Extinct Pixels

RPG Maker VX Tutorials - Variables: Interacting with NPCs and Making A Relationship Work Part 1

pixelatedrabbit — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 10:02:00 -0400

Hello!

I have messed with RPG maker VX a lot for fun, but until recently, I was scared of variables. I didn’t want to have anything to do with them, but I was stupidly wrong. I tried to play around with them, and they turned out to be really really fun, and actually quite simple, to my surprise.

I will try to explain how variables work as simple as humanly possible. In this tutorial that will be delivered in parts, I will show you how to create a relationship system, ranging from killing an npc, to making friends, to falling in love, giving and recieving gifts, getting married, having children, buying a house and changing the interior decorations. There will also be a quick demonstration of how you can have a good/evil system, similar to fable.

I know, I know, this is not the sims, but it’s a fun activity to have anyway!

Let’s start by creating our NPC, let’s name him Bob! Proceed to add a greeting text and then choices. “Chat”, “Insult” “Kill” and “Goodbye” make it so if cancel, choice 4. Just in case.

Now, let’s create our variables. Name the first “RelationshipBob”, name the second one, “Good”, and the third one “Bad”. Make them by going to “Control Variables” under “Game Progression”, then click the three dots, and now it’s just like creating switches!

The reason it’s named “RelationshipBob” it’s because every NPC has it’s own calculator. So if you want to advance a relationship with another NPC, all you have to do is make a new variable, copy the event pages, and just alter the texts a bit, so it won’t be so monotonic.

Now then. Let’s fill our “Chat” choice. Proceed by giving a filler text, say, “Haha, you’re funny!” or something like that. Now, go to variables, choose the “RelationshipBob” variable. Under “Operation”, tick the “Add”. And under Operand set “Constant” to “1’, this is just a calculator, it adds one to the variable.

So, now by choosing "Chat”, Bob likes you! Hurray! Now proceed to do the same with “Good” variable. So the more times you spam “Chat”, Bob as well as others, like you more!

Now let’s fill the “Insult” choice. It’s the exact same thing with “Chat”, only this time, under “Operation”, you tick “Sub” so it just reduces by 1. Now by choosing “Insult”, bob might not like you so much… >:(

“Kill”. All you have to do now, is just Erase Event. And “Add” 5..or 10, whatever values you want, just make it bigger than usual, to the “Bad” Variable.

Your first Event Page should look something like this ->

Let’s proceed deeper into our relationship with Bob now, shall we?

Create a new event page, and don’t forget to select the graphic again! Now, in “Conditions”, tick the Variable, choose “RelationshipBob” and set it 3 or above. Now if you’re relationship with Bob is 5 or higher, this is the Event Page that will be triggered.

Bob likes you more now! Again, a greeting text, but this time Bob knows you better, so put something like “Hello again, \n[1]! (In case you didn’t know, \n[1] is the name of the first actor in case you have a custom one. Change the number for diffrent party member.)

Now, make choices again, this time make them "Chat” “Flirt” “Insult” “Goodbye”. Don’t worry, you evil bastard, if you want to kill him all you have to do is insult him again, if the variable is lower than 5, the first page will be triggered again.

Now of course, if you’d like to make the relationship system a bit more complex, you can. You can make variables like, BobFriendly, and BobRomance, for example. Also adding new choices that open more choices, such as “Friendly” and “Romance”. It’s all up to you! This is a beginner tutorial, so I don’t think we’ll be going that far.

Now that Bob is your friend, the only higher status you can achieve with him is by start flirting. If you didn’t do the complex relationship thing, when choosing “Chat”, add 1 to the relationship variable.

Now when choosing “Flirt”, add a “Conditional Branch”, make it look something like this

Now what we can do with this, is making flirt successful only if our relationship with bob is 5 or higher, if it’s not, bob will feel uncomfortable. If our relationship with bob is equal or higher than five, add 2 to our relationship variable, if it’s not, sub 1 from the variable.

Your full Event Page must now look simillar to this

You’ve reached 10 with bob, and now the new event page will trigger. Again, choices. “Kiss” “Insult” “Propose Marriage”, “Goodbye”. Let’s say kiss Adds 2 to our RelationshipBob, why? Because 10 is not enough for him to marry you! You need more! Let’s go to “Propose Marriage”. Put a “Conditional Branch”. Now, tick variable, “RelationshipBob”, “Greater than or equal to”, set it to say 20. Let’s spice things up a bit. Put another Conditional Brach, inside our already Existing Conditional Branch, that’s right, X-Zibit and Inception were here.

Make an item, name it “Engagement Ring”. In the Conditional Branch, go to page 4 and tick “Item”, then select the “Engagement Ring”. This will require for the payer to have one in their inventory. If you do not have engagement ring in the inventory, put under “Else” something like “I’ll need an engagement ring…”.

So now let’s say you have a relationship of 20 or more, and an engagement ring in your inventory, when you propose to Bob, add to the relationship 10, remove the ring from your inventory. You can also make a cinematic or something just for the sake of it.

Now, unless you’re into the harem thing, make a new switch called “Married”. When you propose succesfuly switch that on, too. Now in a conditional branch tick the switch, and “Marriage”. If it’s on you won’t be able to be married to more than one person at the same time. if it’s off you’re free to proceed! So when the player chooses flirt from now on, make a conditional branch. If “Married” switch is on, make it fail.

And that’s about it, in the next tutorial, I will write about pregnancy, and playing around with chances. Also more in-depth on the good/bad system, and real-estating within the game.

Edit: Pictures added and did some alterations for better understanding.

Storyteller 1: Creating A Villain

pixelatedrabbit — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 05:21:00 -0400

Hello, this will be a series of relatively small tips concerning character developing, backgrounds, and goals. Just to make things clear, this is not a tutorial, I will not tell you how to develop your own story because it butchers the idea of being creative. Just tips that maybe you’d like to take into consideration!

The main antagonist….Mojojojo to our Powerpuff Girls, Shredder to our Ninja Turtles, Internet Explorer to our Mozilla.

Let’s start with creating our villain(s).

Try to develop your character fully, from childhood to adulthood. Now you might ask: “What’s the point of developing his/her childhood?”. You never know when this information might come in handy, your main character might meet a crazy wizard and go to an awesome trip to the past to kill the villain but fail horribly! Also, most serial killers have childhood issues…

Now, your villain might of course not be a human or mortal, he might be a deity. So age is really irrelevant. If it comes to this, make a timeline. How was he created? Why did he join the dark side? Was he always a baddie or was he driven insane? The possibilities are edless, and what you do with him is up to you.

The Reason

Why does he want to take over the world/kill everyone, and most importantly, why does he want to kill he main character? Did the main character taunt him by posing as a threat? Are you a great warrior and he just wants to take all the glory by killing you? Maybe he’s just insane, some people are evil just for being evil. But I would not recommend going that direction. Having a well thought out story will always be appreciated by someone, and we’re talking about an RPG here, not a multiplayer FPS.

Make your villain noticable

The guy won’t just sit there in his evil lair waiting for his minions to do the job while he’s laughing in front of the lava falls. Villains are learning, if you want to do something, get it done yourself. But don’t overdo it like team rocket… appearing every 10 minutes and failing horribly everytime. Make your villain taunt your characters. If he decides to take action, make it so there will be negative effects, make the player take him seriously.

For example:

Injuries on your party, half of the city being destroyed and you being asked to help remaking it, maybe the town’s prison got destroyed and all the prisoners broke free, so your villain had a purpose, he’s making his army. Maybe the king got killed and now you have the opportunity to prove yourself to be the new one! Again, endless possibilities that can generate a lot of fun gameplay.

Goals and Powers

Let’s start with powers, again, how did he get his powers? What kind of powers does he posses? Some weapon? Maybe he’s a powerful Archmage. Maybe the cliche of an experiment going wrong. Using cliches is not bad, just don’t overdo it. If they were bad they wouldn’t be used.

Goals, what’re his goals? Taking over the specific world that your story takes place in? Butchering every single living soul? Maybe he desires to take over the world by becoming a tyrant. Maybe his fortune teller told him a boy/girl that was born in said town, will be the reason for his death, and he’s searching every last corner of the world to kill you!

I’d write something on appearance but that too, depends on the story. Maybe he is getting slowly corrupted and his appearance changes, anything you can come up with! It’s really not rocket science, these are just the basics, you can combine a lot together, and of course, not only have one villain. Maybe they’re two, and one betrays the other, but not by turning to the good side. You can really complicate things.

I really hope that I have helped you with some kind of difficulty you may had, and until next time, happy designing!

How to start scripting [UPDATED]

ntinos-m-deactivated20120112 — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:02:00 -0400

In order to start scripting for RPG Maker VX, or even if you want to start programming in general, the best way to start is by learning a programming language with simple syntax. Ruby or Python are a great way to start Programming. There are many online tutorials that you can read and learn both languages and I will link you there. But before you start learning Ruby or Python you have to know few things.

RPG Maker VX uses Ruby and the Ruby Game Scripting System 2 (RGSS2) API, but RPG Maker XP uses also Ruby but the RGSS. You don’t have to worry for anything. There are no online training materials for RGSS or RGSS2. This means that in order to learn scripting for both engines you will have to know Ruby. I suggested Python as a general language to get you started. RPG Maker VX/XP scripts need only Ruby.

Where to learn Ruby?(or Python?)
Zed A. Shaw has written books about learning programming the hard way. His books are about learning a programming language the hard way because it is the easiest way. In his books you will learn how to type fast symbols that are used in programming languages, and by the time you finish the book you will learn fast typing. He uses a lot of exercises in order to get used in typing and spotting mistakes that will cause your script to malfunction or not run. You can read Learn Ruby The Hard Way online for free by clicking here and you can buy or read Learn Python The Hard Way here.

After you have learned Ruby you can go online and search for scripts that other have created for VX or XP. By reading them you can see how every script is built and you will have an idea on how to use everything that you have learned. A good forum post with many scripts in order to have a look can be found here. If you don’t have an account be sure to create one for further script-reading and browsing. Forums dedicated to RPG Maker engine are a good library for you and your game. Also if you have difficulties with a script you might ask for their help.

UPDATE: I’ve also found two new links for learning Ruby and for newcomers to programming; you can check them by clicking the links:

Things that Newcomers to Ruby Should Know

Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer’s Guide

[image via]

Chapter -1: Not quite there yet, but close enough.

pixelatedrabbit — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 12:16:10 -0400

Salutations.

Two are the gentlemen behind this, and for you to find them you need only move your cursor.

Extinct Dinosaur

Pixelated Rabbit

Further posts concerning the development progress will start soon™. The point of all this is to have fun. And nothing can stop us. Except when the internet’s down, that sucks.

And by that I leave you, for now. May unicorns fart sunshine and rainbows on your pillow. <3

What?

ntinos-m-deactivated20120112 — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:48:00 -0400

This blog is about a game we are about to start developing. It will be an RPG with an unknown story so far. Seriously. We just came up with a name. You can visit a wiki based on the game, which will be updated everytime we create a new character or a quest, here.

We will post about scripts, code, how we design stuff and everything else that we did in order to finish the game.

This project is for us, in order to see the requirement of a game and the whole process. Everything for Legend of Sarius will be built using the RPG Maker VX engine. This is a training in order to jump into more serious game developing engines like UDK.

We will release the game when it will be ready, for free. So expect a kick-ass game with plot twist and a lots of mindfuck.