README How to make an rpgm game w/o being a cunt

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TCMS

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This tutorial is brought you by @Oiz and @TCMS and some randoms on discord.

1) Skip should work for all dialogues.
2) If CTRL doesn't skip shit, then pressing and holding enter / z should skip shit, specially when characters are moving in the map in a cut-scene.
3) Don't remap the fucking keys.
4) Shift toggle options should be a thing.
5) Remembering choices should be a thing.
6) If you don't allow your player to save until X time or X place, you should kill yourself.
7) Speed of the players should be a setting.
8) If you have long dialogues it's best that you have a quest book which tells you what you have to do.
8a) If you don't, you should still have it.​
9) There should be a "hide text" button.
10) If your game isn't an rpg, you shouldn't be using rpgm.
11) Allow the player to save before choices. (i.e don't put him in a 3 min cut-scene and force the player to make a choice afterwards, instead let the player move onto the choice when he wants, and thus allow him to save beforehand).
12) If you're going to put grind as something that the player needs to do to level up and pass the game, then put an easy setting which doesn't require the player to do this.
13) If losing a battle doesn't give you game over and instead gives you a H scene, let the player know.
13a) If losing a battle doesn't give you game over and instead gives you a H scene, give an option to surrender.
13b) If losing a battle doesn't give you game over and instead gives you a H scene, add the scene to the gallery even when winning.​
14) Expect cheating.
14a) Don't try to prevent it.​
15) Auto fight options are nice, consider including them.
16) If you have huge empty maps, add a quick-travel option.
16a) Don't have huge empty maps.
16b) If you don't have huge empty maps... Still give the player a quick-travel option.​
17) Have a scene gallery room / option.
18) The baby yelling upstairs is ruining my faps. Please include an option to mute him.
 

Benn Swagger

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0) If you make stupid quest errand boy from the edge of the map to another side edge of the map, just KYS.
 

MystZER0

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13b is something i believe should be done but i understand why they wouldn't done if the battle is able to be redone. for games like , it's not really needed due to the fact you can redo the boss battles with ease but games linair games that require you to play through and can have scenes locked out due to you not doing a certain things should follow this rule
 

baneini

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Random enemy encounters that are unavoidable
Battle animations that cannot be sped up
Unskippable animations with the sprites or sex scenes
Using any other version the rpgm MV so you have to press shift to dash and being unable to resize window.
Easy-hard settings is best done by rewarding harder play trough with extra scenes.
 

Obscure

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Jul 15, 2018
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"3) Don't remap the fucking keys."

I agree with this. Default controller support is one of the few strengths of the RPGmaker engine.

"10) If your game isn't an rpg, you shouldn't be using rpgm."

This is a step to far. Management, adventure and trainers are fine options.
 
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Deleted member 718841

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So, to sum it up. Make your game as convenient as possible.

Well, what if the point of a game is to specifically make the player go through several choices and decisions in a row without letting them save so it wont be like: "oh, what does this option do?" then loads last save, "ok what does this option do?" then loads save, etc etc, then those people figure out what they liked the best.
I mean if you want to know beforehand where every choice leads you, either make a judgement and roll with it or maybe don´t play games and just look at the CGI? How do you expect anything interesting to happen if your mentality is to save before every choice? What about games that dont let you save at all and just save your last checkpoint by default? The developers should also kill themselves?
Sure enough if there is some important event about to happen that may or may not lead to a game over or something, it would suck not to be able to save beforehand, that´s why boss battles are usually quite obvious in every game. But otherwise...
 
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TCMS

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View attachment 162343 sent this to a dude currently using RPGM and they had this to say
I don't mean "give me dialogue, stop it and let me save before a choice". Simply change the mechanics / progression of the story to a point where you don't have to sit there through some long cutscene and then be forced to make a choice that will impact the game heavily. Because if either I want to see what the other route provides or I'm not happy with the outcome of my choice I should be able to do so without having to watch the same thing over again. This as a standalone is not a problem, the problem becomes when great amount of choices suffer from this problem in a game and it's even a bigger problem if the choices / outcome aren't in correspondence to what they imply. (example: telltale games > choose shoot someone option > doesn't actually shoot them)
 

TCMS

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Well, what if the point of a game is to specifically make the player go through several choices and decisions in a row without letting them save so it wont be like: "oh, what does this option do?" then loads last save, "ok what does this option do?" then loads save, etc etc, then those people figure out what they liked the best.
Then the game is dumb.

I don't want to go through all the choices. If I have to be loading and choosing every option to know what it will do then you're not giving me much of a choice, you're just saying "Hey mate, try your luck". Might as well not give me the choices then and just present a blank text on the options, or through a random int that will pick the choice for you.

I mean if you want to know beforehand where every choice leads you, either make a judgement and roll with it or maybe don´t play games and just look at the CGI?
Continuing on statement above and my previous comment to another user: I want the choice to do something, and I want that something to not be a blank statement.
Choose option A or B:
A) Go to the castle.
B) Don't go to the castle.

A) Your friends that you've been saving for the longest time and cared for are dead. But you saved the castle you don't give a shite about. Deal with it.
B) Your friends are fine. The castle you don't care about is down.

"Hurr durr, why do you want to know what the choices lead to."
If the choices are well made, I won't load my save and change to the other option unless I'm done with the route I was in and want to see what the other one has in store. Problem is I don't trust the dev to make those choices well, so let me save please.

What about games that dont let you save at all and just save your last checkpoint by default? The developers should also kill themselves?
The kill yourself part was a joke. But yeah fuck the devs. What's the bloody goal of doing this? Specially on a porn game?
 

anne O'nymous

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15) Auto fight options are nice, consider including them.
15a) Works the balance of your combat !
15b) Don't make the presence of a character in the party mandatory to win, unless it's to advance a small part of the story.
15c) If a secondary character is mandatory to win a combat, don't make us guess it, force us to have it for this combat.
15c) If the attack evolve with the level, don't systematically remove the previous one.
15d) It's not because the engine is name "RPG maker" that you have to add battle just for the pleasure to have battles in your game.


I don't want to go through all the choices. If I have to be loading and choosing every option to know what it will do then you're not giving me much of a choice, you're just saying "Hey mate, try your luck". Might as well not give me the choices then and just present a blank text on the options, or through a random int that will pick the choice for you.
Especially with an engine like RPG Maker, that tend to be slow, without the possibility to really adjust the speed, and for most of them don't support mouse.
It's neither a walk simulator nor a save simulator. We don't have to save every minutes to feel safe, because it's this or replay for a full hour. It add nothing to the game and don't improve the live time of the game. Instead it just make us hate it, and stop in the middle of it to play one that don't take us for a stupid key crusher.
 
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Deleted member 718841

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"Hurr durr, why do you want to know what the choices lead to."
Wow, you just managed to come up with pure bullshit.
Nobody said the choices should be blank and i dont think there is a single game that would leave them blank, neither will they ever mean the complete opposite of what they say, like you put in examples. Whatever, if you just want to mock anyone who doesn´t completely eat this shit up, go ahead, my mistake for saying anything.
 
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GuyFreely

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While I'm not sure the dev is required to follow ALL of these steps, it's a nice list. I think the reality of the internet is that people will make walkthroughs and cheats for your game. So if you go in realizing that will happen anyway, you could make it so it's not necessary I think is part of the point being made. A lot of this just comes down to good game design. So often amateur game designers copy mechanics without realizing the purpose of them or how to do it properly. They just throw it in because they saw it in another game.

For example, the loss->H-scene idea. One way you could show this to the player is to very early on have a forced loss. "That's bullshit!" you might say, but you need to introduce the idea to the player. You need to say "If you lose, you'll get scenes." You could do it through some heavy handed dialogue "I heard monsters attack women and fuck them" or you could just show them. Most design philosophies will say "show, don't tell" whenever possible. So you have a very early combat where the player isn't ready for the challenge and you either have an H-scene or have an almost H-scene where they are saved by another character. So the player can go "ohhhh, I see what kind of game this is."

I think before making a game in RPGM, the dev really has to sit back and ask "why RPGM?" Am I truly interested in making an RPG with equipment and stats and combat or do I just want to tell a story? If your RPGM game largely breaks down to a map the player has to walk around, then just don't.
 

DarthSeduction

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Can we sticky this at the top of the forums please?
Also, anyone know a way to like a post more than once?
Like this

13a) If losing a battle doesn't give you game over and instead gives you a H scene, give an option to surrender.
Like
18) The baby yelling upstairs is ruining my faps. Please include an option to mute him.
Like
10) If your game isn't an rpg, you shouldn't be using rpgm.
Like - though that said my favorite game is using RPGM and isn't an RPG, but still.(at least, not traditionally)
 

Benn Swagger

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Some amateur chef thought that "Food taste & quality are all matters". They aren't wrong. But in modern days, packaging your food or remodeling your restaurant for a better consumer range also matters a lot.

How many good & ambitious VN rpgm games lingers but lack of backers ? ... unrealized the problem only that they aren't pick the right engine for their game.
 
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