#learning how to make a game in rpg maker

[homeofhousechickens]

Im learning stuff like how to be incredibly angry the font isn't centered correctly

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Dungeon Meshi: Delicious in RPG!

(Sprites + bonus art here!)

[buttercupshands]

*looking at isat ss discord* my power of being silly got out of control

or how I tried understanding rpg maker basics by literally trying to do one (1) thing I really wanted to see ever since seeing Loop unused sprites lying on wiki months ago

the reason I mentioned isat ss discord was simply bc guys were the first people who saw me trying to draw close to pixel sprite face sprite for Loop to,,, do something at some point just to see how it works

and nope I'm not making this into anything, but I really like the fact that I managed to do this

(now with video post edited into this sentence!)

[megacarapa]

lately ive been thinking a lot about how i never really have any original ideas of my own, like i make remakes of popular memes but dont really have my own jokes, i like to paint but i dont know what to paint so i just do paint by numbers, i love embroidery but i cant come up with my own design so i just follow patterns, i dont like drawing but i like coloring my friends drawings, i dont even have ocs or anything like that, i dont think its really a bad thing like its neutral but i am curious about how the other side lives so anyway the post im actually trying to make here is that i just caught myself googling "how to get ideas"

[vioyume]

I own three versions of rpg maker, they were all free at some point and if I don’t at least make a Yume Nikki fangame then these are just playing cards that are collecting dust.

[fagbearentertainment]

I miss professor briar and trevor and jay someone should draw them :( <- literally his ocs that he could draw whenever

[wereh0gz]

Why is trying to learn anything new so hard now

[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

[nilesmoon]

rgg side story where you're a paranormal investigator and you're about to spend a Very Normal Night at the millenium tower

[theshunbun]

Hi~ I also an artist and I've been follow you for a while. Know you since the time you draw cute drawing to sexy adorable girl with positive messages >vO I love reading them, thank you for always bring on positive, happy messages on my new feed ❤️

And I surprise how can you draw 3 pieces everyday, that's so fast >o< I wish I can draw fast like that. I feel like drawing human like you draw now it's very hard (the anatomy is my weakness >^< your drawing is so good). I wonder how much time you spend in a day for drawing? Does your main job is being a fulltime artist?

Hey hey! 😊 First off, thank you so much for your kind words! 💖💖💖 It really means a lot to hear that my art brings some positivity to your feed ;w; That’s exactly what I aim for, so knowing it resonates with you makes me super happy! 🥹💕

As for drawing three pieces a day, phew, it definitely took me time to build up that speed! At first, I was way slower like my energy level is very low, but with consistently getting my mind into the work mode, I found ways to streamline my process. Over time, I got better at simplifying certain details, trusting my instincts, and letting go of perfectionism when it wasn’t needed. Some days, I can knock out art fast, and other days, I take my time like if i have a commission so dont stress about speed! It naturally improves as you keep drawing fr. ✨

But I totally get you on anatomy being a challenge! It’s honestly one of those never-ending learning curves for me, and I still study and refine my approach even tho my proportions are wayyy off and make no sense. The best trick I’ve found is focusing on flow rather than stiff details, if it feels good to me then I will go ahead with it, I know ill never be 100% all the time but I do fin that gesture drawing helps a ton 💖

As for time spent drawing daily, ehh it varies, but I’d say anywhere from several hours to the whole day depending on what I’m working on. Some pieces come together quickly like within an hour (When im livestreaming my work on youtube), while others take longer. I’m always juggling that balance really

And yes, at this point, I do consider myself a full-time artist! It’s a mix of art commissions, social media content things, and other projects like the Tato TTRPG and rpg maker game that keep me going. It’s a lot of work, but I love it, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything! That said, it’s totally okay to take things at your own pace whether you’re full-time or just making art for fun, what matters most is that you enjoy the process. its a thing im still learning 💕

[directdogman]

hey dog! sorry to bug you with a coding question, but i'm learning rpg maker mv for a fangame & i'm wondering how you did a couple things. if it's not too much trouble, could you quickly explain some of it? i've scrounged around as much as i can but i cant find what i need so i thought it'd be worth asking directly ^^;

how did you get the players name to show up in the message log? i know theres a plugin that adds the name windows for other characters & i've got that figured out, but i have no idea how to get the players name to show up in the history after selecting stuff

how'd you get the graphic for the route diverging choices to show & play During choices? so far ive figured out that looping the images recreates the visual but then the game doesn't progress, bc its just stuck in that loop...

how'd you disable ( + grey out) dialogue options after selecting them??

how'd you add the fullscreen option? i found a code that was supposed to add a fullscreen option to the optionscore settings but that one just breaks the plugin & i simply Don't know enough javascript to figure it out myself

i'm using all the same plugins that dialtown has so clearly these are possible without extra ones, i just don't know how to do it,, thanks for explaining your pronoun system a little while ago btw! i wasn't the one who asked but your post was super helpful when i was setting it up for myself :D

It's been close to 6 years since I started making DT, and I had to figure out a few solutions to specific issues that cropped up which I've likely forgotten now, but I'll answer what I can remember. I'm also gonna give you some advice and advise you not to use RPG Maker for projects like these.

I basically Scott Cawthon'd DT and forced the engine to yield to my demands because I wanted to use the one I knew best. A few of these solutions are over-complicated because the easier ones (which would've worked in other engines) had to be constructed differently. I'll also mention a few solutions to problems you might not have encountered (but inevitably will if you try to recreate DT.) With that out of the way...

1)

You'll want these settings for the backlog plugin. the \c[x] commands refer to standard name colours. Log special inputs set to true, followed up by this below:

\n<\c[4]\n[1]\c[0]>%1

With \n[1] being the name you want and the number after the first c being what colour you want.

I'll also save you a potential future issue: I'd actually recommend you find the backlog plugin I used in DT's files (located inside the www/js/plugins folder) and use the version I have instead of the official release if you're not already, because I made a small change to fix an error. Basically, it breaks slightly with the plugin that lets you bring up the menu during dialogue because text reloads when you leave the menu and re-enter the text box, causing text to be logged at least twice after you pause it. If you keep bringing up the menu, you'll get constant duplication. I simply added a line of code that tells the log not to have two duplicates in a row. Not a programmer, but it seems works.

2)I did it in a funny way to ensure the engine wouldn't screw it up. Basically, there's 3 steps to the event and it's kinda hard to explain (and would be annoying to reproduce without a lot of trial and error for a beginner.) It's easier if I show my code. The first thing I do is run a common event (you can also just paste this code in and run it from the event) that renders the frames used by the popup, so they're loaded into memory + ready to go.

As you can see, they're set to 0 opacity but now ready to be used. Obviously they have to be on a layer that isn't being used by anything else in the scene (and won't be during this part of the game.) I run this event ahead of time, usually 4 messages before the choice comes up or so, so even slower PCs should have time to get them up.

The 'if head' thing just switches between the files for phone/typegingi's heads. I render each frame on separate layers and toggle their opacity from one to the next on a single frame to avoid flickering (bc RPG maker's renderer is hot trash and I have to work around it. Case in point.)

Step 2 is a second command event that orders the frames to fade in.

One layer is the text (which doesn't move) and the other is the first frame of the little head animation. A switch is also turned on at the end, and this signals the animation to go, which is handled by an event on any map where a choice like this comes up.

The event page that handles the animation itself has 2 pages, one to handle the animation as it goes and the other to handle when it stops (note that you could use one page and simply use a conditional branch. I didn't.)

Set to parallel so it runs in the bg behind normal events. As you can see, every 17 frames, I command one image to fade out over a single frame and another to fade in. It loops perfectly, cycling from middle frame, to left, to middle, to right, back to middle. Finally, when you select any route diverging choice, it sets off a second switch, which activates the second event page and commands the game to dispose of the graphics and then turn itself off.

Basically, it's the same animation but with a twist. The text is faded out over 60 frames and then the same animation is played as before, except the values it fades back into go from 255, to 170 to 85. Each of those commands is also followed by a 17 second fade to the opacity of the next frame. So, frame one renders in one frame at 255. Then seventeen frame fadeout to 170... Next frame renders for 1 frame AT 170, then fades out gradually to 85. Then next frame renders at 85 during 1 frame, fades to 0. This is how i synced the turning animation to fade out convincingly.

At the very end, I turn both of the switches this event page uses off so both event pages don't continue on loop. I also have a check for the first event variable to check if the game should still think the animation is running, as a failsafe. I don't remember if this mattered.

3)It's a function in the YEP Extended Message Pack. You'll see the commands for hiding (temporarily removing) + disabling choices (greying them out) as you scroll through the help list, almost 2/3 down. The thing you have to remember though is that messages that are commanded to be hidden/disabled will STAY disabled unless you turn them back on. So, ANY time there's a possibility to make a choice with a disabled or hidden message, add this plugin command to EVERY selectable choice

ClearChoiceSettings

This will ensure the game doesn't break from having a choice permadisabled. If you use loops or labels to make the game return to a previous choice, make sure the looping point is BEFORE any logic that may disable/hide a choice so it doesn't autoenable everything if the game has to go back.

4)Make a new RPG Maker project, copy the js folder from www/data/js and open the new project alongside your other one. Then check my YEP Option core plugin and follow this path in the plugin editor

This code should work.

On a similar note, I'd also take a look at how my plugins are ordered, if your list is different. I had to meddle with the list to make sure some plugins functioned correctly. This engine is held together with duct-tape and spite, so do what this advice what you will.

Hope this helps!

[unlimitedhearts]

Im having a Deltarune thought.

Sans is not Deltarune Sans. He is Undertale Sans. We know this from context clues in his dialogue and the fact that his convenience store is fucking Grillby's from Undertale.

This leads me to believe that Deltarune - despite being a separate story and not a continuation of Undertale - is connected to that world by way of at least a few of its characters.

So my thought is this:

Ralsei is Asriel, but not Deltarune Asriel. He's Undertale Asriel.

Supporting evidence includes this lint I found in my pocket, meaning I have none. Its just vibes.

Like how the town in the Dark World is named after whatever name you picked in the Goner Maker when starting a new game.

Like how he's immediately attached to you, the player, and to Kris before even really getting to know either, as if he's been friends with one or both a long time. As if he knows you already.

Like how Ralsei is acutely aware of you the player being separate from Kris and how he has at present talked the soul into leaving him alone with Kris. When we come back to the pair, Ralsei is finishing a sentence always.

"So that's why, okay Kris?"

Like how he's aware of Kris' super special RPG abilities. (Which makes me think he's aware of saving and reloading, but I have less than the lint in my pocket for that one).

Like how Ralsei is shown to have a distinct like of Kris only while the player is around, but we see nothing of how he feels about Kris without the player. In the acid tunnel of love sequence, he says very specifically, "I like that you're you." This is done in front of the player. Implying he's not talking to Kris. He's talking to the player or maybe the soul that the player is piloting. This is moments before you can take a picture with him at the end of the ride where you can recreate the iconic hug between Frisk and Asriel (undertale version). Ralsei is both embarrassed and flabbergasted that Kris would even think to do that.

But it's not Kris doing it. It's the player. And he knows this. He's surprised the player would want to recreate that scene and be shy and embarrassed about being put in that position before ultimately going along with it.

Ralsei has all this information about Kris and the player. He's shown repeatedly to utilise this information, but we never see where he got the info from. He already had it. The second you entered the dark world, he had all that information and more. He had to have learned it from somewhere.

About you the player. About the souls mechanics. About your piloting of Kris. He's came preloaded with knowledge. Where would he have gotten it?

From Gaster? Maybe. But my explanation is simply that he got it by living it.

Ralsei is Asriel at the end of Undertale, having been put into the world of Deltarune. Just like Sans is implied to have been. Having lived his life as Azzy, then Flowey, then the God of Hyperdeath, then Azzy again. He's intimately familiar with the soul and its mechanics because of his life experiences.

Whatever his major plans and motivations are, I do not know. What he's talking to Kris about when the player/soul are not there, I don't know (though if i could have a less than evidence based guess it would be why Kris has to stumble around with the soul a little longer). Good, evil, neutral, I TRULY do not know, and I make no attempt to know. But I get major vibes that we have met him before. We have maybe fought him before. And he's using what he's learned for.

Something.

[delucadarlingwriting]

This...technically isn't writing, but I feel like it still fits in on this blog.

I've been tooling around in RPG maker, just trying to figure out how it works. So here's a little...spaghetti-at-the-wall game I've put together.

Currently I'm only using the assets available, but I do really hope to learn how to put in my own assets so I can make everyone look a bit more...like themselves. If I can really figure this thing out, I'd love to recreate some of my favorite scenes from book 1, or maybe my own fic? Not sure yet. In any case, I'm just eager to play with it more.

[ponett]

I'm 25 and wanna learn how to animate (3D or 2D, IDK right now) so I can make a literal dream I had a reality, despite having almost no drawing or modeling skills. Is this a good idea? I am also busy with college and running some roleplaying campaigns. Can I juggle learning one talent while dealing with those other priorities, or should I wait till the time is right?

I think it's easy to say "just do it" in a way that dismisses how daunting it can be to juggle learning a new skill with other aspects of life, especially if you're trying to learn multiple skills. This is something I struggle with myself. I often feel like a jack of all trades but a master of none because I juggle drawing, pixel art, writing both fiction and criticism, game design, and all these other individual skills. I feel like I'm very far behind where I should be for programming at my age, for instance, and I'm often unhappy with my illustration skills because I only really started getting serious about art at age 18 and, frankly, I just don't draw all that often thanks to how many other creative pursuits I have to juggle. And then on top of all that my ADHD brain is also like "but what if I learned how to 3D model so I could make models of my OCs" or "what if I started practicing piano again so I could play my favorite songs" or "what if I started learning Japanese"

So like, it's tough. But also: you should just do it. You'll never learn a new skill if you're always waiting for when the time is right. SLARPG exists because I stopped waiting for "the right time" to learn game design (I had planned on going to college for it) and just said "fuck it" and downloaded RPG Maker on a whim. You won't be able to make the masterpiece you see in your head right away, but you can make SOMETHING, and that's better than nothing. And if you end up not having the time for it, you can always come back to it later

[cripplecharacters]

oh yeah another question abt intellectual disability: what do people with moderate id speak like? i assume they wouldnt be perfectly articulate but i know making them talk like cavemen would be bad too. i do want it to be clear that they have language difficulties, but im not sure how to do that realistically. so what kinds of grammar errors are actually common? would it make sense to have them mix up words with similar pronunciation, or have difficulty discerning the differences in implications between words with similar meanings (like "pretty" vs "attractive")? do people with id ever 'imagine context' the way people(well, me) do when half-asleep where the brain mishears a statement as something completely unrelated? would spatial and situational awareness be impaired? also this is kind of a different question but if you can give advice on what to do with game mechanics for an id character in an rpg, that would be nice! i already have the stats figured out for every character and theres no stat that i think would be strongly affected by id but in terms of depicted fighting style and other mechanics maybe thered be some stuff informed by it (i cant do anything too complex though, im using rpg maker vx ace). idk! im spitballing here. main thing i need to know is how to write dialogue for a character with id ^_^

Hey, we have a post somewhat about this that you might find useful, I'll try to go over the other questions below.

Keep in mind my ID is mild (and on the milder side of that) so my answer will be all second-hand knowledge from talking to people with moderate ID in my SPED years.

A lot of it will depend on what condition causes they have. People with Williams syndrome have very “normal” verbal skills majority of the time, and you can't really tell in my experience. On the other hand if they're autistic you can potentially guess from the tone of the voice e.g. they speak in a very loud and monotone way. People with Down syndrome are very likely to have a speech disorder, someone with cerebral palsy might slur their words, etc.

A lot of people with ID might be less talkative than your average person (there's definitely exceptions). So your character could use shorter sentences, simple sentences (in the grammar sense), prefer to use other forms of communication for things that don't require speech (e.g., nodding instead of saying “Yes, I agree”, or doing a thumbs up, etc.), or have to be prompted to actually answer/take part in the conversation.

I personally don't recall ever hearing the “mixing words with similar pronunciation” in someone's actual speech, maybe unless they learned the language from reading rather than hearing it. If that's the case, then ID could affect their speech more than if they didn't have it, otherwise I'd assume that the character might have brain damage or is maybe hard of hearing and simply mixes them up because they can't recognize/hear the difference between them.

Mixing words based on specific meaning makes much more sense in my opinion (probably because I do that myself). Synonyms or words that might make sense in one context but not the other are the worst. Your example here is great. When someone has ID they might take away the wrong meaning out of a word and use it incorrectly because of that. E.g., their parents used to take them camping to a forest with lots of bugs, they don't like bugs, they can later call something “foresty” to mean “with lots of bugs” even if it doesn't have much to do with an actual forest. This might make more sense for a character with more severe ID (or if they're just young) but using “attractive” when you'd normally say “pretty” makes sense for someone with moderate ID in my opinion.

Something that can also affect speech of someone with ID is word repetition. Not really in the echolalia sense (though it can be that too) but just using stock phrases that get repetitive over time. I try to edit it out from my posts, but you can still kinda see it. For some people it will be ending most sentences with the same word, for someone else it will be starting two paragraphs with the same three words without realizing even though they're right next to each other or overusing “maybe” and “if” to start sentences.

As for the “imagining context” while mishearing something, I'm not sure if I know what you mean by it, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I don't do it.

Situational awareness is definitely impacted for all people with ID but to different degrees. I don't know if it's part of the diagnostic criteria, but it might as well be. When the person's ID is mild it might look like someone who's just kinda unaware of what goes around them, maybe don't recognize that they're doing something that could end up badly. The more severe the intellectual disability the more obvious it is, the person might elope (wander off) and not be able to find their way back, not be able to use cooking utensils safely because they don't recognize the risks in real time (not really in the “not realizing that the knife is sharp” way if they have moderate ID, more like “not realizing that you need to be careful when putting things on hot oil, or you can get burned”), assuming that people are automatically safe to be around, things like that.

Spatial awareness doesn't affect everyone, but one of the biggest comorbidities of ID is dyspraxia, which does affect it a lot. There are people with mild ID with severe dyspraxia, and severely ID people with no dyspraxia. It varies.

Unfortunately I have never played any RPGS, and I'm not really familiar with the mechanics. Here's an old ask about intellectually disabled characters engaged in combat, hopefully it's useful?

If you want some real-life resources for hearing how intellectually disabled people talk, I really recommend this playlist. It's a bunch of interviews with people with Down syndrome and you can see that they're all very different from each other despite having the same disability.

I hope this helps,

mod Sasza

[friendship-test]

The making of Friendship Test:

I have always wanted to make a RPG Maker game. Throughout the years I have played several games with small pixel sprites as characters, as worlds, and I have always been fascinated that you can create a beautiful, funny and interesting story through them. I can not code and I do not have any 3d art skills, the chances of me ever making a videogame were very limited, but I have always wanted to make one. RPG Maker always seemed like the most available objective I could achieve, but I was never motivated enough to try anything cause I never had any good concept in mind for a videogame.

The year of 2024 started with a big robot obsession for me. Robot Dreams had recently came out and I did not stop thinking about it ever since, and soon after I started playing Toontown Corporate Clash, needless to say I adored those corporative robots too. I have always loved robot characters and thought it would be fun to create a story with them, I had several OC projects in mind but none of them included robot characters, so I thought I should change that.

I daydreamed about the concept of a story with robots, suddenly came with an idea: “what if an army of robots turned ‘good’ and only one of them was still ‘bad’?”

A very simple concept, one that would change and develop a lot, but an idea that I really liked. Of course, I like writing character dynamics, so it could not be a solo story, I gave the corrupted robot a companion in their journey. It was the story of a robot that was built to be kind turning ‘mean’ and a robot that was built to be a weapon turning ‘good’, traveling through a laboratory of abandoned robots that had all turned ‘good’, but how maybe that’s not as nice as it sounds.

I had that idea in mind, but I wasn’t planning on doing much with it. Perhaps a quick drawing, post it on tumblr and move on to other projects for now. But an image showed up in my brain that I could not shake off: I imagined this game as a rpg maker game. I imagined the sprite of the protagonist walking around this abandoned lab. And the strangest thing? It looked good. It looked promising. At least, it did in my brain.

The story was nothing but a mere simple concept, but it was good enough to give me enough motivation to look up tutorials on how to use GameMaker. Yeah, you read that right, GameMaker, not RPG Maker. I wanted to try out a more complicated engine, spent three days learning how to build one single room. I followed the steps, but somehow, I ran into a bunch of issues and it was not working properly. It did not feel great to waste three days for nothing, I was ready to give up and just go back to drawing simple drawings, go back to something I already knew how to do just fine.

But the image of the little robot still roamed around in my brain. So I decided to look up tutorials for RPG Maker.

Needless to say, I should have done that from the beginning.

I didn’t become an expert immediately, I still am not an expert whatsoever, but even if it took time and effort, RPG Maker was easy to use. No wonder so many use it to make videogames.

Again, the concept of this game was still very limited, I had a lot of ideas in my mind on how the story could go, drew a lot of concept art, wrote a few lines of dialogues, but nothing was set and stone yet. I decided to make one short area at the very least, and while I was creating it, I could think on the story some more.

I did just that, the first area is basically exactly what I had in mind since the beginning: a dark, empty abandoned lab. FriendProgram’s character design was very stuck on my brain too, they did not require a lot of concept art, their final design was very clear to me.

I made a couple of rooms, learned the basics on how to move from one room to another, how to change the character’s speed, how to make them interact with things, how sprites worked, all that stuff. But I needed to make FriendProgram interact with SOMEONE at some point. I needed a couple of funny NPCs for them to interact with. That’s how I came up with FUN and GAMES.

Now, I already had a few ideas for characters we would meet later on the story, but these two were not planned ahead, I just needed a funny duo to introduce us to the test ‘battle’ mechanic and to showcase the overall humor and dialogue style this game has.

However, I ended up liking them so much that they became part of the main cast of characters, even if their role is smaller than others.

When it comes to the tests, I was a bit concerned with that aspect. I knew that was the main gameplay of this game, the friendship tests you are put through, but I was not certain how I was going to pull that off. Would it be boring? Would it be repetitive? Would I not be able to program it? As flawed as they are, I am pretty satisfied with the results.

You have only seen a pretty simple friendship test, they get a bit more creative later on.

When it comes to the ‘battles’, I wanted them to be short and simple, nothing that takes too much time and nothing too complicated either. It’s the reason why there are so many, cause they are all meant to be pretty short, and the game allows you to save whenever you want. I hoped that getting a game over would not be too punishing to the player, since I’m aware some battles can be a little difficult to figure out what you are exactly supposed to say. Game overs are a bit essential to the point the game is trying to make.

Still, I am aware the battles can hurt the pacing a little in the first act, which is why they are better distributed in later acts, instead of getting 5 consecutive battles at once.

The mechanics of the battles change a little in each act, with act 2’s probably being the most complicated. But battles are not the main point of the game, which is why you might see less of them as the story progresses. Still, I’m okay to have a flawed ‘battle’ system, at least I have one at all, which I was worried I might not have been able to have.

The other gameplay ‘mechanic’ are of course, the friend_test_mode. They are however meant to be more story-focused than anything else, the first one is very simple, the other one can be a bit more annoying to get to the correct answers, but both of them do not punish you with game overs and are not meant to be anything too complicated. It’s presentation, part of the story, less a gameplay mechanic.

But enough about gameplay! This is a videogame that is more about characters and stories.

Before arriving to the new location this act takes place in, you find yourself with two experiments and learn all about the battle system. One of the two experiments is Exe, a strange mysterious rabbit. Exe was originally not part of the story, I adore characters like Exe, the funny annoying comedic relief characters, I tend to include them a lot in my stories. But so far, I hadn’t included any characters like that, I thought that maybe they would annoy people and it wasn’t necessary to the story. This changed however, I realized that if I’m making a game that I would like to play myself I had to include a character I would love, even if there were people who wouldn’t like them. So I included Exe, who serves as a tutorial and overall guide to the player. She started out as a small funny character, but as I wrote the story she became so essential that now I can not imagine the game without her. Sometimes the annoying comic relief character can save your story.

But now we arrive to the Reprogram Town! Very early on I knew that the first real area of the game should be a place full of nature, a huge contrast to the rest of the lab. It’s not just the nature, but the people are also very different from what you will see in this lab. The reprograms have sealed themselves away from everyone else, which means they can live in peace, away from the rules of BestFriendProgram, the program in charge of the lab.

The concept I had for this first area was to evoke something familiar: a cute little town with fun and kind NPCs, a bunch of simple quests, a bunch of simple battles and a story that ends with a nice lesson and with the characters being happy and loving each other very much, all thanks to you, the protagonist. I think it’s something we have seen in plenty of games, you play this area and you have an idea on what to expect, it is something pretty simple and easy to swallow. You are a nice protagonist that helps others and becomes friends with everyone, this is a game where you will meet a lot of programs and become friends with all of them and make everything better through kindness! This is what you are meant to believe.

The protagonists of Reprogram Town are Hammer, Keys and Wrench. The story is all about them, you are helping them but you are not part of their story. You are just a kind silent protagonist that doesn’t steal the spotlight from the story we are witnessing.

I knew from the beginning I wanted a simple but emotional conflict between these new characters, something that you could solve in one episode, but still has meaning to it. Just because you are a little deceived into thinking this game is going to be one way and then it turns out to be a little different than expected, doesn’t mean that the emotional conflicts have no meaning. What these three go through is real and they still have a lot to go through, specially Keys, who will get more things to do later on.

Something I really like about Keys is that he is a character that has kind of already went through his big character arc, there isn’t really much you can help him with when he has already grown as a person on his own and with the people he is close with. It doesn’t mean his journey is over, but it makes his interactions a lot of fun.

His asexual side plot is the first aspec-related story we see in the game and it is very essential to the character, at first I mostly implied it but I wanted to make it very obvious, this is not the ‘implied aspec’ game, this is the ‘stated aspec stories’ game after all. Keys is asexual and is a huge part of his story, as we will see later on.

Kindness is a big theme in this game too, and I really like the story of Hammer choosing to be a kind person despite everything. I like Wrench a lot too, even if he doesn’t show up as much I wanted his personality to be so vibrant that you will forget he has very little screentime. I really like when stories focus on siblings so of course I wanted two of the main cast of characters to be siblings and this is the act where they get to shine.

This first act establishes a lot of world-building as well. There is still a lot of things to find out about, but little by little you learn how this world is supposed to work. The mandatory tests, the water damage, the reliance on metal, the unconscious days, the data corruption, the old organisms… So much information in what appears to be a very silly and cute chapter of a bigger story.

Speaking of a bigger story, seems like that’s where FriendProgram and Waterbottle will truly get to shine. Waterbottle shows up very little in this act, and FriendProgram barely acts like a character, but this changes completely after the ending the demo. The rest of the game is very different from these first few hours and it’s all because of this program duo, especially FriendProgram, but it is also not different enough that it’d feel like a completely different game. The demo gives you a very clear idea of how the tone, pacing and dialogue of this game is usually like, even if there will be improvements later on.

Waterbottle is, in my opinion, probably the best character in the game. They are very fun to write and I enjoy every moment they are on screen, I think this character genuinely makes my game way better, which is why the demo is one of the weakest parts of the story, simply because Waterbottle is barely in it. Not for any other reason, it’s just cause Waterbottle doesn’t have enough screentime.

Now when it comes to FriendProgram, I did not want Friendship Test to be a cynical story where I “criticize” games that “force” you to be kind just to get what you want, I thought that would be very dumb and against everything that I am. FT offers a funny scenario of a character that has no other option than to be a really good friend to be able to advance the story, but it doesn’t mean they are not a complex person with no kindness in their heart. It doesn’t mean that helping other programs is meaningless, it doesn’t mean that FriendProgram hates everyone and would kill everyone if they could. There is a lot of layers to this story and this character.

You might be wondering however: ‘Where are the aspec themes? You said this game was about lovelessness!’ To that I say, patience! Don’t worry, the rest of the game does NOT shut up for a second about the main message of the story, but it was very important to establish the world building and characters first before fully focusing in the main themes. Besides that, the demo is also meant to trick you into thinking this is another story about the power of love, there is a reason why it is not really discussed at the beginning. There is more to the story and to FriendProgram than you might think.

I am very proud of my game, despite the flaws, I’m happy that I finally had the motivation to make the rpg maker game I have always wanted to make. Perhaps this game will help me make a better game one day, who knows, for now I am very happy with the result so far.

The first update was more about the making of the demo, but the next ones will all be about previews and presentations for the rest of the game! Next month I will talk about the next area of the game: The Emulation Area!

Thank you for reading and supporting, see you!

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