(Reference) - RPGMAKER 101: An Intro to Development and Community

(Rindre, Hogwash and Meake did a really cool panel at AnimeNEXT June 2018)

"Love when your favorite Youtuber played The Witch’s House? Ever wanted to make a game, but programming complex code seems terrifying? Join our lovely dev guides Meaka, Hogwash, and Rindre as we walk you through all things RPGMaker. The past, the present… and maybe you, the future!

Part of our discussion of RPG Maker and its history will include “landmark” games made in the engines, such as Yume Nikki, OFF, and Ib, among others.

This discussion will include how these games shaped the community that grew from it and how they continue to inspire new developers to this day. A particular emphasis will be placed on community and the “fandom,” as it were, since they are the lifeblood of RPG Maker and indie game dev in general.

The approachability of the idea that anyone can make a game is a particularly strong draw, and people of varying skill sets can come together for game jams, create fanworks, or even just be able to chat with fellow fans and devs, bounce ideas off each other, and bring new projects to life without even realizing it."

A Conversation With the Creator of Final Fantasy IV - (theatre influence)

(from 1UP.com by Jeremy Parish - April 15th, 2011)

...I guess up until then RPGs tended to have a map, a dungeon, a castle, and boss battles, and you kind of went back and forth between the gameplay and the boss battles. But our idea was if we approached it from a movie editing perspective, perhaps we could create a more dramatic, story-driven game.

And it was also a big development in terms of music, because up until then we had one piece music per map, essentially. For IV, we focused on how to make the game more emotional -- to have the music play at the right timing. And so it was kind of a new way to approach the music in a game.

1UP: The characters are really a big part of the game, and FFIV was really the first game I can think of to have musical leitmotifs surrounding the characters. Did you and [composer Nobuo] Uematsu look to movies for inspiration and say, "This is something we need in our game?"

Tokita: I, myself, have a theatre background, and the main appeal of an RPG is that you can play as the protagonist. We really wanted to have the music play out when it would affect you the most, in a sense. So, we really focused on finding the right points and best timings to play the music so it would evoke the emotions necessary to make you feel better.

1UP: You say you have a theatre background. Did you have a lot of interest in videogames and, specifically, RPGs before coming to work with Square and Final Fantasy?

Tokita: I'm a little bit the opposite, actually. Apparently there was an animation boom when I was young. I had the intention of becoming a voice actor. On the side, I was drawing manga and cartoons, and while I was in a theatre troupe, I made some cash. I had the game design work as something part-time on the side, and that's how I got into the industry.

As a part-time job, I wanted to be involved in something creative as well. So a career in game design seemed very appealing as well. I'm not sure if you know Tokyo very well, but there's a little area Roppongi... Prior to Square, I was with ASCII in Roppongi.

Via 1UP.com (webarchive)

(Spotted) GrassFlower - RM2k3(?)

Via tumblr

(Spotted) Neo Jado - RM2k3 - RMN

(The most elaborate Matrix-Style-FieldMap-Cutscene in rpgmaker2003.)

Via RMN

(Spotted) Orange Blood(?) - RMMV

Via GrayFaxSoftware

(Tutorial) Image Capturing Software Fraps/LiceCap/GifCam

Video Capturing Software

(from Softonic.com by Jon Riggal )

FRAPS is a utility for taking screenshots and video of your PC. Run it in the background while you play games, and check the frame rate, make gameplay videos and take screenshots with ease.

Arc Symphony imagines not a faux-JRPG, but the community that surrounds it. Fan fiction, passive aggression, and all - [USGAMER]

(from USGAMER by Caty McCarthy - April 24th, 2017)

"There comes a point in nearly every online community when drama tears it apart. Naturally, in all the fan communities I’ve seen rise, I’ve watched them fall; whether over pettiness, fights, people leaving and newbies shaking up the community’s dynamic, moderators going power hungry, and so on. But I'll never forget the friends I've made across them. And even today, I still stay in contact with a select few friends I've made over the early years of rabid fandoms. The inevitable drama that unfolds in Arc Symphony’s fan community ends up feeling personal, not just because we've witnessed something like it before, but because so many of us have reinvented ourselves in one way or another online. We create the ideal self, and sometimes, we see that be rejected."

Via USGamer
Via Itch.io Arc Symphony

(This is a really old post - I was gonna post this sooner but other things sort of got in the way. It was an interesting sort of text adventure that delved into the nature surrounding online internet communities. The game is no longer free, but it's 2.69USD. It's still worth checking out.)

(Archive) Alter A.I.L.A Variant - RM2k3 - Neok

(from Alter A.I.L.A Variant's GamePage on RMN by Neok - June 10th 2012)

Alter A.I.L.A. Variant takes place in a modern world, 3 years after the events of Alter A.I.L.A. Genesis. 2 years ago, a great war came to a decisive conclusion thanks to the efforts of a small band of people. Peace should have followed, but there are those who would choose to continue fighting. This is the continuation of that story.

The battle system revolves mainly around each character's Abilities, which are a set of commands specific to that character. Abilities require AP and EX to use. AP is gained every time a character takes a turn. The default is 2. EX is gained every time a character uses an Ability. The default is 1. Note that this may change depending on the situation.

Mirror Download

(Note: ...I wanted to wait for the right time to post this, but honestly there's never going to be a right time, so I thought I'd just get this out of the way quickly:)

Copy & Paste & Play: Amateur Games as Appropriation Art - [Amplab.ca]

(from Amplab.ca by Saeed Afzal - Noevember 8th, 2016)

"...Marcus Boon, in his book “In Praise of Copying”, writes of the putting together of a mixtape or iTunes playlist in a way that I think reflects the philosophy of these RPG Maker amalgamations: he notes that the process of making a mixtape is “intimate” and “emotionally charged”, and that “the mixtape maker has available in accessing the variety that is essential to copia, and straight out of a classical rhetoric manual: inventio (the selection of tunes to be played),dispositio (the ordering or sequencing of them), and elocutio(the cuts and edits made, but also the loving care put into the handwritten cover, the decoration of the cassette), all deployed in order to charm the recipient of the tape” (Boon 55). Just like the mixtape-maker, the RPG Maker game designer carefully selects the assets they’re going to copy, rearranges and reorders them in new configurations, and also omits, edits, and personalizes these resources to make a product that is uniquely theirs.

RPG Maker game Final Fantasy Black Moon Prophecy, a fangame of the Final Fantasy series, makes use of assets from Final Fantasy IV, released 25 years ago as of the writing of this probe. The fangame uses a tileset from the game’s town maps, safe zones for the player to recover their strength and restock on items. Black Moon Prophecy, however, edits the tileset and then uses it to map one of the game’s dungeons, Niflheim (Left), a decaying town in which monsters abound. This is another instance of familiar iconography being reconfigured and given new meaning – note the re-use of graphics between Niflheim (Left) and Final Fantasy IV’s town of Baron (Right)"

Via Amplab.ca

The secret history of underdog game engine RPG Maker and how it got its bad reputation - [PC Gamer]

(from PC Gamer by Giada Zavarise - October 11, 2017)

"...The release of RPG Maker VX Ace coincided with the birth of Steam Greenlight. RPG Maker users started to consider themselves real game developers, and realized they could actually try to sell their games. The result? An explosion of RPG Maker games on Steam Greenlight, often made by teenagers with big dreams but limited skills. And all those games looked the same.

Players began to associate RPG Maker's RTPs with mediocre, "lazy" games. The engine got a bad reputation. In a 2016 Reddit thread about why people had begun to hate games made with RPG Maker a community manager who worked for Degica said, "I really wish people who weren't ready for the big time would stop submitting to greenlight. It would make my job easier. Because the perception of RM is already bad enough without people trying to throw their 10 minute effort game on greenlight."

On forums and in Steam user reviews the same comments about RPG Maker games recur over and over. They're "low effort and low quality," "look more or less identical," use the same "stock resources." It's enough to put you off using the engine entirely..."

Via PC Gamer