QCF: RPG Maker MV

t some point in a gamers life comes the moment where they say to themselves (or anyone who may be in the room “Screw this game, I could make one way better than this shit!”. Many gamers will then continue on playing their games without another thought, others will go out and build from scratch what becomes their life's work. And then you have the rest—we range from those who could build from scratch to those who know that controllers have at least 8 buttons

For us such people we have game creation programs. There are many different types of game creators out there for all kinds of different genres but probably the most well-known of these programs is RPG Marker, which had its initial released back in December of 1992 as RPG Tsukuru Dante 98. It has had several updates and releases and I had the chance to play around with the latest Version RPG Maker MV from Degica.

The thought of programming a full-on RPG might sound daunting and overwhelming but MV makes it simple and fun. It includes everything you could need to create a full-fledged RPG. If you're artistic and creative you can make your own character sprites, tile sets, add in videos. Seriously, the possibilities are endless.

So just how easy is it to use? Well, once you figure out where everything is you'll be able to create a simple game in a matter of hours. No seriously; within a matter of hours, my RPG Maker MV game, Koden, was made in no time at all.

Don't expect Final Fantasy XV style graphics with the default character and tile sets. MV takes us back to the days of 2D sprites, but that's not a bad thing.

I would have loved to implement custom sprites, enemies, and tile sets for the demo but work and time just didn't allow. However, there is always the next time, and the limit here is your time, and imagination.

The music is generic fantasy music and the sound effects do their job but you don't have to limit yourself to the ones included with the game. With Koden, I was lucky enough that Ser wanted to help contribute in some way... and what better way than to create a full OST. All the music you'll hear when playing through the Koden demo, from the Town music, to the Final boss was all created by Ser, in a matter of 24 hours.

Everything is processed through Maps and Events. Maps use different tile sets to distinguish between the settings, your Overworld map, your outside map for towns and such like the indoor builds of shops, rooms and other things, and dungeons. With the ability to change the sizes of each map you aren't stuck with a tiny over world or a huge shop. Through the general setting for maps you can also determine random battles and the enemies your player will encounter.

Events are the things that make the game progress. Everything that your player will experience is done through events. From going down stairs, to opening a chest, to the boss fights, these all require an event.

This can be as simple or complex as you want them to be. You want to award the player some gold for opening a chest? You've got it. Do you have plans to introduce a new character; sure, just have your player run around in circles, run to a hidden door, and open up an animated sequence to do it. If you're good with plugins you can use them for your events too.

The one thing I was glad to see included in this version of RPG maker was side battles. Previous instalments had battles akin to that of the original Dragon Quest, a Menu, the enemies and no player image. In RPG maker VX ace people had developed plugins that would allow for side battles but now they are as simply as simply checking off a radio button.

With RPG maker you seriously have control over everything, the Characters, Classes, Skills, items the enemies, again the possibilities are seriously endless.

The longest part of the whole process was actually trying to getting it ready for Android, mostly from downloading all the required programs to make sure the game would run properly and making sure they were configured correctly. If you're already familiar with Android SDK, Apache Ant, Crosswalk and Java SE development then this probably won't be too much of a hassle for you. Getting familiar with them might take a bit of time for the uninitiated.

The game itself doesn't require any sort of programing knowledge what so ever. You can make the game from scratch like I said with the character sprites and tile sets provided. However if you're looking to publish on Android or iOS you might want to familiarize yourself with some coding.

If you've ever wanted to make an RPG definitely check out RPG maker MV. It doesn't matter if you have an engaging story you want to share with the world or are making something for you and your friends, it caters to everyone.

Oh, and if you're down to download my game, you can download it here!