• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

RPG Maker Games: Underlooked Gems

Dusk Golem

A 21st Century Rockefeller
Hey everyone, this is Dusk Golem aka AestheticGamer. I have posted on NeoGAF since 2011, and have decided to resign. I have enjoyed posting about horror games here for years, but I no longer wish to support the site and will be leaving for good. I will still be around the internet, I go by AestheticGamer on YouTube, I make games on Steam as Yai Gameworks, and I plan to go by Dusk Golem on other forums. I'll be joining an off-set of the GAF community leaving to try other ventures like ResetEra (Official Twitter for that here: https://twitter.com/reseteraforum ). I hope some of you who read this may consider it, and I plan to try to expose more people to horror games in the years to come. Just not here.

I hope you all are having a good day, and know I always loved the community, and in the end it's the community I'm going to stick with, not the site itself. If you want to follow me, my official Twitter is here: https://twitter.com/AestheticGamer1
 

Gala

Member
Man, Lachsen really stepped his game up - sprites, technical stuff, everything; he seems to have become way better since Velsarbor which was extraordinary (well, the demo at least :/)

I meet him like once or twice a year and it's amazing to see on what he is working. He's working on Cross Code for quite some time now as well. I saw it on at least 3 systems now. Beginning with the concept on the RPG-Maker 2000, a concept on DS and this summer in HTML5. And now he is working together with another talented guy of the German maker scene (R.D.).

I bet you will really like the rest of what is done in Velsarbor. I played a longer version of the game and it's really cool how the story progressed beyond the Demo, but Lachsen himself said last week that it's simply way too much for a single person to make a game with such epic proportions (and concept) alone. And since he studied something with programming in University he wants to use his skills. However maybe we will see a Velsarbor remake in the future in another Engine.
 

legacyzero

Banned
Definitely. Councidentially, the game OFF in the OP is French, and it's amazing. Very inspired by the Mother series, but completely its own thing. Very unique and interesting characters, interesting setting with a deep story full of twists, matching turn-based combat with fun dungeons and puzzles, lots of optional story content to explore... It also has a downright amazing soundtrack which is completely original.

I love OFFs regular battle theme: http://youtube.com/watch?v=F7oKGQ4bOIs

Holy crap thats awesome. Certainly has that Earthbound feel to it. I love it!
 
I actually bought copies of RPG Maker VX Ace for my son and I to make a game together. Should be a fun project. Some people might ask why I'd want to work on a game in my spare time when I work on games as a job, but I really like doing it that much. Plus, my son is really interested in doing it too.
 

legacyzero

Banned
I actually bought copies of RPG Maker VX Ace for my son and I to make a game together. Should be a fun project. Some people might ask why I'd want to work on a game in my spare time when I work on games as a job, but I really like doing it that much. Plus, my son is really interested in doing it too.

I'm kinda regretting not picking up VX ACE during it's sale. Maybe I'll get lucky and it'll come around again. I remember the good ol days of RMXP. Such a great game maker. But I would NEVER use any of the included assets. I always make my own. Takes me forever though :p
 
Subscribing for later. Had no idea there were so many Yume Nikki spin-offs. Definitely interested in those.

And yes, Corpse Party is amazing. Xseed should put it up on Steam. It deserves a bigger audience.
 

Nibel

Member
I meet him like once or twice a year and it's amazing to see on what he is working. He's working on Cross Code for quite some time now as well. I saw it on at least 3 systems now. Beginning with the concept on the RPG-Maker 2000, a concept on DS and this summer in HTML5. And now he is working together with another talented guy of the German maker scene (R.D.).

I bet you will really like the rest of what is done in Velsarbor. I played a longer version of the game and it's really cool how the story progressed beyond the Demo, but Lachsen himself said last week that it's simply way too much for a single person to make a game with such epic proportions (and concept) alone. And since he studied something with programming in University he wants to use his skills. However maybe we will see a Velsarbor remake in the future in another Engine.

That sounds pretty impressive. I remember playing Tara's Adventure (which was one of my favorite games together with Vampire's Dawn and Unterwegs In Düsterburg) and also spending so much time with one of his action battle system script demos for the RPG Maker 2000. It was a simple demo, but the 12 year old Nibel couldn't comprehend why a RM ABS could feel so good; and then Velsarbor which was unbelievable at its time.. Lachsen is such a cool dude, I wish him the best and hope that he will make it big. There were a lot of talented dudes out there, but Lachsen understood very good what makes a game + he's blessed with his programming abilities. Basically the only German to push the RM 2000 to its limits as far as I know.

I would love to see more of him in the future!
 
Hero's Realm.

Doesn't have like any unique graphics or music, but it's a very well designed game brimming with content, a send up of old school JRPGs like Dragon Quest III and Final Fantasy V. If you like the yesteryears of RPGs you should give it a shot. Just about the most cohesive and well put together proper RPG that I've seen made in the engine.
 

Dusk Golem

A 21st Century Rockefeller
Hey everyone, this is Dusk Golem aka AestheticGamer. I have posted on NeoGAF since 2011, and have decided to resign. I have enjoyed posting about horror games here for years, but I no longer wish to support the site and will be leaving for good. I will still be around the internet, I go by AestheticGamer on YouTube, I make games on Steam as Yai Gameworks, and I plan to go by Dusk Golem on other forums. I'll be joining an off-set of the GAF community leaving to try other ventures like ResetEra (Official Twitter for that here: https://twitter.com/reseteraforum ). I hope some of you who read this may consider it, and I plan to try to expose more people to horror games in the years to come. Just not here.

I hope you all are having a good day, and know I always loved the community, and in the end it's the community I'm going to stick with, not the site itself. If you want to follow me, my official Twitter is here: https://twitter.com/AestheticGamer1
 

udivision

Member
You can make dating sims on RPG Maker? My mind, it has been blown.

Provided you can do the art, a dating sim would be one of the easier things to make, coding wise. I've worked on two Ace Attorney Case Makers/Move Engines for RPG Maker VX and VXAce respectively, and it's not difficult to do.

Because you're allowed to add your own coding (Ruby Language) in addition to the WYSIWYG editor, veteran RPG Maker devs tend expand the functionality the engine even more. It's fun to see the variety of games produced despite the namesake.
 

Myriadis

Member
I just finished Ib, played through it in one sitting, which was about 2.5 hours. I read that there are different endings, 5 actually, and I got the ending where
Garry dies and Mary gets in the real world and pretends to be your sister (after all, Ib doesn't remember all the stuff that happened)
.
Also, anyone tried to switch back to Ib shortly after Garry collects the sixth color orb? You should really try it, it gets kinda strange from there.
Awesome game. Some jump scares, though, but not too much. The latter half barely has some, if any at all.

P.S.: Space Funeral's still missing. You should definitely give it a try.



---

I bet you will really like the rest of what is done in Velsarbor. I played a longer version of the game and it's really cool how the story progressed beyond the Demo, but Lachsen himself said last week that it's simply way too much for a single person to make a game with such epic proportions (and concept) alone. And since he studied something with programming in University he wants to use his skills. However maybe we will see a Velsarbor remake in the future in another Engine.
Good to hear that, I will definitely play this. Maybe he even will bring the story to a conclusion and therefore smaller-scaled instead. I don't think that the second continent south of the world map is needed, unless it is already used in the second demo.
 

Jintor

Member
Provided you can do the art, a dating sim would be one of the easier things to make, coding wise. I've worked on two Ace Attorney Case Makers/Move Engines for RPG Maker VX and VXAce respectively, and it's not difficult to do.

Because you're allowed to add your own coding (Ruby Language) in addition to the WYSIWYG editor, veteran RPG Maker devs tend expand the functionality the engine even more. It's fun to see the variety of games produced despite the namesake.

Yeah, I'm wondering how feasible it is to make a social linking game. Might look at Comedy Club and see how they do it.
 

Dusk Golem

A 21st Century Rockefeller
Hey everyone, this is Dusk Golem aka AestheticGamer. I have posted on NeoGAF since 2011, and have decided to resign. I have enjoyed posting about horror games here for years, but I no longer wish to support the site and will be leaving for good. I will still be around the internet, I go by AestheticGamer on YouTube, I make games on Steam as Yai Gameworks, and I plan to go by Dusk Golem on other forums. I'll be joining an off-set of the GAF community leaving to try other ventures like ResetEra (Official Twitter for that here: https://twitter.com/reseteraforum ). I hope some of you who read this may consider it, and I plan to try to expose more people to horror games in the years to come. Just not here.

I hope you all are having a good day, and know I always loved the community, and in the end it's the community I'm going to stick with, not the site itself. If you want to follow me, my official Twitter is here: https://twitter.com/AestheticGamer1
 

demidar

Member
Definitely, but I would buy the Corpse Party games in an instant if they went on Steam.

I'd imagine a lot of people would since the PSP playerbase in the West ain't something to toot about. Add in a Steam sale and Xseed could make a tidy profit.
 
I'd imagine a lot of people would since the PSP playerbase in the West ain't something to toot about. Add in a Steam sale and Xseed could make a tidy profit.
Someone should reverse engineer the PSP game back to the original RPG maker engine on windows, and hand it to xseed with a gift box.
 

InfiniteNine

Rolling Girl
That sounds like a lot of work. I know they're small, but don't Xseed have their own devs?

Well they had someone port over Half Minute Hero to the PC. Since the PSP version no longer uses RPG Maker as a base they'd have to completely port it over or redo it in that.
 

demidar

Member
Well they had someone port over Half Minute Hero to the PC. Since the PSP version no longer uses RPG Maker as a base they'd have to completely port it over or redo it in that.

I have a feeling it's not, but is Half Minute Hero in RPG Maker? How did they port to the PC otherwise?
 

InfiniteNine

Rolling Girl
I have a feeling it's not, but is Half Minute Hero in RPG Maker? How did they port to the PC otherwise?

Nope, and they ported over the 360 version and added stuff back in that was missing from the PSP -> 360 transition. A small team that looks like one person did the porting and they are active in the steam forum for the game fixing bugs.
 

demidar

Member
Nope, and they ported over the 360 version and added stuff back in that was missing from the PSP -> 360 transition. A small team that looks like one person did the porting and they are active in the steam forum for the game fixing bugs.

Ah, a 360 version would be considerably easier to port. Poor guy, doing all this himself.
 

Dusk Golem

A 21st Century Rockefeller
Hey everyone, this is Dusk Golem aka AestheticGamer. I have posted on NeoGAF since 2011, and have decided to resign. I have enjoyed posting about horror games here for years, but I no longer wish to support the site and will be leaving for good. I will still be around the internet, I go by AestheticGamer on YouTube, I make games on Steam as Yai Gameworks, and I plan to go by Dusk Golem on other forums. I'll be joining an off-set of the GAF community leaving to try other ventures like ResetEra (Official Twitter for that here: https://twitter.com/reseteraforum ). I hope some of you who read this may consider it, and I plan to try to expose more people to horror games in the years to come. Just not here.

I hope you all are having a good day, and know I always loved the community, and in the end it's the community I'm going to stick with, not the site itself. If you want to follow me, my official Twitter is here: https://twitter.com/AestheticGamer1
 

Syril

Member
I've got one for the Typical Turn-Based RPG:

The Tiamat Sacrament
ScreenshotRuneseal.jpg


I honestly think that if this game had its own graphics, it would have fit right in during the 16-bit era. As it is, it does a pretty good job using sprites that don't clash with each other and working within their limited animation.

The hero, Az'uar, is a hatchling dragon, which already makes him one of the more original RPG heroes out there, and his character is actually quite interesting and well-written. The plot itself is about as cliched as you can get, complete with an evil empire, a technological fortress, and a masked second-in-command who clearly has a connection to one of the party members. To the game's credit, it handles these pretty well, playing them earnestly without going up its own ass with melodrama and philosophizing like some professionally-made RPGs do.

The party members are all wonderfully differentiated from each other, possessing different mechanics for fighting and learning new abilities. Az'uar can use elemental runes in various combinations to charge different breath attacks and inherits new powers from the other dragons by wearing their soul gem in battle (pretty much like magicite in Final Fantasy 6). Xandra, the second member, learns new skills by observing enemies using them (Notably, this seems to include every skill that any enemy uses that's not a dragon power.) and can seal weakened enemies into runes for Az'uar to use. Kelburn, the final member, gains different techniques depending on the swords he's wielding and can channel the runes as Az'uar uses them to perform elemental sword attacks that focus on a single enemy as opposed to Az'uar's multitargeted breath attacks. The end result is that each character feels unique, and everyone depends on each other to fight to their fullest potential.

It's also worth mentioning that animations in battle are extremely quick, and fights almost never come down to mashing attack because the right skills always get the job done faster and more efficiently (MP can be recovered by defending, too).

Aside from that, sidequests and hidden areas almost always yield rewards that are actually useful, and the puzzles in the dungeons are surprisingly logical and enjoyable to figure out. There are even tactical army battles; they're a bit clunky since they're controlled through dialogue windows, but it's an admirable effort.

The only real knock I have against this is the same problem a lot of other RPGs have, where the game gets easier as it goes on, in this case due to the party constantly getting new skills to cover different situations. It's not a huge flaw, since the battles have still been fun even with that.
 
Which version of RPG Maker is the most popular for making games? I remember reading somewhere some people not liking the newer versions as much maybe? And are any of the older ones free?
 

udivision

Member
Which version of RPG Maker is the most popular for making games? I remember reading somewhere some people not liking the newer versions as much maybe? And are any of the older ones free?

You can't legally get 2000/2003 in english.
No RPG Maker is free.
VX Vanilla is completely worthless at this point, with VX Ace on the market. Some people prefer XP's mapping to VX/Ace's, but VX/Ace is overall more user friendly.
 

Suairyu

Banned
Which version of RPG Maker is the most popular for making games? I remember reading somewhere some people not liking the newer versions as much maybe? And are any of the older ones free?
The commercial games are being released in RPG Maker XP right now, but that's simply because development would have started on those games a while ago.

VX is rubbish and no-one sane upgraded.

VX ACE is probably better than XP, but its mapping is a touch more limited and now everyone parallax maps to get around it, which is the biggest waste of megabytes ever known to man.

Download the free (lite) version of VX ACE and have a play with that.

No RPG Maker is free.
RPG Maker VX ACE Lite just launched.
 
There's an old RPG Maker game called A Blurred Line. It's very much a traditional JRPG, but it's also incredibly good. Look it up.
 

Suairyu

Banned
Oh yea, that. What are it's restrictions? I'm assuming it's not as hampered as the typical RPG Maker Trial version?
I haven't downloaded it myself to try out. It looks pretty full-featured. You can't make commercial games with it, obviously, but that's about the only difference I could gather from the press materials.
 

udivision

Member
I haven't downloaded it myself to try out. It looks pretty full-featured. You can't make commercial games with it, obviously, but that's about the only difference I could gather from the press materials.

Oh, nice. I guess that's the best way to get your feet wet then.
 
Thanks for the answers, I'll check out Lite. I actually remember getting and messing around with the PlayStation 1 RPG Maker back in 2000 or so. Spent a while making a game then somehow the save data got corrupted or the memory card died and I never tried again haha. The little RPG that came with it I remember being fun, though.
 

Suairyu

Banned
Thanks for the answers, I'll check out Lite. I actually remember getting and messing around with the PlayStation 1 RPG Maker back in 2000 or so. Spent a while making a game then somehow the save data got corrupted or the memory card died and I never tried again haha. The little RPG that came with it I remember being fun, though.
Those were almost entirely different games, really.
 

Dusk Golem

A 21st Century Rockefeller
Hey everyone, this is Dusk Golem aka AestheticGamer. I have posted on NeoGAF since 2011, and have decided to resign. I have enjoyed posting about horror games here for years, but I no longer wish to support the site and will be leaving for good. I will still be around the internet, I go by AestheticGamer on YouTube, I make games on Steam as Yai Gameworks, and I plan to go by Dusk Golem on other forums. I'll be joining an off-set of the GAF community leaving to try other ventures like ResetEra (Official Twitter for that here: https://twitter.com/reseteraforum ). I hope some of you who read this may consider it, and I plan to try to expose more people to horror games in the years to come. Just not here.

I hope you all are having a good day, and know I always loved the community, and in the end it's the community I'm going to stick with, not the site itself. If you want to follow me, my official Twitter is here: https://twitter.com/AestheticGamer1
 
I want to reverse-engineer Persona 4 into rpgmaker and add a feMC. But oh god, so much game to convert.

I like that it's ENTIRELY POSSIBLE if I put my mind to it, though.
 

Dusk Golem

A 21st Century Rockefeller
Hey everyone, this is Dusk Golem aka AestheticGamer. I have posted on NeoGAF since 2011, and have decided to resign. I have enjoyed posting about horror games here for years, but I no longer wish to support the site and will be leaving for good. I will still be around the internet, I go by AestheticGamer on YouTube, I make games on Steam as Yai Gameworks, and I plan to go by Dusk Golem on other forums. I'll be joining an off-set of the GAF community leaving to try other ventures like ResetEra (Official Twitter for that here: https://twitter.com/reseteraforum ). I hope some of you who read this may consider it, and I plan to try to expose more people to horror games in the years to come. Just not here.

I hope you all are having a good day, and know I always loved the community, and in the end it's the community I'm going to stick with, not the site itself. If you want to follow me, my official Twitter is here: https://twitter.com/AestheticGamer1
 

udivision

Member
I want to reverse-engineer Persona 4 into rpgmaker and add a feMC. But oh god, so much game to convert.

I like that it's ENTIRELY POSSIBLE if I put my mind to it, though.

This my favorite thing about RPG Maker, and one of my favorite ways to learn.

Some crazy guy (Vanit) is trying to remake Final Fantasy 7 in 2D:
His Progress + Playable Demo + Videos
Intro Video

screen2i.png
battlescreen.png
menuscreen.png


And it looks pretty darn nice.

I don't have anything as cool as that to in terms of "porting" real games to RPG Maker, but I've manged to recreate Dragon Quest Monsters I/II's breeding system (1,300+ lines of code dedicated to just to the combinations) and the beginnings of a The World Ends with You battle system.

Adding your own twist is another fun aspect as well.
 
This my favorite thing about RPG Maker, and one of my favorite ways to learn.

And it looks pretty darn nice.

I don't have anything as cool as that to in terms of "porting" real games to RPG Maker, but I've manged to recreate Dragon Quest Monsters I/II's breeding system (1,300+ lines of code dedicated to just to the combinations) and the beginnings of a The World Ends with You battle system.

Adding your own twist is another fun aspect as well.

That is so incredibly impressive, especially with the integration of the music and menus. If the sprite work had higher production value you could fool me into thinking it was a port for early mobile phones.

And then, the idea of programming anything close to the World Ends With You battle system sounds really ambitious and awesome.

This thread is inspiring me to want to tinker around with the system, but I'm afraid of it spiraling into a Synecdoche sized project, particularly if I attempt during a long break when I should be doing any number of things with that large chunk of time.
 
I was going to make this thread a few days ago but was too busy. Hah! Nice work, OP.

Have been tinkering around with RPG Maker VX Ace myself for an hour here and there over the past 2 weeks. Haven't used it in years, but it remains largely the same as it ever was.

Downloaded Donald Fuck a few days ago...

779GY.jpg


...lol
 

legacyzero

Banned
This my favorite thing about RPG Maker, and one of my favorite ways to learn.

Some crazy guy (Vanit) is trying to remake Final Fantasy 7 in 2D:
His Progress + Playable Demo + Videos
Intro Video

screen2i.png
battlescreen.png
menuscreen.png


And it looks pretty darn nice.

I don't have anything as cool as that to in terms of "porting" real games to RPG Maker, but I've manged to recreate Dragon Quest Monsters I/II's breeding system (1,300+ lines of code dedicated to just to the combinations) and the beginnings of a The World Ends with You battle system.

Adding your own twist is another fun aspect as well.

OH DAMN. That's awesome!
 
Top Bottom