(September 30 to October 6, 2013)
Welcome dear readers to the latest issue of the Weekly Gazette! Here in the Gazette, we give you the news in brief of what occurred in the past week as well as provide any news happening in Save-Point itself
Official Area
Occasions
We received greetings from Steel Beast 6Beets who thinks himself a run-of-the-mill RPGMaker XP user, but has experience with the RPGMaker line of engines as he plans to work on one of his own long-lost RPGMaker 2000 projects. DerVVulfman at one point seemed to think his intent was to remake someone else's game and made mention of a few RM2K games, though Ahzoh realized it was Steel Beast 6Beets's own work being redone. On reading the titles, he was really pleased that someone recalled the RPGMaker 2000 game that pulled him into the RPG scene in the first place. His statement was later followed by DerVVulfman's sending him a link that he claim would thrill our new member.
And after a long wait, Kain Nobel is back, having intended to take only a week off which turned into nearly a month. There was a lot of issues he had to shoulder with which were built up over the years, and needed the extra time to handle these weighty problems. The strain of keeping a smile when in constant contact with people who irritated him incessantly was not only frustrating, but threw him into a state of rage. But now he is back, calmer and healthier. Now getting into shape and with a friend at his gym who reminds him when he's pushing himself too hard, he's back and ready to RPG some more as he is still working on ReGaL, Belly of the Beast and Echoside.
Pie may be fly, but it is no substitute for a candle-lit cake when a birthday is involved. Candlemakers received increased orders as Erechel, ntzrmtthihu777, Acolyte, heroBX and Tenoukii celebrated their first birthdays with us. But they weren't the only ones as lefair, wssxa, Norbyotter, annedevlin, RoseQuartz and justinarnab27 shared their first birthdays in our forum just days later. And lastly, we were able to celebrate Taylor's birthday once again, with those of both i666iky939 and B_Scott this week.
Games Development
Development Discussion
A fine thing about a forum is that friends may help each other, and a game design forum such as ours. With that, it is no surprise that KasperKalamity entered that What's up RPGMakers to ask whether anyone liked cutscenes in their games, or a system that may replay a cutscene for the player. DerVVulfman was thinking of the use of cutscene, and pointed out that the replay of a cutscene could be used to great effect as a flashback. With that, KasperKalamity replied he was going to make his cutscene for something similar to the Biggoron Sword quest in Ocarina of Time, preferring extensive journeys to get the ultimate items rather than the player stumbling upon it. Ahzoh recalled having to spend 40 hours to get such a weapon that could kill a boss in ten seconds rather than hours, but KasperKalamity considered something akin to CronoTrigger's Rainbow Shell Gear where you had to pick and choose what pieces to immediately use. Speaking of things as colorful as rainbows, Mechanicalpen discovered within RPGMaker XP's help file that the tilemap class contained a flash_data value, one suggested for use in simulation games. However, he was puzzled that while it is mentioned in RPGMaker XP's help file, no traces of the flash_data value exists at all within the known default scripts.
KasperKalamity took note of the apparent mis-aligned tiles that buprettyinpink saw, and replied back in the Maps and Screenshots thread that he'll fix it once he's done. Not all his tilework is complete. Still, he's nearly done with the tiles for his first town, having only odds and ends such as water autotiles to touch up. You can gaze at a minimized render of KasperKalamity's current map which shows a large area including a central pond, various houses of all types, and thick stone walls on both North and East edges. Ahzoh was just so impressed how some people were at making city and town maps. After that, you can see the work that JayRay placed into the title screens for Roguehaven, including one which allows you to play minigames and a built-in juke box. Along with that, you can gaze at the elaborate character creation system he crafted. And lastly, MechanicalPen showed us how his map editing was fleshing out after six hours of work.
Last week, MechanicalPen had an addition to the RPGmXP Editor Hotkeys list that could be found at RMRK, and wondered if it would have been fine to copy the entire list over here. As the author of the script, Vgvgf said it would be fine and so the entire list is now available. But MechanicalPen discovered within the list that the arrow keys in the map drawing window would be insufficient for his intended editor enhancement script.
Steel Beast 6Beets agreed with what Taylor mentioned a while back in the thread that discussed both Pretty Maps and Bad Design, but pointed out that some things mentioned could be used as dungeon gimmicks. Fog, in his opinion could be used to offer a limited range of vision, and could use an ignited torch system to allow other areas to be visible for a limited time. At the same time, he suggested that map clutter could be used to create a man-made labyrinth, such as a maze made entirely of discarded junk.
The discussions about how to handle The Random Number God continues as Steel Beast 6Beets pointed out that some games such as Golden Sun made good use of it. MechanicalPen replied that Steel Beast 6Beets made a good point. It was his intention to educate developers that the default rand command in Ruby isn't enough and some work would be required to achieve a decent effect. But, Steel Beast 6Beets also warned that if the game developer made the system too lenient, powergamers would find techniques and tricks that would make the toughest challenges a breeze. And to KasperKalamity, randomness isn't a factor as he uses a variety of systems to give the illusion of chance, and cites how his random loot chests actually function.
Complete Projects
No actual 'new' game entered the forum for members to play, however DerVVulfman had decided to add four more classic RPGMaker 2000 game into the mix, the first being the 'Reduh' of The Most Stupidest Game Ever by Secaf. Unlike your classic fare, the hero begins his journey after being released from jail only to find things went from bad to worse. Note that there actually is a SAVE POINT (by name) in the game to annoy Herbert during his travels.
At the same time, a trilogy of games by Kamau was posted as DerVVulfman made threads for Legion Saga, Legion Saga II and Legion Saga III. The series, inspired by military RPGs such as Suikoden, followed the heroic of their individual protagonists. War systems, party management systems and weapon upgrade systems are a part of these along with epic quests and thought out story arcs.
Upcoming Projects
Thank odd dreams for a new project to enter the forum, as KDC asks use to enter the School of Magics. Enter a realm which exists as a crossroads between all known universes. Discover a school where the students are given limited rights and privileges. And meet Ben, a typical person who figures there's been a mistake. As the synopsis given by KDC was fairly vague, yamina-chan had a few questions such as who were the teachers, how would anyone notice a student's disobedience, and other various issues. One thing that KDC brought up was that students had certain philosophical rights. But Ahzoh wondered what if the student didn't have the right to live, which sounded drastic to yamina-chan.
Meanwhile, it was Trexrell's turn to give us an update about Demon's Revenge as their battlesystem wasdelayed. But they pushed forward at Atlas Productions and Trexrell posted some animated gifs of the enemies you may face. Among what you would face in their game, you may encounter a gray armored swordsman, a female fighter which MetalRenard considered fairly healthy (if not buxomy), and a dangerous spiked worm.
Code Support
Skitzen asked for Help on an RPGMaker VXAce Custom Menu as he's hoping to make a complete picture-based menu system for a PokeMon game. He knows how to work out picture menu systems through Eventing. But while he is experienced in RPGMaker VXAce, his knowlege and skills in VX Ace scripting is lacking.
Material Development
Scripts Database
This week, DerVVulfman put together some instructions he called the Super Simple Map Transition Scriptette for RPGMaker XP. Instead of it being an actual script, it is in fact a direct edit to the Scene_Map class that lets you use any of the 'transitions' in your Graphics\Transitions folder for map transitions. He seemed to wonder why such a simple edit wasn't a part of RPGMaker XP in the first place
Well, that's it for this week.
"I won't say ours was a tough school, but we had our own coroner. We used to write essays like: What I'm going to be if I grow up." - Lenny Bruce (1925-1966)
PROSPECTIVE GAZETEERS!
If you are the creator of a thread in Save-Point, you have the option of sending/writing your own entry into the Gazette. The Gazette accepts write-in announcements (which will be doublechecked). Likewise, the Gazette would welcome other content such as a comic-strip series, ongoing story arc, or the like.
Just PM DerVVulfman with the submissions. Submissions must be in by 10pm EST.