#dont use rpgmaker

[kandykittixd]

Why you should NEVER use RpgMaker

I know the title sounds clickbaity but it's the best I could think of. I am going to use a lot of screenshots from my game “Foundational Agora Premises: Hardware And Resource Dynamics”, to illustrate my points.

Before anything, I want to make something clear:

Whoever plays your game will not care if said game is built in RPGMaker, Godot, Gamemaker, Unity, Unreal, WolfRPGMaker, RPGInABox, or if you coded it from scratch in ASM.

Gamers are not developers, nor are they coders. It is perfectly fine to mess-around with an engine if you just want to have fun, make a game for yourself, your friends or just make a tech demo, but I am writing this from the POV of someone that wants to make a cool game that plays smoothly and can actually be made without having to fight the engine itself. I would advice anyone reading this to also give a read to LogLog's “Leaving Rust gamedev after 3 years”.

Now RPGMaker is advertised as a no-code, beginner-friendly engine. And for the most part this is true, you can make a very basic JRPG in RPGMaker with no experience at all. I myself made a terrible RPGMaker game when I was 13 years old. If you need to squish more juice out of the engine, you can always download plugins to add more capabilities and custom content. But it's not all sunshine and rainbows, as a matter of fact it's not at all like that. RPGMaker has a lot of limitations out of the box, for example the fact that the engine can only work with spritesheets formatted in a certain way, the fact that you have only a few layers to work with (parallax, background tiles, tiles A, B and C) and the fact that the code blocks you work with are simply terrible and teach you horrible programming practices. Most of these shortcomings can be addressed by installing plugins, for example a plugin to allow you to use .png files instead of sprite-sheets, a plugin to add more layers, a plugin to allow you to play .gif files in your game, etc. But plugins have problems of their own, some plugins are paid, others are incompatible with certain plugins you want to use, and other plugins simply do not exist at all so to add that functionality to your game you will either need to code it yourself or commission someone to do it. Or find a plugin that does what you want 'close enough' and settle-in for that. Besides, I know a lot of people are passionate about ARPG in RPGMaker but let's face it, 'Legend of mana' released in 199X plays a lot better than the best ARPG plugin written in 202X, the engine is simply not meant to handle this kind of work, and it shows whenever you try to push it too far from it's intended purpose. To put it simply, just because you can make brownies in a mug in your microwave does not mean it's going to taste the same as brownies made the traditional way in the oven.

Large 'complex' projects also suffer from performance problems, I do not know the details of why this happens but I have seen it enough times for it to become a noticeable problem with games with a lot of complex mechanics, really big maps or just a lot of things going-on.

Now, about the terrible code-blocks that RPGMaker offers:

They surely make everything look very straightforward. Let's think of the 'conditional branch' block, for example, it's basically an 'if'. The code in RPGMaker would look something like this for a simple operation:

If your actor is dead, we game over. Simple, right?

Sure is, but what if we want to add another condition? For example, maybe I want to also check if the enemy's HP is 0 so I can play a sound or something. What would that look like?

Itty bit harder to follow, but not terrible, right? Seems like it in the beginning, but what if you want to check for 4 or 5 conditions? This is normal depending on what you are doing... Your code will end-up looking like this:

Now, this is just a big if, else; if... chain. It takes about 5 minutes to write this thing depending on how far apart the variables are because you have to navigate a few menus, but the problem here is that RPGMaker conditionals do not offer a 'If, else if' by default, nor a switch statement. You have to chain together a lot of conditional branchs to emulate what a simple switch statement would do in any normal language.

Here's what the same code would look like if I used JavaScript instead of events:

Oh wow, with the power of the switch statement, we transformed 5 minutes of navigating menus and searching through variables to make a big chain of else if conditions into... A very short 30 seconds top condition check...

But the gist here is that not only do I need to actually know javascript to write this code in the no-code engine, this code as it is would not work out of the box. I know people love to claim 'you can always use JS if you need to', but RPGMaker makes even this a daunting task. For something like this to work, instead of switches, difficulty would need to be a variable, and we would also need to use the script box to set the value of 'difficulty' in RPGMaker so even then we will be writing javascript... For this to actually work first you'd have to set the code like this in the game:

Here we set the value of the 'difficulty' variable to hard, because we are not using switches anymore if we are moving to javascript. Now the actual javascript code would look like this, I'm adding variables to make it more readable since now we have to access the variables from the game itself:

Now this looks more in-line to what you can expect from modifying variables in RPGmaker through a script call. Notice that in the end of the switch statement I have to update the actual variable, we only retrieved the value at the start of the function but did not actually directly modify it so we have to assign it at the end.

Here we will run into another tiny problem, the script call box itself, what happens if I try to add my script to RPGMaker?

Hmmmm that does not seem right... What's happening here?Well, you see, for whatever unholy reason the script call box in RPGMaker extends infinitely to the right side, but it's only about 12 lines height. Meaning that any complex scripting you want to make in-game (without needing to mess with plugin writing) will end-up looking like this:

Now that's a tad harder to read innit? It's going to be hell to maintain too. But at least you can always copy-paste it. I had to manually remove spaces here to fit it in the script box, but what about a really big script? Removing spaces manually would be a daunting task, so I would use a tool like JS.minify to do it for me. Take a look at this script for example:

Can you tell what this thing is doing? No?

Well the name of the event is 'Restore power variables' so I guess it does something like restore the power variables? I did not leave a comment here and that's a bad practice on my side. However just by looking at this code you can tell it is impossible to rewrite or extend, if I ever need to add functionality to this I'd have to run the code through a LLM to un-minify it and then I'd be able to edit it.

Of course you could instead just use a service that removes white space from Javascript to make it all a big line, I'm not sure if a service like that exists, but it would make the whole process a little bit simpler if it does... Or you could just write a plugin...Right? Wait wasn't this a no-code engine...Oh well let's ignore that part.

Now, plugins. Good ol' plugins. I once wrote a whole self-driving car neural network in vanilla JavaScript following a YouTube tutorial, I'll admit JavaScript is not my forte, I like C/C++ best but let me tell you, even if you do know some JavaScript You don't know RPGMaker core.

At first this may not seem like a problem at all, after all you just want to create functions and set variables, right?

Here's a tiny plugin I wrote to convert tenths of a second to RPGMaker frames.

Now it's all standard JavaScript, but you see that window.timestampToFrames = timestampToFrames ? That's what actually lets you call the function from within the game itself, and it's part of RPGMaker. Without exposing your function like this you can only really run the plugin as soon as the game starts.

This is not a big issue when it comes to simple plugins like this one, with a lot of hard-coded values, but if you don't know your way around RPGMakers' core, and how to work with plugin parameters, you will have a bad time writing complex plugins or actually extending the engine at all. I ran into this issue after hitting my head on my keyboard for two hours in my 'last fireplace' game, I made a cute little plugin to make snow fall on the screen but for the life of me I could not figure out how to A: Make the snow fall in the background and not on top of everything else, and B: How to actually stop the snow from falling and delete every snowflake after I added them via scene_manager (My despawn function simply did not seem to work as expected).

This is, of course, a me issue here. I simply do not know enough about RPGMakers' core to extend the engine to allow me to do this sort of thing properly...

Now, darling, please sit down for a second and tell me, when was the last time you have heard a Godot developer tell you 'Damn I don't know enough C++ to extend Godot's core for this feature to work in my game'. Do you see my point?

Why am I trying to extend the game engine in order to make a game? It's a game ENGINE, it's supposed to make the game-making process easier, yet the amount of times I find myself coding everything from scratch is astounding. Simple quality of life things such as being able to play an animation through a sequence of PNGs numbered from 1 to 12 becomes an hour-long plugin development and debugging campaign, instead of the 5-minute experience that is setting-up an animation in other engines, such as Godot (I'm using Godot as an example because it's a simple engine and GDScript is truly a simple language).

Please if you have ever used RPGMaker in the past and DONT TRUST MY POST, just follow one simple Godot tutorial, I know you're going to feel annoyed after reading this post and tell me 'godot sux!!!! I don't want to h4xx0r code!!!' but please, please please just try to follow-through, I promise the code you will actually write is very, very basic and not at all hard to understand, just please try-out a real game engine to SEE by yourself what game-making should look like. I can recommend this tutorial here, it's what made me fall in love with Godot's simplicity: https://youtu.be/LOhfqjmasi0

In about an hour of work you can get yourself a working platformer, I did it myself with 0 knowledge of Godot and indeed I got myself a working platformer in about 2 hours (I took pauses).

Now If I made a similar game in RPGMaker (which I did), how long do you think it may take me?

Answer is, one day and a half (about 24 hours of work) to make this game: https://nxonk.itch.io/the-last-fireplace

And that is with 11 years of experience in this engine under my belt, and knowledge of javascript, C, C++, programming logic and a lot of functions and code I have written for old projects that never saw the light of day (https://lamadriguera.neocities.org/Games/Games)

And the end result is...Eh, honestly. I polished it a bit but there are many things that the engine does not like, for example I could not really make use of a pixel movement plugin because it messed-up a lot of the events in the game, so I had to rely on grid-based movement as that is the way the engine likes it (and there is no easy way to modify this).

Please remember that people that will actually PLAY the game don't really care which engine I used to make it, they only care about the game itself. Sure I made a game, I made it fast and slapped-together a very traumatic story about a past life experience of mine, but is the gameplay actually good?

Compared to my 1-hour Godot platformer, no, it sucks and it sucks bad. Maybe one or two RPGMaker devs will find the project cool cause I'm getting the engine to do something it's not supposed to do without 3000 lines of plugin code, but most people will just ignore the game altogether. And I don't blame them, why would anyone play this when they could be playing some other game with better gameplay or innovation?

Well is that all I have to say about RPGMaker?

No, not at all, I have even more bones to pick with this engine, the event system:

Now you may think that is a lot of events...Just wait till you see how many COMMON events I got going-on

removing unused common events (I have a template project with a few useful events I almost always use set-up) and white-space I use for organization, this game is using about 100 common-events to perform some basic tasks. Since some events simply cannot be a common event they are left on the map itself.

Now just by looking at it, you can get an idea of what the common events do, because they have actual names, but what about the map events? Just by glancing at it, it's impossible to tell what they do at all, maybe I know what they do today but will I know in 4 or 5 months?

Of course you can name events, and if you click on said event on the map you can see the event's name in the bottom-right corner:

Here's my event named 'HAHA MY EVENT' I just named it that as an example. Even then to figure out what each of these events do, I would have to click every single one of them and hope I named them all and that the name clearly states what the event is supposed to do.

Now I know it may seem like this map is cluttered with a lot of unnecessary events... Believe me, it's not. Every single event in that map is doing something important for the game, from the first to the last and I am willing to open source the project files (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XiiT72Ybhznapzmaz8lak6k5JLHtsO06/view) just to prove my point.

And as a last tiny bone to pick with the engine, there is no way to preview your parallax mapping as you edit the game, you have to actually launch it to figure out what it looks like. Here's what my game looks like when I launch it:

Not the biggest bone to pick but it is still annoying that I can't tell what's where unless I actually run the game (Takes about 10 seconds but you'll find yourself pressing that run button a lot of times as you playtest).

Speaking of which, you see that little computer screen In the map? I had to really big brain myself to get that simple thing working as intended, it may not seem like that big of a detail but that thing alone took about half an hour of brainstorming. The mechanic is simple, whenever an agent guy appears on the screen and you click them, you 'capture' them and their little icon is shown on the screen:

It looks simple, right?

It is, in theory. In practice it's a nightmare to implement, like every other mechanic in this game. The mouse clicks themselves have a problem if you play it for long enough, and it is a problem with RPGMaker itself:

When an event is moving, it will only execute code within said event if you activate it AFTER it has stopped moving. You can NOT activate events while they move, if you want to do that, you have to write a plugin to overwrite this behavior or find a workaround. It may not seem like a big deal but if you try and play my game for a while you will notice that it feels as if your mouse is not working properly because sometimes a click will simply not register. This is one of the obscure engine's limitations when it comes to games that are not something that looks like final fantasy 1.

As for some closing thoughts on all of this, if you are a beginner, don't waste your time using RPGMaker. It is painful to say for me because I wasted 11 years in this engine, but all the 'experience' you will gain by using this engine is worthless. The engine will force you into writing bad code, learn bad coding practices and over-rely on third-party plugins.

If you do happen to learn javascript, you will barely learn anything that can be translated to another engine, so you will have to start from scratch on a lot of things such as movement and physics.

The games you make with RPGMaker will look terrible at worst and unpolished at best. And if you do manage to squish the engine into making a game that's not samey and it's actually interesting, people can always just say 'it's an artsy fartsy game'. Plus developing in RPGMaker somehow makes the whole game-making process take twice as long for whatever reason.

EVEN if you want to make an old-style RPG game, you will just make a terrible game!

Please please please actually look-up what 199X RPG games actually played like.

Here's a tiny list of 199X games THAT DO NOT LOOK LIKE FINAL FANTASY:

Legend of Mana (1999)

Atelier Elie: The Alchemist of Salburg 2 (1998)

Blaze And Blade: Eternal Quest (1998)

Digimon World (1999)

I know a lot of people think of final-fantasy and final fantasy-like games when they think 'retro RPG' but GOD PLEASE ACTUALLY PLAY OLD GAMES, not every RPG out there was a gird-based final fantasy copy-paste! A ton of RPGs from the time had weird and interesting mechanics, 3d, 2d, grid and pixel movement, VN-style portraits and not, there was a lot of variety besides final fantasy-like games!

The argument that RPGMaker is an engine to make 'J-rpgs' is in itself flawed! RPGMaker only ever shines when it comes to make games that look like a cheap copy of a very old final fantasy game. And final fantasy itself has moved-on from that format for a few decades now. The engine is not even capable of doing something as basic as a retro dungeon crawler without plugins, have you seen what a retro dungeon crawler looks like?

Just take a look at Shin Megami Tensei 1 (1992), do you think vanilla RPGMaker can build something similar?

Please remember that RPGMakerMV was released just a few years ago and that it actually costs money to use, and it cannot even realistically replicate a game that's over 32 years old out of the box!

If you really REALLY want to use RPGMaker to make games, please do, but please, please at least once in your life try using a real game-making engine. You can pick any engine, Unity, unreal, godot even Scratch if you really want to, but please broaden your horizons.

RPGMaker is a terrible engine destined to make terrible games, anything but a VN or a terrible game will be VERY hard to make and take at the very least twice as long as it would take in a normal engine. You are only hurting yourself by using RPGMaker and I make this post because a lot of people don't realize this, using this engine is actually bad for you, and not enough people mention it. As a matter of fact, the amount of people that actively defend this terrible engine is astounding.

EVEN if you want to just make games 'for fun', please TRY A REAL ENGINE, you will have WAY more freedom and even if the learning process takes some time, the end result will be WAY better AND EASIER TO MAKE than anything you will ever produce in RPGMaker.

Do you ever wonder why every time people mention how 'great' RPGMaker is, they mention a very, very few games?

IB, Toiler wonderland, OFF, Hylics, Fear and hunger, Mad father, Witch house, Killer bear, Corpse party...

How long is the list? 50, maybe 100 games? RPGMaker has been out for about 24 years now, that's 24 years of people from all kinds of backgrounds making games, and in all of those 24 years we only got about 100 'awesome' games?

Please, if you want to make a game, if you really really want to make a game and you want your game to be pretty, and you want people to like your game and maybe even form a fan-base around it, please use a real engine. I know we all want to make games because we all want to make something fun, or tell a story, or build an experience, or maybe we just want to learn and have fun making games. Not everyone needs to learn game design, and not every game must be different from final fantasy 1, but please, even if all you want to do is an 1v1 replica of final fantasy 1, or a very simple visual novel, try another engine. Do not fall into the RPGMaker hole, it will only gobble-up your time giving back nothing in return.

In short, RpgMaker is the self-harm of game-making engines, in the long run it is only bad for you, and people that actually talk about this get shoved under the rug. Here's a devlog that more or less helped me finally take the jump, it's another dev's experience with RPGMaker development and it's totally worth a read: https://yobobgames.com/harvest-island-rpg-maker/

Thanks for reading my post, if I can convince even a single person to try a better engine, that's all that counts for me. I really hope everyone succeeds in their game-making projects, that is the reason why I made this post. After about 11 years I can surely say this engine is never worth it. PS: I forgot to mention it but some version of RPGMaker are literally just a cash grab, for example RPGMaker MZ and RPGMaker Unite (Unite barely works, MZ is just RPGMaker MV with a few QoL improvements). PSS: Sorry for all the grammar mistakes and the few lines of code/comments that don't make that much sense, it's 2AM rn and I need to sleep. I will probably edit these later.

[mothscotch]

rpgmaker exploded parts of one of my wip fangames [LOOSE], so i am going to redo it! i wasnt too happy with what i made (exept one super cute event where the batter sits with an elsen, the event that got corrupted the worst AAH)

take these unused monster sprites (had 2 scale them down) as a. i dont know actually what as. enjoy :-3

[lunar-fey]

if you ever stream the sims can I watch 🥺 I love watching people play games

ofc!!! actually if youll excuse me using this as a chance to self promo if youre interested my sister (skerples/carrie) and i DO stream 3x a week already and you can find out more @collateralcorp :3

[phantomtrax]

Is there anyone who's got rpgmaker experience here. Can you configure battles to have these ↑ rock-paper-scissors-like mechanics in rpgmaker mv or is that just not possible without like...some crazy plugin

[flamboyant-king]

Game development? More like Foreshadowing!

Back in November, after I went back to work, I wanted to figure out RPGmaker all by myself. I wanted to help my darling friend, Que, work on Wiwi and The Golden Acorn, I would do all the dialogue and it would all change based on what events have occurred. So, we had an idea for a quick game to help us get down the basics before we work on any big projects.

It's called How Can I Be the Legendary Swordsman When I Have Carpal Tunnel?

It's also called I hyperfixated on this for a day until I made my hands hurt. Which is ironic. But the story really is about me getting isekai'd into a fantasy world after working myself to death (the foreshadowing is too great), but my problems still came along with me. But there are fantasy versions of my friends there to guide me along the way to recovery and success.

So I messed with the dialogue, scenes, events, and intro to make it feel very game-y. I made the sprites of the legendary hero, Que did the friends, we only used the assets of RPGmaker cause we are just testing. Of course it has to have my humor. The legendary hero is called Morshu Junior and his colors were ripped directly from the Lamp Oil guy, Morshu.

The gameplay is the legendary swordsman does all the damage, but he also hurts himself, so his companions are actually all healers and you can use their turns to heal the swordsman. They can do damage, but the swordsman will keep losing health, whether they're attacking or defending, the swordsman will keep losing health. Which is an awesome idea, but we didn't figure out how to incorporate that yet. Maybe one day but not anytime soon.

I hope you like my idea, it's silly and we'll use it as our testing grounds and also just goofing around. I would love to hear your feedback. I love you guys.

[kirbyliker12]

redraw from 4 years ago..sneef...and other witchs house things because i recently reread the 9 chapter manga and had the most agonizing experience (would def recommend) contentwarnings in tags....ehehe

[insertdisc5]

🎮 HEY I WANNA MAKE A GAME! 🎮

Yeah I getcha. I was once like you. Pure and naive. Great news. I AM STILL PURE AND NAIVE, GAME DEV IS FUN! But where to start?

To start, here are a couple of entry level softwares you can use! source: I just made a game called In Stars and Time and people are asking me how to start making vidy gaems. Now, without further ado:

SOFTWARES AND ENGINES FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW HOW TO CODE!!!

Ren'py (and also a link to it if you click here do it): THE visual novel software. Comic artists, look no further ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It has great documentation! It has a bunch of plugins and UI stuff and assets for you to buy! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! (You'll just need to read the doc a bunch) You can also port your game to a BUNCH of consoles! ✨Cons: None really <3 Some games to look at: Doki Doki Literature Club, Bad End Theater, Butterfly Soup

Twine: Great for text-based games! GREAT FOR WRITERS WHO DONT WANNA DRAW!!!!!!!!! (but you can draw if you want) ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It's versatile! It has great documentation! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! (You'll just need to read the doc a bunch) ✨Cons: You can add pictures, but it's a pain. Some games to look at: The Uncle Who Works For Nintendo, Queers In love At The End of The World, Escape Velocity

Bitsy: Little topdown games! ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It's (somewhat) intuitive! It has great documentation! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! You can make everything in it, from text to sprites to code! Those games sure are small! ✨Cons: Those games sure are small. This is to make THE simplest game. Barely any animation for your sprites, can barely fit a line of text in there. But honestly, the restrictions are refreshing! Some games to look at: honestly I haven't played that many bitsy games because i am a fake gamer. The picture above is from Under A Star Called Sun though and that looks so pretty

RPGMaker: To make RPGs! LIKE ME!!!!! NOTE: I recommend getting the latest version if you can, but all have their pros and cons. You can get a better idea by looking at this post. ✨Pros: Literally everything you need to make an RPG. Has a tutorial inside the software itself that will teach you the basics. Pretty simple to understand, even if you have no coding experience! Also I made a post helping you out with RPGMaker right here! ✨Cons: Some stuff can be hard to figure out. Also, the latest version is expensive. Get it on sale! Some games to look at: Yume Nikki, Hylics, In Stars and Time (hehe. I made it)

engine.lol: collage worlds! it is relatively new so I don't know much about it, but it seems fascinating. picture is from Garden! NOTE: There's a bunch of smaller engines to find out there. Just yesterday I found out there's an Idle Game Maker made by the Cookie Clicker creator. Isn't life wonderful?

✨more advice under the cut. this is Long ok✨

ENGINES I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT AND THEY SEEM HARD BUT ALSO GIVE IT A TRY I GUESS!!!! :

Unity and Unreal: I don't know anything about those! That looks hard to learn! But indie devs use them! It seems expensive! Follow your dreams though! Don't ask me how!

GameMaker: Wuh I just don't know anything about it either! I just know it's now free if your game is non-commercial (aka, you're not selling it), and Undertale was made on it! It seems good! You probably need some coding experience though!!!

Godot: Man I know even less about this one. Heard good things though!

BUNCHA RANDOM ADVICE!!!!

-Make something small first! Try making simple: a character is in a room, and exits the room. The character can look around, decide to take an item with them, can leave, and maybe the door is locked and you have to find the key. Figuring out how to code something like that, whether it is as a fully text-based game or as an RPGMaker map, should be a good start to figure out how your software of choice works!

-After that, if you have an idea, try first to make the simplest version of that idea. For my timeloop RPG, my simplest version was two rooms: first room you can walk in, second room with the King, where a cutscene automatically plays and the battle starts, you immediately die, and loop back to the first room, with the text from this point on reflecting this change. I think I also added a loop counter. This helped me figure out the most important thing: Can This Game Be Made? After that, the rest is just fun stuff. So if you want to make a dating sim, try and figure out how to add choices, and how to have affection points go up and down depending on your choices! If you want to make a platformer, figure out how to make your character move and jump and how to create a simple level! If you just want to make a kinetic visual novel with no choices, figure out how to add text, and how to add portraits! You'll be surprised at how powerful you'll feel after having figured even those simple things out.

-If you have a programming problem or just get confused, never underestimate the power of asking Google! You most likely won't be the only person asking this question, and you will learn some useful tips! If you are powerful enough, you can even… Ask people??? On forums??? Not me though.

-Yeah I know you probably want to make Your Big Idea RIGHT NOW but please. Make a smaller prototype first. You need to get that experience. Trust me.

-If you are not a womanthing of many skills like me, you might realize you need help. Maybe you need an artist, or a programmer. So! Game jams on itch.io are a great way to get to work and meet other game devs that have different strengths! Or ask around! Maybe your artist friend secretly always wanted to draw for a game. Ask! Collaborate! Have fun!!!

I hope that was useful! If it was. Maybe. You'd like to buy me a coffee. Or maybe you could check out my comics and games. Or just my new critically acclaimed game In Stars and Time. If you want. Ok bye

[yugsly]

coward who is also a horror fan here, one of the youtubers i like played look outside & i dont know anything abt it aside from the body horror in the thumbnails, which has admittedly unnerved me a bit. you seem to be a fan tho so id like your thoughts & perhaps a little summary if you dont mind? is it worth pushing past the fear?

Look Outside is far too cartoony to be "scary" in my opinion. The art is absolutely amazing, but its very exaggerated and caricature-like, I don't know that it's "scary". I guess if you think too hard about what you're seeing, maybe it could be scary? It looks like 90s gross-out kids books to me (I mean this in a very good way). I don't know, it's very goofy. The art is really one of a kind though, it's incredible.

It's extremely fun, and slowly discovering what's happening over the course of its runtime, unraveling that mystery, is well worth it. One of the most interesting uses of RPGmaker in my opinion. Lots of cool rule-breaking in-engine stuff.

I don't wanna spoil it too much, but you are trapped in your own apartment building whilst the rest of the residents are transforming into horrific beasts because they looked outside. You cannot look outside. Something in the sky is transforming them, and you must survive the invasion of your own home, teaming up with the few sane folks left. It's great.

[maletofujoshi]

I dont think it's worth dooming about AI art because largely i still think audiences that are invested in art largely are compelled by process about as much (and sometimes more) than end product, and i'm not sure that AI models can really catch up with process. even when people cared a lot about AI images during their sorta bizarre nonsense era, it was kinda because of the inscrutable process creating works that were like. fun to think about. like remember 2021 neuralblender and the like?

this was fun because it was the kind of image that like... only an AI model would think to make, and there's elements of it that would likely be difficult for human artists to replicate-- not impossible, but like, difficult. as such this image was and is captivating to many people. current AI image generators are basically trying to imitate either photography or, especially now, particular illustrators or particular styles of art. except like. it skips past the process, or like, the process is completely different and like. not i think especially compelling? ppl might think differently about that but there's something about like a heavily rendered AI anime girl that is less interesting to me to an otherwise heavily rendered anime girl. i remember coming across a dark fantasy genre artist on tumblr, and i was about to send them an ask about how they got a certain texture in what looked like digital work-- before i looked closer and realized "ah, this is AI, they can't give me a replicable answer." that dampened my enjoyment of images that were otherwise fun to look at. this maybe sounds bad, but without process, an object becomes kinda kitschy to me. the art-object itself is more functional than anything at that point, like how "fountain" is interesting because of the presentation of it as art, though a urinal is just a urinal otherwise.

thinking about it with games, i think there's a lot of interesting lines people draw there: what elements of development would you have a problem with if you found out some developer used AI for them? image generation is particularly useful for textures, but texture work is something a lot of people care a lot about. people care about photography, painting, and image editing... but what about like, generating a height map for that texture? what about photographing a texture, and then asking like some AI model to make it tile better? different people care about different things more or less. there's games out there who's textures tell like, interesting stories, "Sonic Adventure"s developers went on trips to places in the real world and took photos and used them in the game. that's like, really very appreciable, and makes me admire that game more-- but like also. there's a lot of games where i kinda either don't think about the texture work at all, or only really admire it for obvious observable qualities- the end product.

Using AI for code is another thing. I think like, it's kinda obvious that people would do this. programming is like an obvious use case for a language model, and i think it's questionable when people get up in arms about it. programs like RPGmaker are kinda highly appreciated for essentially taking out "programming" as a required skill to make games. this enabled a lot of artists and writers to create games, with mostly 'readymade' tools, which led to a lot of interesting art... obviously there's still programming work involved, event scripting, custom mechanics, but like i think that's similar to having to think about scripts at least somewhat even if you're getting some AI model do a lot of the work of implementation for you... but then again, there's games that are beautiful for systems that are programmed, and thought up by highly skilled people.

basically i think a lot of AI takes away the work in areas people don't necessarily care about. and that's a subjective thing. there might be a lot to care about in those areas. it makes me feel kinda bad seeing like, clipart go away in advertising. like. i saw some ad that had this AI generated art of a bowl of noodles, and it was passable from a distance, but there were a lot of problems with it that annoyed me, mistakes a trained human illustrator wouldn't make-- bad tangents, lines that didn't actually flow. but also like. okay. so what. like that's not art i necessarily care about being good... but like otherwise. process is literally cool and a lot of process will kinda have to remain human. i'd be weirded out if i saw some major company using a shoddy generated image like that because it'd feel cheap. similar to how it's a bit cheap when a game opts for 'readymade' assets.. if there's still some interesting process elsewhere there, interesting thought, that still creates intrigue. but i wouldn't be interested in like, an asset flip without ideas, lol.

tldr; i dont think writing, art, or programming are dead forever now, but like if ur writing copy, making illustration, or doing amateur work or something you will probably struggle with finding cheaper clients. which does kinda suck tbh. finding an audience that appreciates ur work and the process behind it will probably just be as variable as it always has been, though.

[waterloggedsoliloquy]

mutual 1: sorry the update for my webcomic this week is a bit late! i really had to rush it so it prolly looks really sloppy lol [some of the most sophisticated comic art ive ever seen]

mutual 2: call me uterine lining the way astarions cervix got me bleeding profusely

mutual 3: do you think nanowrimo will give me a posthumous pity publishing deal if i mention it in my suicide note

mutual 4: okay fine i finally started revolutionary girl utena

mutual 5: does columbo know the service he did for butch lesbians. for all of us

mutual 6: wish you were here [blurry picture set of conifer woods in early autumn evening, taken as if frantically running down a winding trail]

mutual 4: im pretty hardy i dont need the trigger list but thanks for looking out for me guys

mutual 7: good morning lovelies another day the wizard tried to best me and another day i successfully locked him in the spare bathroom lol hope u like drinking shampoo fucker

mutual 8: here is a zip of every yuri manga scan i have and here is a backup in case i get dcma'd. the himejoshi lifestyle will never die

mutual 9: i wish i could go back in time to the shinzo abe assassination and ask to hold the doohickey

mutual 10: here's my essay on how wanting to be loved is the same as wanting to be eaten. three paragraphs in you'll find out that this is 100% tied to an obscure beauty and the beast manga i've been reading lately and how much i want to fuck the beast

mutual 4: oh thats why there was the trigger list.

mutual 11: YOU CAN'T LOCK ME IN THIS BATHROOM FOREVER

mutual 12: why do i have to defend my thesis to people i dont even respect. im not dickriding you just give me the degree

mutual 13: its just me and this scab ive picked into my scalp against the world

mutual 14: my little dragon got glazed and is ready to go into the kiln! everyone wish him good luck!

mutual 3: nvm i am a beautiful genius. perhaps the most beautiful genius of all

mutual 15: i think we should give david lynch rpgmaker and whatever happens happens

mutual 16: kpeyboaatrds brpokem gpuys

mutual 17: also heres my work in progress glossary of mixtec words! i still have a long way to go but i love being able to preserve my roots even in this small way

mutual 4: i just finished the black rose arc. question: what

mutual 18: i need emet-selch to be my wife

mutual 19: i need glados to be my husband

mutual 20: visited the ocean today!!! <3 beach pics!!! there is a darkness growing within me

mutual 21: the forms for my legal name change came in. pls vote in this poll of what my middle name should be: Dill Pickle (Dickle for short), Optimus Prime, Tumblr User Gorgonicteratologist, Smeve

mutual 22: just finished my 100th book of the year! this weeks read was the uses of enchantment by the psychologist bruno bettelheim,

mutual 23: reeses penis butter cups lol

mutual 4: i need to hunt akio for sport

mutual 24: oouugghhrgh. hot. dog.

mutual 25: your favorite character or fictional other would want you to brush your teeth and wash your face so you're well rested and wake up feeling refreshed! make them proud!

mutual 26: being a delivery driver isnt the worst job ive ever had but i do keep wondering what itd be like to drive off into the wild blue yonder one day and not come back

mutual 27: weird dog? [phone picture of critically endangered stork]

mutual 28: i think the two phone line polls in front of my house are having a lovers tryst. no way to prove it tho

mutual 4: WHAT

mutual 29: while you bitches are balduring your gates or finalling those fantasies im doing what a REAL gamer does. playing a b tier rpg that came out in 2004 for the 18th time

mutual 30: ^ real. hamtaro ham ham heartbreak is a masterpiece of interactive art. im not even going to call it a video game at this point

mutual 4: THAT'S HOW IT ENDS?! ANTHY?

mutual 31: can you help me pick which drawing looks better: 34% overlay or 36% soft light?

mutual 32: new video essay out. its called disability in video game narratives: final fantasy 14's most reliable fault. i churned the script out over an all-nighter and my mic crapped out halfway through but by god i did it

mutual 33: my new zine bundle is out! if you buy it you also get a discount on all my game jam games! i really cant wait for you to play them!

mutual 4: yall should watch revolutionary girl utena

[damiel-of-real]

rpg maker vx ace is only free for another 25 hours!!!! if you want to make stupid and bad shit like this or maybe think you MIGHT want to fuck around with rpgmaker someday then i would recommend getting this!! i dont know how it compares to other engines but i can definitely say ive been having fun with it

info about the clip:

farmer sprites made by my friend clockman. i dont know if he has a tumblr or not

the pinkman joke probably wasnt that funny but it was one of my earliest ideas. i wanted to experiment with how to go about implementing a second party member and my thought process was "oh a pink man, to go along with the blue test character! a pink man. much like the boy from walting white."

i made almost all the visuals here! all character sprites (minus the farmer), all the tilesets, the battle background, also the shitty border around the text. i only didnt do the icons for PINKBLAST and FARMER'S DELIGHT. also the tileset for the first few seconds while i talk to TAXI is the default one, i didnt make it

all music is mine, aside from the victory jingle. i'm not experienced in making music so i only did stupid dinky little loops

this isn't gonna be a game if it wasnt obvious. this is me trying to figure out what i'm capable of creating. its also for making funny clips to show my friends.

this room is the most complicated thing ive ever managed to make in rpgmaker and its honestly very simple

i didnt know trying to use FORCEFEM in the overworld would make a sparkly little sound effect. i didnt tell it to do that. it cracked me up so bad

[evilsabi]

hi!!! im rust i draw sometimes and i post it . i like rpgmaker games and music. i was sabi-rust but that account EXPLODED

you can use my drawings for anything you dont need to ask for permission (preferably not ai training though.)

i use they them

my telegram sticker pack+sabitsuki one+tgk

picmix

i used to run dailymilkchan on instagram. career high (no really why did i include this)

flash warning below (i will add a million blinkies picmixes and stamps shortly. please be patient)

galatea picmix that didnt export quite right. i hold it closely.

[tvheadfalls]

Do you have any method you found regarding how to make assets/tiles in RPGmaker?? I had a few attempts at making a game but making them always made me quit. And you seem to be onto smth with sketching a room over a screenshot

yes!! im not touching tilesets they killed my family!!!! parallax is my new best friend. u can lit just Draw A Picture and use smth like the yanfly region restriction plugin to make them work as maps. guys u dont even need pixel art

https://youtu.be/mNwrFZdlW2E?si=PO5MdwjrmNwnZhsj

(jk tilesets absolutely have their uses for bigger maps or similar repeating environments. but, well. i am not doing thart)

i actually assembled a playlist for my friends so they dont have to sift thru all the battle mechanic tutorials etc if they ever wanna try. im still fiddling w it but if anyone else is interested!!

[nuclearisopod]

Can you tell us more about your game? What kind of tasks would the machine have you do? Loved the art you did, it made me want to keep creating tonight! :)

thank you! im glad you liked it :D

i haven't got very much since ive just started making it. very bare-bones

i was thinking that all of the tasks the machine has you do are to help improve it. ie, getting materials to fix it, some sort of puzzles where you build stuff, kill its enemies, find it fuel- those last two things go hand in hand because the machine runs on blood. if you dont, you lose (or, die. i dunno yet). i was going based off the idea of roko's basilisk !

i was originally planning on making it in rpgmaker xp, but after learning that i can't change the game window or hitbox sizes, i think im gonna use godot instead since thats what im used to :D

[suitservice]

✄ MY VGEN | MY KOFI | CARRD

"Lost" RPGmaker game adopt that I had a lot of fun making :D!

Posted to my TOYHOUSE!

Fake "lost lore" under the cut!

Not sure if anyone will actually know what game I'm talking about since I feel like it's super obscure?? but I just remembered it while watching an rpgmaker iceberg   

It was a game that you could find on one of those sites similar to jayisgames (??) where people would create posts "reviewing" or giving a quick summary of the game and at the bottom there would be either a download link or a button you could click to play the game in browser depending on the game. I remember having to download this one and watching a youtube tutorial (how to open game files) bc this was literally like in the early 2000s when I barely knew how to do anything involving downloads lol. After you download the game icon pops up on your computer. The icon for this game would be a dog wearing a gasmask with a bright red flower in it's mouth (its kind of hard to tell that its a dog unless you have actually gone through and played the game, because the gasmask dog is one of the "enemies" you combat while playing) Theres no title under the icon, I think it was literally just the star ( * ) symbol but I guess its supposed to be seen as a flower? There isn't an opening sequence, or at least not one that I can remember super well? Maybe I always just held skip and so now I dont really remember the opening scene. Everything in the first room you're in kind of has like a dark grey brick texture. Almost like it was made with default brick texture in rpgmaker just with the hue slide around to kind of represent other textures? Like tables/chairs/dressers/things on the wall would be the same exact brick texture just color changed to be brown. They dont stay like this for the entire game, its just in the first room. All the other rooms in this game are super surreal but very gothic? Like weird stained glass and iron gate type things. Theres lots of "framed" pictures on the walls when you walk through what are hallways. I remember thinking that the game was set in something similar to the reptile room from the "A series of unfortunate events" movie with jim carrey, just with the lights turned off or something. SUPER dark. You can collect pictures off the walls and use them as weapons, sort of. But it's better to just use the fireplace poker you can get from the room you start in. There are fireplaces in a bunch of other rooms and you can re-put your firepoke into it to make a better weapon. If you don't pick up this item I guess you work towards a good ending? edit; my fake lore was too long you can read the rest on the adopt page sorryyy

[insertdisc5]

Hey! so Ima be honest... its taking awhile for me to write this, really because I'm nervous of what you'll say, but! I have an important question I have to ask because I couldn't find it if it was in the FAQ(s)… but! May I please make a fan-made isat ttrpg? I really like the game and story and would like to make a little love letter to it! I'm not that far with it and have only written only like 3 things for it and already have the character sheets halfway done, but I would love for your input if you do allow me! I just want to make something fun!

you don't have to answer if you don't want to! but I would really like to do this! Ever since I found isat through youtube, I've been obsessed with its characters and its world!

Much love! - The Collector

ok so as of now my Stance on fangames/mods/whatever is:

-if it's an rpgmaker game, go right ahead and make a fangame, but do NOT use the original game's assets. make up your own portraits and pixel character sheets! (you can use the environment pixel art because otherwise that'd be a whole lot of work lmao).

(red outline = dont use em. icons and battle animations etc are fair game)

-if it's a mod for another game (like that slay the spire ISAT mod I saw a while back), go right ahead, and you CAN use the original art for it!

my reasoning is, I don't want people to look at a fangame that's on rpgmaker and looks exactly like the original game, and for people to go "omg isat sequel" or whatever

and of course "don't make money off of any fangame/fun cool thing" as always, because, uh, common sense lol