(Spotted) LoneStar - RM2k3 - RMN

Via RMN
Website/Devblog

(Reference) Looking Forward: The Huntress of The Hollow - RMN

(from RMN - Looking Forward: The Huntress of The Hollow by LordBlueRouge - October 31st 2016)

Over the last few of weeks, following its initial release, I noticed the rpgmaker2003 game "The Huntress of the Hollow" has been generating quite a bit of buzz; hovering on RMN's front page, often dropping down to the 8th spot, only to suddenly climb back up to 3rd or 2nd place.

Now normally, from past experience, we'd probably all chalk this phenomena up, to a semi-popular youtuber doing yet-another let's play of an rpgmaker2003 game.

But after carefully doing a quick google search, it becomes immediately apparent that only a handful of youtubers have actually done a let's play of "The Huntress of the Hollow".

...Either way, it's very unusual for a newly released rpgmaker2003 game to be generating such a large amount of buzz in such a short amount of time, shortly after it's release. But to be able to then, further generate that buzz consistently for 7 solid weeks straight afterwards? That's incredible.

So, rather than bitterly blame this curious occurrence, on some faulty RMN site algorithm, on this special edition of "Looking Back"...with special permission from Tau, I’ve decided to "Look Forward", by sitting down and interviewing the creator of "The Huntress of the Hollow” in order to see what I could learn from, what many consider to be the new face of rpgmaker2003 on RMN.
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(Reference) The GamingGroundZero Games

(EDIT: A lot of the info here, is generally paraphrased from old forum threads and community sites, to just give users an idea of what GGZ was like back then - At some point I'd like rewrite this article with information from the creators themselves, if I can get in touch with them.)

Established around 2001, GamingGroundZero was one of the first western Rpgmaker communities to rise up from Don Miguels's unofficial translated version of Rpgmaker2000 - QHeretic's Kindred Saga, being one of the more prominent Rpgmaker2000 games, for creating a custom side-battle-view system in Rpgmaker2000, a year before Enterbrain would release Rpgmaker2003.

Sometime shortly after RPGMaker2003's release and RpgAdvocate unofficially translated RpgMaker2003 into English, Enterbrain pleaded with Rpgmaker fans to stop the illegal distribution of RpgMaker2000 and RpgMaker2003. They felt that the continued circulation of these programs had not only hurt their chances of releasing these Makers to the western market, but that their company would eventually go out of business if this current activity continued.

GamingGroundZero, and other RpgMaker communities, took it upon themselves to disallow any RpgMaker2003 material on their site, in hopes that Enterbrain would eventually release RpgMaker2003 in English.

Enterbrain eventually decided to release Rpgmaker XP, instead. 

(from RMN - "Oh, I'm so confused about one of GGZ's rules (which dosen't make sense.)" by alterego - June 6th, 2012)

"...GGZ never let go of [Enterbrain's] promise [to release RpgMaker2003 to the western market] and  eventually that took a toll on the community... When XP finally came out none were too impressed by it, and with no official release of rm2k3 in sight, people just started losing interest in rpg maker all together. =(

[GGZ's] "isolation" occurred in part because upon learning of this decision, people from Gaming World [another rpgmaker community,] started posting rm2k3 content, along the overall drama that ensued. And as anyone would have expected some of them got suspended or banned, but only to register again and keep challenging/questioning said decision. This was the last drop in a history of animosity between the two sites that made Wishmoo close the community and allowing inside only those willing to join in good faith. It was something that was never meant to last, but it did, and that too was part of the site's eventual downfall..."

(from RMN - "Does anyone remember GamingGroundZero?" by Kaempfer - January 31st, 2017)

"I only remember having a small number of encounters with the GGZ legends- namely Wishmoo and, once, QHeretic. I was a pretty small, inoffensive fish, and I thought I could swim around freely. I think I may have been on their IRC and then, suddenly, I was banned. Wishmoo seemed totally insane. I think someone deduced that I was from GW and that was that. I have only vague memories of these names.

I do remember they had a couple of pretty solid games that I enjoyed playing, but my enjoyment was somewhat mitigated by the extreme lengths they would go to "protect resources" (mostly minor edits of rips), including threatening legal action. I seem to remember many tales of Wishmoo threatening legal action, actually. This was a time of people going to extreme lengths to protect their mediocre palette swaps of rips, and GGZ were by far the most ill-spirited about it. It was a doubly weird time because it was well before anyone thought about actually making money from RPGMaker games.

These were legendary days where, somehow, a bunch of nerds in the internet diaspora contrived to be constantly embattled in dramatic back and forths in the arena of RPGMaker feuds rather than just being generally pleasant and thinking certain people are complete fuckwhistles like we manage nowadays.

I feel like a lot of the people from GGZ were sort of shackled to their legacy. They made some great games and wanted to continue that legacy at new sites, but their names also made people think of Wishmoo, so instead they withered away into obscurity. Like, extra obscurity, since we're all already pretty obscure.

I wonder what games could have been..."

Links:

https://rpgmaker.net/forums/topics/22385/

https://rpgmaker.net/forums/topics/11094/

http://saltworld.net/forums/topic/12453-click-here-if-you-are-a-hipster-oldbie/page-11

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The GamingGroundZero Games:

(I noticed a bunch of people are looking for the rpgmaker games from gaminggroundzero. 

These aren't all the games - just the ones that I was able to manage before the site was taken down.)

-

A Butterfly's Song - Naritus
Rpgmaker Archive Entry

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(Archive) Final Fantasy VII 2D Remake - Vanit

(from Final Fantasy 7 2D Remake's GamePage Blog on RMN by Vanit - December 6th 2013)

Hey guys, finally submitting a page here so my game is more accessible. TLDR: project is largely on hiatus, but I do plan to finish the bombing mission.

A little about me:

I graduated from a Bachelor of Engineering majoring in Software Engineering (2011), and I'm currently working as a developer for a startup (web, Android, iOS).

When I started my degree I decided to experiment on a high level with the programming concepts I was learning in something I was familiar with; RPG Maker 2003. Over the years I've seen many people attempt a 2D remake of FF7 and fail, so I thought I'd try do it right.

(Reference) Grandia: Storyboard - "Justin, a boy from Parm" (パームの少年・ジャスティン)

Via Hontani's Grandia Visual Database

(From - grandia.wikia.com)

"Hontani's Grandia Visual Database was a microsite created by co-director of Grandia, Toshiaki Hontani, displaying official concept art, storyboards and other artwork.

The site can be accessed at:
http://www4.plala.or.jp/croh/gvdb/"

source: grandia wikia

(Archive) A Butterfly's Song - RM2k - GamingGroundZero

(From Choin Heap- "RPG Maker oldschool recs" by Darken May-18-2014)

"A boy moves to a town to start a brand new life. This game has a huge heart. There’s something innocent and nostalgic about this game, it’s very humble in execution yet has a lot of potential. The battles are semi first person yet have hand drawn characters attack the monsters Phantasy star style. Really neat."

Download

(Spotted) O Calice Sagrado - RM2k

Via CondadoBraveHeart
Demo (Portuguese)
Full Game (Portuguese)

(Spotted) The Ledge - RMMV

(Will update with more info; really really slick trailer that goes straight to the point.)

Via RMN
website Beaufort.asia

(Spotted) 1899 London Gothic - RMXP

(Archive) TAUT - RMk23 - Char0n

UPDATE: Current Errors:
- ENG and GER need 2000 RTP. FR needs 2003RTP
- file tautmenu.png needs to be properly extracted
- this problem is present in all versions 1.2, English and French.
(will update with more info; Taut was supposedly quite a popular horror game back in 2007 on gamingw, for it's use of custom chipsets in order to tell a story within a contemporary setting )


(From Indie DB- "Taut Summary" by Char0n)

"Taut is a horror game with elements of Silent Hill (visual presentation of the game) and the movies of David Lynch. It's also a "Drama", too, because the story is more or less about humananity but splitted into pieces of many metaphors which are all very psychological and sometimes abstract. In your home town, but (consciously) it shows no discernible name and has similarities to a few different cultures. Why is the town empty? You travel to the one place you find comfort & memories, your school."

Taut (German)

Taut (French)

Taut (English) Available on indieDB as TautENG