I am relearning all the things again.
Last week I talked about figuring out a way to make a quest out of item drops using a swap item event. And then I watched this video:
This is a much better way to do things. It's less time consuming and uses half the items.
I like that about learning. I found a way to do something thanks to variables, which when I was younger, I could not wrap my head around.
When I was younger and struggling to understand RPG MakerXP people kept telling me variables were "A box you put something into" but that sage advice didn't click at all back then. I didn't have tutorial videos to learn from. It was extremely frustrating to feel like some sort of hidden, secret knowledge was being kept from me. Now that I'm 'getting it' I feel like I'm uncovering that secret, hidden knowledge every day.
Slowly, bit by bit, I am discovering just how insanely powerful this engine is and it's wonderful.
This game engine, to me, makes me feel like a little kid in a sand box that wants to make a sand castle and instead of one of those little plastic buckets that comes with a rake and wee shovel, an entire construction crew and all of the crew's equipment has shown up in my yard.
All I have to do is figure out how to boss them around.
That said I still have no idea what I am really doing. Mechanics are only half the game. I still have to hammer out the story and write a script for it, plus make all the items I have in mind, and the quests, and keep working on the battle system... and ... and ... and....
I have had a surprise life event pop up today that may take a lot of my focus this week*,so instead of working on my game directly I think I'll be focusing on a game design document and trying to get all of my idea down on real life paper. I'll be watching GDD videos and taking lots of notes.
My question for this week is: What aspect of RPG maker did you struggle with and then overcome? What are you still struggling with?
Variables still baffle me a bit. I want to learn them and learn them well.
*AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Now I have to deep clean my entire house! WHY!?!?!
The Big Learning Game
Time to learn things!
| Status | Released |
| Author | TTSnim |
| Genre | Adventure, Role Playing |
| Tags | RPG Maker, Singleplayer |
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Comments
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I struggled with many things when I was learning RPG Maker the first time. The one recurring theme that took the most time to really master was how to make things work sequentially in cinematics the way I wanted. Things like, "have character A do a thing during a cinematic, then have character B do another thing." I found the best way to make it work is to try to centralize the commands in one event as much as possible. If I split the commands up across multiple events, there's a risk that the computer will try to make everything happen all at once instead of waiting for each switch to flip or variable value to change. This does lead to some funny-looking events, like one character holding all the commands for all the characters on the map for the cinematic, or having one "controller" event stashed in the top-left corner of the map handling all of the characters' actions, but it works!
Another thing that I still struggle with is battle sequences. While I understand it mostly now, making events happen in battles can still be a dicey proposition that takes a fair bit of trial-and-error to get right, and gets more dicey the more complex the sequence is.
Variables (and switches) are cool. You can do a lot with them just by telling the engine "if this variable = (something), do this." In Unreal, variables are even more impressive: EVERYTHING is a variable! This leads to a level of control not possible in RM, but it also means there's a lot of complexity associated with it - I'm glad that I have all my experience from RM to help me understand what's going on and how to leverage all this power. I hope you continue to wrap your head around variables, because in the end you will be able to make the engine act like your personal trained monkey!
I'm glad I have a wet-pet-vacume. I hope it's good with stains.