Hello
again!
Let's take a look at the RPG Maker Vx Ace engine and my reasoning as to why I
consider it to be a fairly good engine to begin with for your first project.
When I was still debating and thinking of what I could possibly do to move
forward on my Game Development aspirations, I was still in the middle of my
first year in my Commerce Degree in university. When I spoke to a friend of
mine that works within the university's Digital Game Institute, he recommended
I take a look at RPG Maker Vx Ace.
Quite honestly, I was doubtful about the engine's capabilities and such at
first. Although today I look at it in a different way.
Pros
- A price tag that a student or someone with a not too high budget can afford.
On the digital
distribution platform Steam, on the day of this post being written, the
software costs €59.99. Along with the
software you get a number of resources that could essentially be
used to create an small game with just them. Needless to say, if you find the software on sale during a Steam sale or any other sale, you can get it for cheaper.
- The community based around this software is helpful and there are a number of tutorials available online to get you started!
Youtube
and the RPG Maker Vx Ace forums themselves both contain a large amount of
valuable resources and tutorials. If something that you would like to know isn't listed
down yet, simply ask on the forums themselves and someone will most likely get back to you.
- Easy to get into, a lot of room to master different skills.
The fact that the software is fairly easy to get into allows you to focus on other aspects of game development. This includes things such as Story design and writing, level design, balancing and many many more areas that you might find interest in. If your working in a team, you'll get to experience how having different team members can affect development, along with the challenges of keeping a team moving towards a focused goal to eventually release a fully fledged game.
- No need to know programming prior to going into developing with this engine.
This
was a major factor that pulled me towards this engine. As mentioned in the
Introductory post, I do not have the strongest background in programming.
The RPG Maker Vx Ace engine makes use of an Event System to create a
number of systems in the game you wish to create. It can be used to create
NPCs, Quests, Cinematics and much more. If you wish to do more that than
the event system can handle, the software also has it's own programming
language called Ruby. If you want to learn more about Ruby, there are a
number of tutorials that help to teach the language itself. Though as said, scripting is optional, and even then you can find a large number of scripts on the RPG Maker Vx Ace forums and other websites.
- Basic systems are included, and can be changed via scripts such as different battle systems.
By basic systems
I refer to things such as Main Menu, Inventory, Movement, Turn-Based Battle System,
In-game Saving and so on. These of course can be modified by
scripts however it is not necessary to do so. Unless of course you wish to modify that system to something you prefer.
- Convenient testing and editing for maps and enemies.
As
you will likely realize after you get started with creating a project in
RPG Maker Vx Ace, you will be going through a number of variations when it
comes to many aspects of your creation. Whether it is modifying a map,
changing an event or balancing out an enemy, you will soon realize that
you will need a fast way to test these. The engine comes with a Play Test feature that allows you to save your project and play it out
as you have created it to let you test out events and such. When it comes
to enemies, the engine also comes with a Battle Test System to allow you
to simulate a battle with the character and equipment you wish and the
enemies you wish.
- Ample resources available online and people to collaborate with.
Whether your good at art, music,
programming, story writing or other disciplines, you can request or
collaborate with people that perhaps are not good in your discipline but
good in another that you aren't. This means you can work with others or trade resources to
help make your project more unique or appealing.
Cons
- RPG Maker Vx Ace games are limited to a maximum resolution of 640 x 480.
The
games can be played in full screen, however black bars are likely to
appear on widescreen monitors. This may not be a crippling technical
limitation of the software, however it is worth keeping in mind when
looking into the software.
- Data entry can be tedious.
When you are creating a large number of different weapons,
items, armor and skills, and you plan these out on a spread sheet program
or some other external software, you will probably have to manually input
the data from the spreadsheets into the software. This also can be a minor
complaint, to my knowledge at least there are no methods to directly
import data into the software.
In conclusion;
Would I recommend RPG Maker Vx Ace for an aspiring game developer? Definitely. More so to those who wish to get use to the development processes and who do not have a lot of experience in programming. Those who do have experience in programming would not be disappointed either as they may use their programming background using Ruby to add on or modify the existing systems to suit their needs.. It's a software that allows you to create your first project by letting you focus on the areas you wish to focus. If you are an artist that prefers digital drawing for example, you can focus on that area and possibly get others to work with you for the other areas such as story writing and implementation, or you can do it yourself. In my case, I wanted to get a feel about story telling and creating a game world, as well as learning things that I could only learn by working on a game.
These are, of course based on my
experience and opinion of the software. However with these I hope that you can get a better idea of whether or not the RPG Maker Vx Ace software would be useful to you. As we move forward, I will be sharing my experiences and
processes that I undergo with my current project.
If you have any questions you wish to ask feel free and I will try to answer
them as best I could!
Coming up; I will begin
looking into the process I went through when designing my game world, lore wise
more specifically.
For now I will see you
all next time!
Dylan
