everyone is okay with that and with me still competing of course. The code will be sent via a PM to second place, or I may send it to Dusk to distribute out along with the steam codes, whichever works.

I'm having so much fun with this program I really want to incentivize people to do their best. I've learned a ton in the past 3 days messing with it.
 

Moondrop

Banned
Humble website wouldn't accept my credit card. I'll try to find a work-around.

So what are the rules concerning copyrighted intellectual property, i.e. characters and settings? Can we throw a "I don't own/not for profit" tag on the front like fan fiction?

(Yes, I know it would be better in general if I made up my own characters.)
 

Jørdan

Member
Really looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with, I'll still be balls deep in tutorials in 9 weeks so best of luck to you all.
 

Ourobolus

Banned
Good god, guys. You're all really generous. I'm gonna be stuck with just a tile map at the end though! Better get crackin'!
 

Marc

Member
Amazing gesture Aquamarine, I don't need/want any steam games or money but it suddenly makes it all official and feels like I would let you down or something if I didn't at least get something passable out the door. *eek*

I've never used it, but as for where to put it: Open the script editor (there's a button on the toolbar, or hit F11), scroll down to where it says "Materials ( Insert here )", right click on the empty spot, hit Insert, and then paste the script in the big box.

Thanks for the help! It didn't work but found out I had to create a call event to run the script and copy over hud elements and sounds it was expecting when an action was placed. So got that bit out of the way, I can customize the hud/sounds, get the materials for a modern world sorted and get started. Should make things more interesting in general to work out how to balance things with enemies especially. I may still end up abandoning it if I keep hitting my head against the wall.

If anyone else needs help to start that off, let me know.
 

esterk

Member
Amazing gesture Aquamarine, I don't need/want any steam games or money but it suddenly makes it all official and feels like I would let you down or something if I didn't at least get something passable out the door. *eek*


Thanks for the help! It didn't work but found out I had to create a call event to run the script and copy over hud elements and sounds it was expecting when an action was placed. So got that bit out of the way, I can customize the hud/sounds, get the materials for a modern world sorted and get started. Should make things more interesting in general to work out how to balance things with enemies especially. I may still end up abandoning it if I keep hitting my head against the wall.

If anyone else needs help to start that off, let me know.
What kind of battle system is it? Just curious. I'm at work right now and can't look it up.

By the way, are any gaffers here proficient in RUBY? I have a script I got online but the creator has gone dark and I wanted to see if it was possible to make a slight change to it. Posted it on a couple forums for VX ace, but no one has gotten back to me yet.
 

Anteo

Member
I just realized I have no idea what I want to do, only that I want to mess with the battle system and skills until it's fun for me. Any idea if I can get a skilltree and upgrade skills every time someone level ups?
 

nicoga3000

Saint Nic
I just realized I have no idea what I want to do, only that I want to mess with the battle system and skills until it's fun for me. Any idea if I can get a skilltree and upgrade skills every time someone level ups?

You can absolutely do this, but it will likely require scripting. Check the OP for links and resources.
 

ZServ

Member
I have a title screen.... and a rough map of the first location!

Finding it tricky making tiles that you can walk 'behind'; at the moment, as a lot of the preset tiles that I want to be able to walk behind won't let me do so by default, so I'm having to save those tilesets as duplicates and add them back into RPG maker as a custom tileset, and then set their properties. It is kind of a pain as this way they don't auto-tile, but ho hum, it's a fun learning curve :)

What? Open the database and you can use the O, X, * to assign "can walk on," "cannot walk on," and "can walk under."

Edit: Ah, I see what you mean now. That's annoying.
 

psychedelico

Neo Member
Aw geez, no mercy for the long-term lurking types, huh?

Not that I'm confident about winning or anything but I guess this is as good an excuse as any to start being a bit more talkative, haha. I already owned VX from an earlier Steam sale but this kind of contest seems like a great motivator to actually put it to use in some way.
 

zulux21

Member
Ah what the hell, I'll bump it up to a $100 grand prize.

Looks cleaner than $75.

gah stop being awesome and getting me motivated to try to make my RPG a reality :p

on a slightly related note, do any of the resource packs have material for making a playable piglet character (as in a baby pig not the character from the pooh bear adventures :p)?
 

SOLDIER

Member
I'd love to try but I have no tiiiiiiimeeee aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh...


I'd make my game about magical girls and try to make it Fire Emblem-esque somehow...
I even have a sprite I did years ago and would base the game off it lol:
Dysta___walking_sprite_by_Meibatsu.gif


So I'll just follow the thread and live vicariously through y'all.

As a Madoka fan I would love to help write a Magical Girl RPG.

Maybe you could share your sprites and ideas with someone willing to do the programming work, while I work on the writing?

Also I'm going to try and actually mess with the program myself following the linked tutorials. I suspect it's going to take me a long while to figure out even the basic concepts, though.
 

ZServ

Member
Woo! Finished mapping out how the story will play out. Now to finish the intro so I can work on gameplay more.

lFk01Bz.png


This is the town I've made, thus far. The only NPC is a test NPC for battle/shopping systems. Still very bland, but hadn't seen a screenshot recently so figured I'd post one of mine. :)
 
Hmm, I may not submit it since it will have names of some of my coworkers, but I think I may just have to make an English practice RPG for my students set at the school where I teach (among other locations).

Maybe I'll include cameos from New Horizon's Ichiro and Becky from their Junior High School days. I just need a good set of graphics.
 

Chris_C

Member
Welp, I got laid off yesterday and spent literally the last dollar in my bank account to pick up a copy of RPG Maker (spent most of my savings on an expensive trip to get new my passport in my home country, I live in the Philippines and just got married).

I'll be along for the ride hoping to learn a lot and be part of the community, but won't really be taking part in the competition since I plan on releasing anything I (hopefully) end up making commercially.

This will either be an amazing story, or a terrible mistake.
 

L Thammy

Member
A few people mentioned that they had a story concept but weren't sure how to make it work. I'm currently at the end stages of writing my first novel. I'm not exactly a professional, but I should be able to help you through a problem. Ask in the thread or PM me if you'd like.

Note, I'm just talking about general writing advice here, not directly contributing to the project. This shouldn't be confused with an entry in the contest. My previous offer to actually join a team is separate, and it still stands!

Welp, I got laid off yesterday ... This will either be an amazing story, or a terrible mistake.

That really sucks. Good luck to you!
 

Lucent

Member
I haven't even really started yet. I think I'm going to play some more games made with it to see what can be done and start writing my story.
 

Relix

he's Virgin Tight™
Finished my intro.

I wanted to make it a little cheesy so then I could reveal the actual story :p. Seems to be cool, and I am basing it off a concept I had for a novel I planned on writing. Adjusting the story to game is significantly harder so I've cut some corners to make it streamlined and focus on gameplay. Already finished my first boss battle, now will get into the meat of development. Dungeons, towns, enemies, etc await me now :p

Random Pic of the Day:
aicM7NP.png

(yeah I fixed that little symmetry issue :p)
 

ZServ

Member
A few people mentioned that they had a story concept but weren't sure how to make it work. I'm currently at the end stages of writing my first novel. I'm not exactly a professional, but I should be able to help you through a problem. Ask in the thread or PM me if you'd like.

Note, I'm just talking about general writing advice here, not directly contributing to the project. This shouldn't be confused with an entry in the contest. My previous offer to actually join a team is separate, and it still stands!

When you know point A and point C, how do you come up with a point B that feels like a natural extension? Or, when there's a message that needs to get across without feeling too "preachy?"
 
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