Identical Games

I've been working through Make a 2D RPG in a Weekend (RPG Maker MV edition). It's taken slightly longer than a weekend due to distractions like playing with the kids. I believe the book achieves it's goal. It can allow you to make a 2D RPG in a weekend but has some limitations.

The book is focused on building the game Darrin Perez defined. He alters the damage formulas and progression of stats in the game but doesn't explain how he arrived at those numbers. Given the time frame of one weekend it is understandable but means you will either have to figure that out on your own when building a different game or continue using his numbers.

He describes multiple ways of setting things up which is good for the designer. Although it makes the end game slightly inconsistent. You walk into all the starting buildings except one because he wants to show you how to make a store without an interior. I feel like this would have been a good time to mention that this leads to an inconsistent feel and tell the reader he should probably do one or the other and not have both in the game.

Certain things are not explained sufficiently for my needs. Transfer events from the shop interiors to the town are done with the quick transfer wizard. The transfers from the town to the interiors are done with a parrallel event. On the forums it was suggested that maybe it was due to the restriction of ten events in the lite version of RPG Maker. Later I learned that it allowed him to implement the transfer to the first dungeon by just checking the player's Y position as the only way to reach that position was to enter the dungeon. I needed three different transfer events due to the three tile wide opening.

Another example is that the author has you turn off show followers. It acknowledges that it looks nice but causes problems. In my testing the only problem is that the enemy encounters can't attack the followers. If that is the only problem I still want it on.

The book does do a good job of teaching you to use the features of RPG Maker MV with the possible exception of map building. Many different events are created. RPG Maker MV has a sophisticated user interface that allows you to create many things without a lot of complexity at least to my programmer's eye.

For maps the images are not the easiest to see. The author has you recreate the maps without any further explanation. In my investigations about RPG Maker MV I learned about the various tabs in the map editor. It probably warrants mentioning for new users. Maps without the events are available in the code for the book if you don't want to recreate them but I chose to do it. Some differences in mine are mistakes. Latter I stopped caring about recreating them perfectly and just got the general feel.

I wish the book focused more on what makes an interesting map. The starting town in particular is really bland. Maybe give the reader a general design later on and let them create the details. Assuming you made the maps at the end of the book you are probably proficient at recreating a map but not necessarily building a new one from scratch.

I would recommend the book to someone with no RPG maker MV experience and wants to get started. Before starting the book I did read Yanfly's comics. The design approach in the comics appeals to me more than the organization of the book. It is sort of an Agile Development process where the game is always playable although maybe not much fun. Creating a game in a weekend has additional constraints not in the comics so it is understandable that the book has a different approach.

I did make some minor changes in my game. All conversations where you are near the person talking shows their portrait. This involved some wording change to fit the text. The warrior and apprentice companions are different. I decided to use a minotaur named Royal Bull and an image from the nature set who I named Glow. Instead of having them in the pub, you talk to the King and he calls them in.

Those modifications proved problematic later. The minotaur boss was changed to the ogre with some additional artwork from the rpg maker forum by Avery. Glow is the image used for the fairy queen so I changed the queen to a different image and made the text imply she is younger.

I didn't like the author's solution to the lack of sprite for the plant monster. Instead I use a mushroom creature also by Avery. I replace the forest bat with a dirty fairy using the earth spirit. The text talks about the lamia corrupting the fairies. Changing a flying fairy into an earth creature seems like a good corruption. I altered some of the attack elements as well. There is no sprite for the earth spirit just the battle image like with the ogre. Avery has an earth spirit but I like Chalkdust's version better.

Overall the game is not significantly different from the source of the book. I have not implemented anything from chapter 10 nor did I implement the escape run in chapter 9. I plan on doing something original rather than expand on this.