New Town Map…

Still working on the eventing tutorials, but in the meantime I made a new town map (a town in my game called Oak Harbor) based on some of Ocean’s Dream’s suggestions. I used the roof tileset generator to get the improved roof tiles in this map:

Oak Harbor Map

Personally, I hate the regular roofs from the RMVX RTP, so these roofs are a huge improvement in my opinion. Click on the image above to go to a slightly larger image, and then again to see a much larger version. Anyway, if you have any suggestions or comments for me about the map, let me know what you think.

Event tutorials soon…

Been sick since last week and busy before that so not much posting. Anyway, I made a couple of interesting (but simple) systems using Events in RMVX. Both are for the game I’m working on (Borealis). The first is a lighting system that imitates a lantern running out of fuel. I’ve seen a couple of tutorials on RPGMakervx.net but they weren’t all that detailed as to how they would actually work. I tried one method and it didn’t work well so I made up my own that does work.

 Second, I created a system that inflicts various conditions on your character based on the environment they’re in. At the moment, I’m working on some kind of “ammo” system but may decide to go with scripts instead. We’ll see. I’ll post at least one of these event tutorials later this week.

RMVX Mapping Example: A Simple Forest and Cabin

So I’ve been working on a couple of RMVX maps. These are pretty basic, but after Ocean’s advice to go with a more “old-school” style of map when using the RMVX RTP, I came up with a simple forest and a cabin interior. Here they are so far.

Cabin Closeup

Here’s my overall forest.

RMVX RTP Forest Map

Not the most spectacular, but I wasn’t going for a highly detailed map at this point. Next are a couple of shots of the cabin interior.

Quick Update: RMVX Enemy Battler Frankensprites

I just found a pretty dang cool Japanese RMVX site called “Closet” where the artist there has been splicing existing RMVX monster/enemy sprites together to make new ones. Definitely go and check it out.

Quick Update: New Pixel Art Site and Tileset Tutorial Sprite Tut

Pixel Mirage

Found via Ocean’s Dream’s Tileset Tutorial site, there’s a new pixel art site called Pixel Mirage up now. I’ll include a link in my blogroll. So far the site has four tutorials up: one on line art, one on tools, another on color and one on dithering.

Also, Ocean’s Dream’s Tileset Tutorial has been updated with a guide to updating old-school RPG characters (in this case from Final Fantasy 1) to a more modern, RPG Maker VX style of sprite. My favorite part of this tutorial is the step-by-step look at how to color hair.

Scripting: Editing the Basic Battle Formulas

Hi everyone, I’m going to present some basic information about editing the battle formulas in RMVX. For the most part, this information is semi-documented in the RGSS2 help file included with RMVX but is pretty incomplete. Anyway, let’s get started.

 

Step 1: Open the Script Editor and scroll down to where it says “Game_Battler.” This is the script for the engine that handles battle calculations. Left-click on the script to open it, and scroll all the way down to line 637. You’ll notice green text (green text is a comment or series of comments that are not compiled by the engine) that says the following:

 Calculation of Damage From Normal Attack

  #     attacker : Attacker

  #    The results are substituted for @hp_damage

 Here’s the whole chunk of code you’ll be working with and a screenshot:

Game_Battler script section

 

16 Flash Games in Three Months and Update

Quick update: Here’s an article about how a relatively small team produced 16 Flash games in 3 months, from scratch. RGSS2 stuff coming tonight. This will be the first evening I’ve been home all week, so I haven’t had a chance to finish that other post yet.

Game Editor Software Poll

Hi everybody, just curious as to what software people checking out this blog are interested in.

Quick update…

Found some neat stuff the other day. First is a really cool article on GameCareerGuide.com (Gamasutra’s site for people aspiring to a career in game development) called “20 Essential Design Questions.” Check it out.

Second, I’m learning more about Ruby at the moment and got a great book by author Chris Pine. It’s called “Learn to Program, Second Edition.”

Learn to Program Second Edition Cover

FYI, there’s a pretty decent free tutorial section on his site already, but the book is more comprehensive and has better exercises. You can get the book on Amazon for a decent price (about $17 before shipping and handling). The book covers a lot of good, fundamental programming techniques that apply to many object-oriented languages in addition to just Ruby.

Battle formula editing coming up next.

RGSS2 and Ruby: Object-oriented Programming Basics

I said I’d start some scripting tutorials for RGSS2 but before I get started I’m going to make the disclaimer that I’m a beginning scripter with this particular framework. I’m also a beginner when it comes to programming. Those facts aside, I think there’s something to be said for teaching what you’re learning to others. In this case, because I’m a beginner, I plan to explain RGSS2 in terms that other beginners can understand.

Before I get to the interesting stuff you can do with RGSS2, I’m going to start with some basic Ruby (and general programming) definitions. Grab a beverage and get comfortable, because this post is pretty long. To get any good at using RGSS2, though, you’ve got to understand a bit about Ruby and object-oriented programming, and that takes a fair amount of explanation.