#rpg maker tutorial video

[squidhominid]

So, wait. Okay. Wait.

So the name 'Ralsei' originates with 'Ralse', the name of a character meant to represent Toby in a video game made by one of his brothers in RPG Maker when they were kids, and predates UTDR entirely.

But then 'Ralsei' becomes 'Asriel', named for Azrael, the Islamic angel of death.

But THEN, 'Asriel' breaks down into 'AS' 'RIEL', in canon named by Asgore by combining the names 'Asgore' and 'Toriel', meaning that Toby must've derived the names 'Asgore' and 'Toriel' FROM 'Asriel'.

But then the name 'Toriel' is, itself, a joke on the word 'tutorial', since she's the tutorial character in Undertale.

We don't have a definite, confirmed reason for Asgore's name, but there's a few explanations out there ('Aegros', 'Sage or Murderer', etc).

Regardless HOW THE FUCK DOES TOBY GET ALL OF THIS OUT OF. RALSE. How does someone come up with THIS LEVEL OF INTERCONNECTED WORDPLAY.

[arcadekitten]

If you still use RPG maker for your projects, how did you change the sprite sizes and fit together the tilesets? I went through hell trying to resize tilesets and it still didn’t work.

I'm a biiiit confused on what you mean but I'll try to answer the best I can!

-Character sprites can be any size as long as they follow the rule of 3-across, 4-down. (and if in a sprite sheet of multiple characters, then there is 2 rows of 4 characters in each row) This video is a good example of that, but there are many tutorials on having bigger character sprites and bigger character sprite sheets.

-You cannot change the size of tiles or tileset sheets(as far as I know). For example, RPGMaker MV is 48 x 48, you can't make tiles that are bigger than that. You simply have to draw bigger and cover multiple tiles on your sheet.

For example, below is a house from my game Sweet No Death. Each colored square represents a tile. The house covers multiple tiles.

If you'd like to be slightly less attached to the grid, or want a large object that is animated, you simply need to make your object into a "character" by making a character sprite sheet for it rather than including it in a regular tile set. Again, character sheets can be any size.

A quick example is the fountain that appears in SND. This is just the first row, but as you can see it is in a character sheet (not a tileset) with each frame separated into a square composed of 9 48x48 squares

I hope that makes sense?? I'm not always the best at explaining things but I wish you luck in your gamedev endeavors!!

[idkman-fish]

pov trying to get make into doing games/working on a game

and trying to learn wolf rpg editor but... you dont understand spanish and theres only 1 english youtube tutorial that only has 4-5 videos on one channel that hasn't been updated in years- PLUS... there is a wix tutorial/manual, but it also hasn't been updated in years.

up shit creek without a paddle- lmao

on the plus side I did discover a good program I could use to help atleast get spriting for games i do on wolf rpg editor done and like- trying not to be too ambitious because thats one thing you don't do when you make games.

actually might make a sideblog for doing the gamedev stuff- if I do i'll make sure to link it in a reblog of this post-

ALSO IF ANYONE CAN MAKE A TUTORIAL FOR WOLF RPG EDITOR PLEASE DO IM BEGGING YOU

also also context: I make games or well- I try to- I already have maybe 4 games I want to make on the drawing board, but I'm not doing them due to the fact of if I do i'll get burnt out- I have some experience with rpg maker and zero with wolf rpg editor-(aside from map design cuz i do believe I did manage with the default assets in the english sample game- to actually make a pretty banger room)

[untamedeventuality]

June 2025

About a month ago, my publisher mentioned I should write dev logs. For publicity, y’know? I don’t know how to do that. I’m going to try anyways. I tried before, last year (and I think the year before?) — but I wasn’t very good at it. I was doing it in a weird style, on the blog I made for strange lantern productions, and it just didn’t feel right. I didn’t keep up with it, no one read them, so I just… stopped. Now I’m starting again, and I hope someone reads. I’ll post them on my personal Tumblr, and on my Itch, and we’ll see where this goes. This one’s going to be extra weird and retrospective-y because this month is a very special anniversary for me: it’s the two year anniversary of me becoming a game dev, for real.

I realized I wanted to make games in the spring of 2020, but it wasn’t until 2023 that I felt like I was allowed to call myself a game developer. I was a year out of college, working two jobs, and I played my first RPG maker game. I played the remaster of Ib, and I fell in love with it. Then I played Mad Father, and started watching video essays on the genre, and realized I could use RPG Maker. I could make games all by myself. I’d already been told I should by every industry professional I reached out to for advice after graduation. So I bought RPG Maker MV and went through all its tutorials, and then I realized I should really get RPG Maker MZ. It was a real rocky start, to stay the least. I spent all my disposable income on assets to play around with in the engine, I tried to make sprites of a fankid my friend and I had come up with. Then I lost my job. Because of government stuff. So, I had a lot of time on my hands. During May and June of 2023 I holed up in my apartment and made a game. It wasn’t very good. I was flying by the seat of my pants, learning what I could do with the engine, how to use plugins, and how to just… tell a story in a game. It was a mess. The Lighthouse wasn’t good, by my own standards, but it was mine. I’d made it. And, I could make it better. Over a decade of writing experience had taught me that all first drafts have to do is exist. To learn more, I entered a week long game jam and made another, shorter game called Terminated. This game was better, if only in an organizational sense. I learned a lot from making it! Now, I don’t think it was very good, but it was yet another first draft to be proud of. It existed, and could be made better. Of course, soon after this victory my life was put on hold. I got a new job, I moved to a different city and was living alone for the first time in my life. My longterm partner was in Ireland, making the (what I now realize was abusive) relationship long distance. What followed was the toughest year of my adult life. It’s not easy to live alone, hours away from family and friends. The one friend I had in the city was my life line, and I am still so grateful to her. Shout out to you, Hannah. You’re the realest and I’m so lucky to have you in my life. During this tumultuous time, I worked on revising The Lighthouse — now called Frey Nel — and figuring out what the story I was trying to tell was even about. On top of that, I was working to find a composer and an artist to work with, since my own skills in those artistic categories are… not the best. I actually found BibiXP on accident, as I originally commissioned her for some additional sprite work when my original guy disappeared from Etsy for a time. My original sprite guy, Larkison, brought Youfoundnico on board to take over for him. And eventually, I asked my brother Lyon to do the rest of the art — portraits/busts, CGs, promotional art. Which brings us to now. I’m no longer in an abusive relationship, I’m living with my friends, and I’m on the precipice of releasing DelirIAM, a stand alone prequel to Frey Nel and the final form of Terminated. As of now, I’m planning on releasing it on June 30th , but should my brother’s ADHD win it’ll be delayed to the 7th of July. After that, it’ll be full steam ahead on revamping Frey Nel’s demo in time for its crowdfunding campaign in August/September. Thanks for joining me on this journey, here’s to the next two years!

[sincerely-sofie]

Hi! If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a question about that visual novel that you made with Ark and Twig. I’m a new cs major, so I’d like to start making some projects outside of my classes, and I figured a simple game like that could be a fun way to start, but I have no ideas where to begin looking for resources on how to code any of it, and I only currently know the basics of python. So I was wondering if you’d be able to point me to some videos or tutorials (or even the skills that I would need to search up) that I could use to learn how to make something similar to what you made. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this!

I actually made that visual novel in a no-code engine called TyranoBuilder, but I’m moving over to a popular Python-based visual novel engine called RenPy for my next visual novel! RenPy has a very dedicated community with a lot of resources associated with it— I’ll list a few I’m familiar with below :>

The official documentation is, as always, a stalwart source of information… though it’s understandably very intimidating to read through so much, hehe.

The YouTube channel Visual Novel Design doesn’t talk much about coding, but does showcase useful plugins and ideas about how to create visual novels.

Another YouTube channel, Zeil Learnings, has more information on the coding side of things. I very much recommend this video of hers that helps you get through the basics of RenPy in under 10 minutes!

Swedish Game Dev is another useful resource with all sorts of coding tutorials for implementing specific features.

Also, a useful note: despite being described as a game engine, files for RenPy must be written in a separate code editor and then plugged into RenPy itself. This might be the norm, but I’m not certain— I’m more used to RPG Maker and Godot. Either way, I enjoy using Visual Studio Code as my code editor, as that’s what I use for college, and it has a very handy RenPy syntax extension available!

Wishing us both luck as we dive into the world of RenPy! I’m in a similar boat as you— barely starting my web + software dev degree— and have only the fundamentals of Python to my name. I hope this is helpful. If not, send in another ask and I’ll try to answer better!

[pushthequorumbutton]

can i just say that i very much appreciate that rpg maker has tutorials in text (pdf) form and i don't have to watch a fcking video to learn how to use it

[love-death-game]

Devlog #001 - Starting Progress

Hello! This is the first devlog for my current game project called "Love, Death."

As stated in my previous post, this project was originally a research assignment for one of my university classes. As I had already made quite a few assets already, I have lots of stuff to show off in this devlog!

(Pictured Above: A screenshot of a work-in-progress shot of one of the opening scenes of the game)

Characters

So far, I have created the two central characters that I want the game to be focused on: Ghost and Shepherd. As this is incredibly early in development, I hope to update these sprites in the future should I make any major changes! (Especially Shepherd's sprite since it feels the roughest)

(Pictured Above: A gif of Ghost and Shepherd's sprites doing their walk-cycles)

Concept Art

While most of the concept art I have so far are in the rough-sketch stage, here is one piece that I've been working on for a while now that takes place further into the game's story :)

(Pictured Above: A work-in-progress illustration of Ghost and a mysterious man in the foreground)

Level Design

With the original rooms I made in the prototype, I learned a lot about how RPG Maker MZ handles parallax mapping and in general, how maps should be laid out.

(Pictured Above: the opening room of the "Love, Death" prototype - a long blue room with a glowing door to the left and a gravestone to the right.)

(Pictured Above: another room from the "Love, Death" prototype -Shepherd's office which is basked in hues of red. In the far left, there is a desk in front of a window.)

With all that information, I've started planning out the room layouts of the levels I want players to go through with an emphasis on good composition, exploration, and different points of interest.

In the coming days and weeks, I hope to assemble some placeholder rooms with layouts I've created to see how they turn out and figure out ways I could improve upon them.

(Pictured Above: A mock-up of a level with different rooms and interaction points)

Tilesets

(Pictured Above: A screenshot of a test room with a custom tileset.)

When planning out this game, I was unsure of whether or not I should use RPG Maker's default tiling system or if I should focus more on parallax mapping for the game's maps. In the end, I decided to do a little bit of both!

I've created a placeholder tileset for the first area of the game that works with RPG Maker's autotile system and some other tiles that I could use for different variants.

When it comes to parallax mapping, I'll save the maps and their tiles to a png and use those as a reference point for the elements I want to parallax map. These include lighting effects, foreground elements, and scrolling backgrounds.

Gameplay Mechanics

Below are a few things I've been working on during my testing!

(Pictured Above: A video showing a few tests in the game.)

Idle Animations

I made simple idles which happen to characters when they are idle for more than 5 seconds.

Character Switching

When pressing the [TAB] button, players will be able to quickly switch between playing as Ghost or Shepherd. Depending on who they are playing as, new mechanics would become available to them.

Shepherd Crawling

One of the unique mechanics that would be available to Shepherd would be crawling! While small spaces would be unreachable to a tall sprit like Ghost, Shepherd can reach them with ease!

When interacting with small spaces, Shepherd would crawl into the space, giving players access to whatever lies within.

Goals for Next Update:

Complete a draft layout of the tutorial area of the game

Create at least one area-specific puzzle

Create a Ghost-specific mechanic

Fun Facts and In Closing!

I thought I'd take this portion of this post to talk a little about myself and why I'm developing this game.

For those of you who don't know me, I'm Somewhatcold (you can call me Jan), an 18-year-old university student in Canada interested in game design and concept art. I've always been in love with RPGs and some of my favourite games include the Dragon Age series, Final Fantasy XV, and OneShot.

I'm currently doing a Bachelor's of Design in Illustration with a minor in Games and Play and hope to use this experience as well as further projects to learn more about game development.

Although I've made different RPG Maker games in the past for a few school projects, I've never actually made something of this scale. It's always been a long-term goal of mine to create something like this so I'm incredibly excited to see where this goes!

Feel free to ask me anything in my ask-box or to contact me via the instagram I linked above!

The next devlogs are definitely not going to be this long - this one in particular had a lot of information simply because I already started this project a few weeks ago. Going forward in the future, the devlogs are mostly going to be smaller updates and new things I've added to the game.

Below, I've also included some samples of my previous illustration work just for funsies :D

(Pictured Above: An illustration of Hebra Mountain from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild)

(Pictured Above: An illustration of a woman on a balcony overlooking a cityscape.)

[bwobgames]

I love your art so much

Would you happen to have any particular resources for learning pixel art?

Theres a funny story story here

So at first all I did was try to draw normally but like, with small squares and seeing how other people did it

aaand it wasnt the best

like, its not the worst but the colors are pretty low contrast and the squares are messy and while its certainly pixels its like, not something id put in a game now

I would reccomend looking up sprite sheets for old pixelated games like pokemon, earthbound or yume nikki, they have simple-er sprite work than, lets say, rpg maker sprite sheets

So, in a crusade for pixel art tutorials to actually get good, I found this video

And I was like Yes!!! This is exactly what I want to make!!

and the dude made a game too? cool! Ill check up his blogspot!

It had a content warning, I assumed it was gore and blood stuff

This guy has a great tutorial to go from Beginner sprite work to actual You-would-see-this-in-a-game sprite work

This is the first thing I made by following it

A huge step up for me!! So I went to the Animations tab of his blog to see what else he has made and uhh

Yeah its all porn

Including the games

But theyre so well drawn!! so I continued to check up his work, he is now dubbed porno sensei. Thank you horny canadian man for teaching me the ways of advanced pixeling.

After that Id say you really need to check how other people make sprites and try it by youself

And I dont mean like, exactly the same, just the general shape or anatomy can be enough to learn

Usually when I make a big rooster of characters I try to do a general body shape that can be drawn over many times

Just by trying to do a little guy then erasing until it is a shell of his former self

of course before getting there you gotta just draw, big sprites, tiny sprites, whatever until you get the hang of making a shape

Some people recommend doing the siluette before the drawing but im really bad at that lmao

Also sometimes mixing dark pixels in an area of light pixels looks pretty good, especially in hair linework

But!! I recommend if you want to do big animations try to use a minimalistic color palette and shadows, or else everything will become incredibly painful

for animating try moving the little guy around like a jpeg doll, move around their limbs and stick them together lmao

Also!! use Asesprite, its good

[fearcrowz]

My advice for if you ever do decide to turn Knell into a game; look for the pros and cons for video game engines and learn to program and code.

Because while yes, both Unity and Unreal 5 are popular on the indie scene, both engines are built differently from each other with different demographics in mind and different programming and coding needed to learn to use one or the other.

Then there's engines like Godot, RPGMaker series, GameMaker, and so many more.

Also, there are a lot of programming and coding tutorials on YouTube and a bunch of books on the subjects at both Thriftbook stores and Amazon.

Good luck.

Ah yes, I know! I have a bit of knowledge, not a lot, but I was going to use RPG maker when I had a good computer. ^^ I knew basic coding (i need to learn a lot more) and I did do research and looked into it. Sadly with how my adhd brain works, when it gets overwhelming I tend to drop it and find something else to do and I just never got back to doing it before my computer fried TT There's a lot of work to it all for sure! I have the drawing and music skills, I just need to learn the computer skills and hope I'm not too boomer for them.

Thank you for the tips they do help! And I will look into the other engines too! It's mainly just for fun and prolly never for a profit or anything pff--

[kytri]

cnc13_002

I usually write some kind of bonus lore on these but I was so stressed trying to finish the chapter I couldn't think of anything. Hope you will enjoy this drawing all the same. For anyone curious about the video game attempt, the newest version of RPG maker was on sale so I picked up a copy and have been doing the inbuilt tutorial. I am finding it easier to understand than the previous version I tried so I'm hoping I'll actually get somewhere with it. Archive: cryptsandcantrips.kytri.net Etc: linktr.ee/kytri

[rpgmakerdatabase]

Mods

Mod Mala

i’ve loved rpg maker games since the boom in the early 2010s! i really like games with puzzles, dreams, horror, etc!

Mod Citrus

gotten into rpg maker games ever since i found yume nikki! i love games that focus on art or story, shrimp, exploring dreams, and secondary colors

Tag Directory

#released: released games you can play!

#demo: games in progress you can check out

#clips: gifs, videos, and screenshots of games

#updates: devlogs

#resources: posts of tutorials or assets to help gamedevs with their work!

#art: art made by devs and fanartists alike

#music: official soundtracks and fansongs!

#zine: any posts about zines: releases, applications, and interest checks

#translations: translation projects done for games!

Image Credits

Pfp by @/devpalmer from their game re:curse

Banner from Yume 2kki

[dragonfreckles]

Adding on to this with some of my favorites!!

Winged Canvas (love love LOVE these guys! they have tons of tutorials and streams for just about anything regarding 2D art and animation)

chupuko (live2D animation tutorials! goes over the whole process from drawing the model to setting it up in vtube studio. her tutorials were what inspired and taught me to make my own vtube model)

Blender Guru (goes over the basics of 3D modeling program Blender, his donut tutorials are kinda considered the classic starting point for beginners)

And some programs:

ibisPaint X (free, lots of tools available including one for comic paneling. can get it on your phone)

Aseprite ($20, for pixel art, you can find it on Steam)

Live2D Cubism (free but also has a paid version with some extra features. used for animation and rigging, and usually the go-to for rigging vtube models but can be used for other animation too. i'd recommend just getting the free version, it has everything you need and the paid version is pretty pricey)

FlipaClip (free animation app, you can get it on your phone)

Procreate Dreams ($20. procreate's animation app, but i wouldn't recommend it as of now since it's still pretty shoddy and missing a lot of core features. i'll put it in here regardless since it's the one i have experience in)

ToonSquid ($10. for animation as well. haven't tried this one yet but i've heard it's pretty good! i've been considering getting it to replace Dreams actually just haven't decided yet)

Shotcut (free, video editing)

Audacity (free, audio editing)

OBS Studio (free live streaming/recording software)

OpenUtau (free vocaloid alternative. an updated version the original UTAU, you don't need to change your locale for this version and it's compatible with all UTAUloids. shareware so anyone can create a voicebank for the program, the main downside is that there's no one place to find a voicebank so you gotta hunt for em a little, but here's Kasane Teto and Adachi Rei - ignore the "download faster" thing to the left of the screen for Rei, it's not necessary to download the file and idk why it's there either. and you only need one of the voicebank downloads from each of em it depends on which language/voicebank type you wanna use so it's probably best to look into that a little bit first)

RPG Maker (pricey, but a solid game development engine. it has a ton of different iterations so i'd recommend doing lots of research before settling on anything, but it's a good tool if you're interested in game design. there are also a lot of plugins made by community members that can really enhance your game, my favorite plugin dev is Caethyril! They have a bunch of free plugins for both MV and MZ - and here's their tweaks for MZ as well!)

Ren'Py (free visual novel maker)

Twine (free choose-your-own-adventure maker that you can use on your browser, just be careful about clearing cookies cause it'll clear your Twine stuff as well. there is also a downloadable version though)

Unity (free 3D game development software)

Unreal (another free 3D game development software)

cheer, resources be upon ye!

Can't afford art school?

After seeing post like this 👇

And this gem 👇

As well as countless of others from the AI generator community. Just talking about how "inaccessible art" is, I decided why not show how wrong these guys are while also helping anyone who actually wants to learn.

Here is the first one ART TEACHERS! There are plenty online and in places like youtube.

📺Here is my list:

Proko (Free)

Marc Brunet (Free but he does have other classes for a cheap price. Use to work for Blizzard)

Aaron Rutten (free)

BoroCG (free)

Jesse J. Jones (free, talks about animating)

Jesus Conde (free)

Mohammed Agbadi (free, he gives some advice in some videos and talks about art)

Ross Draws (free, he does have other classes for a good price)

SamDoesArts (free, gives good advice and critiques)

Drawfee Show (free, they do give some good advice and great inspiration)

The Art of Aaron Blaise ( useful tips for digital art and animation. Was an animator for Disney)

Bobby Chiu ( useful tips and interviews with artist who are in the industry or making a living as artist)

Second part BOOKS, I have collected some books that have helped me and might help others.

📚Here is my list:

The "how to draw manga" series produced by Graphic-sha. These are for manga artist but they give great advice and information.

"Creating characters with personality" by Tom Bancroft. A great book that can help not just people who draw cartoons but also realistic ones. As it helps you with facial ques and how to make a character interesting.

"Albinus on anatomy" by Robert Beverly Hale and Terence Coyle. Great book to help someone learn basic anatomy.

"Artistic Anatomy" by Dr. Paul Richer and Robert Beverly Hale. A good book if you want to go further in-depth with anatomy.

"Directing the story" by Francis Glebas. A good book if you want to Story board or make comics.

"Animal Anatomy for Artists" by Eliot Goldfinger. A good book for if you want to draw animals or creatures.

"Constructive Anatomy: with almost 500 illustrations" by George B. Bridgman. A great book to help you block out shadows in your figures and see them in a more 3 diamantine way.

"Dynamic Anatomy: Revised and expand" by Burne Hogarth. A book that shows how to block out shapes and easily understand what you are looking out. When it comes to human subjects.

"An Atlas of animal anatomy for artist" by W. Ellenberger and H. Dittrich and H. Baum. This is another good one for people who want to draw animals or creatures.

Etherington Brothers, they make books and have a free blog with art tips.

As for Supplies, I recommend starting out cheap, buying Pencils and art paper at dollar tree or 5 below. For digital art, I recommend not starting with a screen art drawing tablet as they are more expensive.

For the Best art Tablet I recommend either Xp-pen, Bamboo or Huion. Some can range from about 40$ to the thousands.

💻As for art programs here is a list of Free to pay.

Clip Studio paint ( you can choose to pay once or sub and get updates)

Procreate ( pay once for $9.99)

Blender (for 3D modules/sculpting, ect Free)

PaintTool SAI (pay but has a 31 day free trail)

Krita (Free)

mypaint (free)

FireAlpaca (free)

Libresprite (free, for pixel art)

Those are the ones I can recall.

So do with this information as you will but as you can tell there are ways to learn how to become an artist, without breaking the bank. The only thing that might be stopping YOU from using any of these things, is YOU.

I have made time to learn to draw and many artist have too. Either in-between working two jobs or taking care of your family and a job or regular school and chores. YOU just have to take the time or use some time management, it really doesn't take long to practice for like an hour or less. YOU also don't have to do it every day, just once or three times a week is fine.

Hope this was helpful and have a great day.

[vanillacreamcones]

The game communities, where people appreciate every effort that the creators are creating

Have you ever played a free or low-cost small game on itch.io or Steam and loved it really much? I am!

I remember the time when I stumbled upon a simple horror game, yet intriguing and mysterious, which made one of the foundations of my whole interest in gaming!

"A young girl named Ib visits an art gallery with her parents. While observing the many exhibits, she suddenly realizes she is alone. And in her search for others, she finds things awry in the gallery..." - (Vgperson, n.d.)

If you want to try this game too, click here!

Apparently, this game was made by a single developer nicknamed Kouri in 2012, using the game engine RPG maker which is famous for its easy-to-learn interface to create from simple to professional and complete RPG game (Role-playing game). This game is quite popular in the RPG Maker community, where it's received a commercial remake on Steam, and to the point that it's recently announced to collaborate with a commercial e-sport game named Identity V thanks to Ib's fan demand!

And there are a lot of other popular games that have been made using RPG Maker too!

OMORI

TO THE MOON

But why do such an easy game engine can make a lot of impact like that? One of the reasons may be because of the RPG Maker developer communities!

Owens’s (2011) research has found a lot of interesting pieces of information related to this, let me tell you! RPG Maker software series is a budget-friendly commercial tool for developing video games, priced at under $60, or even getting a seasonal discount to the point of being free software, mostly the older version. With the engine licenses, you can distribute both free games and commercial games with no additional fee! Aimed mainly at hobbyists and fans, it is not a highly advanced game development platform. Rather, it emphasizes simplicity, allowing users to easily create games that follow the typical norms of the genre.

RPG Maker MZ Interface

Interestingly, each version of the software has its own community forum with a significant number of members associated with it. The software company initially established these forums, but as time went on, the community members themselves reorganized the structure and arrangement of the forums to better suit their requirements and roles, and that’s where the key point when in! The way it lets people adopt various roles and identities helps them see themselves in new ways. This supports the complex social connections and interactions that are a key feature of these communities. Each developer can help others in making their game in things they are best at, contributing socially with a whole-heartedly attitude and respect.

An official tutorial on how to develop the game in RPG Maker

You can check the RPG Maker forum site here!

So if you are an amateur who is interested in developing an indie game, RPG Maker engine is one of the good game engines to try!  Wait! What do indie games even mean?

Actually.. defining the “indie game” term is challenging, but to understand it in a way, it can related to how it depends on alternative production and distribution methods and pricing strategies compared to AAA games. It may also be characterized by its innovation and artistic approach or developed by just one or two developers (Mikhail Fiadotau, 2019). However, the terms ‘indie’ and ‘independent’ are identifiers that do not represent a unique or uniform approach to being a video game creator (Keogh, 2020).

You may have an interesting idea, why not try to develop one by teaming up with some people in the developer’s communities? and if you have some progress, why not try to show off on social media and create a crowdfunding campaign? It may be successful!

Well, to say, this is one of the really good examples of how unlike AAA games, which benefit from massive marketing budgets and corporate-driven media coverage, indie games thrive through direct interaction with their player base! Crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter, Patreon, and Fig have allowed indie developers to secure funding directly from their audience, bypassing traditional publishing models. Many successful titles, including Hollow Knight and Undertale, originated as crowdfunded projects, proving that player trust can be just as valuable as corporate backing.

The reliance on community-driven promotion is also another defining characteristic of indie gaming culture. Since many indie developers lack the resources for large-scale advertising, organic visibility through social media, streaming platforms, and peer recommendations becomes essential. Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, and Discord serve as hubs for indie developers to interact with fans, share progress updates, and build anticipation for their releases. Meanwhile, platforms such as Twitch and YouTube play a crucial role in game discovery, as popular streamers and content creators can propel an obscure title to mainstream attention overnight. I also discover IB through a Youtuber in the past too!

And furthermore, the player communities of certain games like multiplayer games, whether indie or AAA, thrive on the communities they create, turning gameplay into shared experiences that extend beyond the screen. 

Let’s look at the prime example of a coop game that makes a hit in the COVID era!

Genshin Impact (GI) is a fantastic RPG available on most dominant platforms including mobiles, PCs, and consoles that offers an open-world adventure, heavily influenced by both Breath of the Wild and anime elements, resulting in a truly unique experience (Northup, 2020). It even has a cooperative feature where players can join other player worlds to play together!

The game really resembles the definition of the term ‘Ambient Play’ which describes the modern game's impact on life right now. GI gameplay, for example, can follow us through different social networks, platforms, devices, and in both public and private contexts, as well as during mediated and face-to-face interactions (Hjorth et al., 2020, pp. 22–47).

Clemente & Realgo’s (2024) research stated that GI is a virtual platform that fosters digitized communication in creating different forms of connection between local and global participants. Interestingly, the game can improve the personalities of players, especially those who tend to be introverted thanks to a different sense of belonging while playing the game.

Not only communicated through in-game chat, GI players also want to keep their conversations outside of the game through apps such as Discord and Facebook, and can go up to face-to-face gatherings!

Developers also really embrace the communities by adding in-game social hubs, community events, or player-driven content. Ultimately, games don’t just offer mechanics, they create spaces where friendships, rivalries, and cultures emerge, making players as much a part of the game’s evolution as the developers themselves.

Together, gaming communities are a really interesting aspect of digital community in general with a lot of sides to explore, each has its own unique practices and creates a harmony in diversity!

References

Clemente, C. H., & Realgo, B. R. (2024). Social Opportunities and Digitalized Communication of Genshin Impact Players. Integrated Journal for Research in Arts and Humanities, 4(2), 49–51. https://doi.org/10.55544/ijrah.4.2.7

Hjorth, L., Richardson, I., Davies, H., & Balmford, W. (2020). Exploring Minecraft Ethnographies of Play and Creativity (pp. 22–47). Palgrave Macmillan.

Keogh, B. (2020). The Melbourne indie game scenes. Routledge EBooks, 209–222. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367336219-18

Mikhail Fiadotau. (2019). Indie and Dojin Games: a Multilayered Cross-Cultural Comparison. Gamevironments, 10, 46–46. https://journals.suub.uni-bremen.de/index.php/gamevironments/article/view/95

Northup, T. (2020, October 13). Genshin Impact Review - IGN. Www.ign.com. https://www.ign.com/articles/genshin-impact-review

Owens, T. (2011). Social videogame creation: lessons from RPG Maker. On the Horizon, 19(1), 52–61. https://doi.org/10.1108/10748121111107708

Vgperson. (n.d.). Ib - vgperson’s Translations. Vgperson.com. Retrieved March 23, 2025, from https://vgperson.com/games/ib.htm

[fantasymoongirl999]

I've been messing around with a super old version of RPG maker for the last 3-ish years and have made a game with a decent amount of content and features for it being my first attempt. I enjoyed using, but the tilesets always gave me a headache, so I didn't really make anything super cool.

Well, a couple weeks ago, I was introduced to Game Maker.

I started following a tutorial and got some basic stuff done and ho boy, my ego exploded. The second that first video was finished, I was already importing and editing my old character sprite sheets and tilesets.

AND THEY ACTUALLY WORKED!!! Whaaaaat???? XD

Well, three days of not eating properly, watching the same tutorial over and over, and a overcast walk with ambient breakcore later, I have unfortunately had an awesome and somehow, cohesive, idea:

A Yume Nikki inspired type dreamy horror game, based around my oc's childhood. It would be so cool to be able to highlight his escapism from life as a kid, him trying to avoid the horrors of his reality through dreams, imagining these beautiful places that he's always read about, but it being wrong, nothing quite terrifying, but definitely not right. Showing the steady decline as things get worse and worse before he wakes up, right back where he started, in that same room, right back to the terror.

It would be so cool!!! I haven't been able to write in any childhood things in my book because of some established plot points and mostly likely won't find a good opportunity to bring it up later, so it would be perfect!

I have this huge list of scenes and events I want to make, along with a list of tiles and this really cool animation idea, but I'm still over here screaming because I can't get my dialogue code to work properly...

[capstoneyap]

Week 1 Capstone 2: Jan 29th 2025

It is only the first week of continuing this project once more and things are already not working out as intended. Sadly, this isn't the first time things haven't worked out but it still sucks. Of course, it's technology issues but what are ya gonna do? Small rant aside, I had finally made a small prototype in Godot. As I sadly could not use RPG maker as it was not compatible with my computer. However, Godot 4 has been alright in what I want to accomplish for this project. To recap, my project focuses on the Soul. How I want to approach the subject is to make a short rpg maker style game about a person who had transferred their mind into a robot. Now they search for the other half of their soul through various objects that they used to feel connected to. In the game, I want the player to interact with different objects in the house. Through that interaction, they're given a choice to connect with the object more or not, thus taking them to a (hopefully) easy mini-game to fully connect to their missing soul. In order for me to do this, I had looked through a lot of tutorial videos. It honestly took longer than it should have to find good videos. But I had finally found some decent videos on Youtube. The tutorial I had "first" found that somewhat helped out is called "How to Make an ACTION RPG in Godot 2022 (Step by Step)" by DevWorm. Another tutorial that truly helped (and one I followed to recreate my prototype) is by the same person (DevWorm) is called "How to Create an RPG in Godot 4". Unfortunately, both of these are playlists so I can't exactly link the videos. However, one video I can link is this one:

All of these videos really helped me to be able to make this small prototype. Of course, I still have a long way to go with implementing what I want. As well as touching up what I already have, and hopefully avoid losing my progress again.

I also have made a quick rough sketch of what I might want the layout to look like. Or at least messing around with the artstyle to make it more unique instead of sticking to pixel art. But again, it is a rough sketch. It's not my biggest concern at the moment as I'm focused more on fixing and learning how to code what I want to make the game a reality.