beginner's guide to rpg maker vx

BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO

RPG MAKER VX

H o w t o e a s i l y g e t s t a r t e d w i t h R P G M a k e r V X

Created by BenKo & Continued by Kelsper

June 2011

V 0.8

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

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INDEX

Introduction ............................................................................................ 5

Why this guide?

The methodology

Game development................................................................................. 7

Programmers versus designers

The team

Legend of Gladius .................................................................................. 11

The story

Locations

Quests

Items and weapons

Creating maps ....................................................................................... 13

The world map

The village

Interiors

Basic events .......................................................................................... 19

Starting position

Transfers

Doors

Decoration events

Treasure chests


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Basic NPC’s and dialogs ......................................................................... 25

Sign posts

Inns

Dialog choices

Shops

Customizing texts

Walking NPC’s

Game elements ..................................................................................... 37

Items

States

Skills

Weapons and armors

Jobs

Party members

Enemies and battles .............................................................................. 53

Monsters!

Troops

Encounters

Story ..................................................................................................... 61

Cut-scenes

Forbidden places

Foreword, Part Two ............................................................................... 68

Importing tile sets

Passage settings

Creating the Forbidden Forest

Title Screen

Continuing On ....................................................................................... 76

Gladius ruins

Mini Boss

Common events

Very basic scripting


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Wrapping up Lime’s dialogue

Music & Sound Effects

Ogre’s Tower

Refinement and Balancing......................................................... 95

Progression

Weather Effects

Balancing

Save Points

Advanced Skills

Battle Backgrounds

Finishing Up…………………………............................. ........................ 115

Final Cutscene

Kill “X” Monsters Quest

Vehicles

Parallax Backgrounds

Distribution

Epilogue…………………………................................. .........................130

Summary

Glossary

Credits


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INTRODUCTION

WHY THIS GUIDE?

Truth is I wrote this guide mainly for myself. I downloaded RPG Maker VX and began to tests

things until I got stuck with something and had to browse the Net for the solution to that

problem.

Most of the times, I found a tutorial which taught what I wanted to do. Other times, however, I

had to dig in some forums or read blogs. This system works but has some flaws:

What if I forget something? Let’s say I stop using RPG Maker VX for a couple of

months… Will I be able to remember everything, considering that I’m a newbie? I don’t

think so. This leads us to...

I don’t want to lose my time! Everything I needed to know was scattered all over the

Net. And not every answer was clear… Sometimes I was confused and didn’t

understand how something was explained until I learnt other stuff. This is because the

“information” is not organized. And this implies that…

My way of getting knowledge was wrong. Whenever you want to learn something, you

must learn the basics first.

So, this guide is for me because I wanted to have all the basic stuff covered in just one place,

and organized. This guide is also for my friends whom I try to convince to create games with

me ;-) And, of course, this guide is for everyone who downloaded RPG Maker VX and doesn’t

know where to start.


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In addition, I’d like to recommend you to these forums: http://www.rpgmakervx.net . I learnt a

lot of stuff there and the community seems friendly and willing to help. At those forums you

will find a tutorial called RPG Maker School (created by Andria), which is a RPG that will teach

you a lot of useful things. You definitely want to download and play it!

If you have any comments or suggestions about this guide, you can send an e-mail to

[email protected].

THE METHODOLOGY

In this guide we’ll be creating together, step by step, one mini-RPG. Attached to this guide you

should have also got the RPG Maker VX project so you can take a look if you ever get lost.

In order to get the most of this guide, you should run RPG Maker VX and

execute the instructions provided as you are reading the text. You will work

much faster if you print a copy of this guide or use two video displays.

Each section of the guide explains a single concept and they are convenient

titled and indexed, so you can find quickly this information later when you are working on your

own project. However, chapters and sections are ordered so you can learn concepts

increasingly. That’s why you should read the chapters in order the first time you read the

guide.

This guide contains a lot of screenshots detailed explanations at the beginning, but I tried not

to repeat much stuff. Please don’t get scared when you look at the number of pages of this

document! Most of the space is filled with pictures, so reading should be quick.

Happy learning!


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GAME DEVELOPMENT

This chapter does not contain information specific for RPG Maker VX, but you should read if

you are new to game development.

PROGRAMMERS VERSUS DESIGNERS

Nowadays, developing a professional game takes a team working full time for months (in

casual games like Bejeweled) or even years (in AAA games like Diablo). Each member of the

team has a role: concept artist, animator, coder, tester, producer, designer, etc.

In amateur and casual game development teams are usually small (five or less people) and

most of the times a member of the team has several roles assigned to him: designer,

programmer and tester, for example.

Young people usually become interested in game development because they want to make a

game. Then they learn that in order to do that, they need to “create” a program with a thing

called “compiler” (they heard that C++ is the industry standard and start to learn that) and

API’s such as OpenGL or DirectX.

At the same time, they join a game development forum and post a message saying that they

are going to create a RPG and that they need help and advice. The most common thing that

will happen is that veteran members of the forum will laugh and discourage that newbie. And

they are right: you cannot develop a RPG on your own, especially if you don’t have previous

experience.

However, you can design a RPG on your own. Being a programmer is different from being a

designer. If you want to program a RPG, you will have to code the game engine, which handles

stuff such as rendering meshes and sprites on the screen, collect input from the keyboard and

gamepad, detecting collisions, the AI’s core, etc. If you want to design a RPG you will have to


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create the maps and levels, set the AI for the enemies, balance combats, jobs, weapons and

stats. You will also likely get to write the story and dialogues and design the main characters…

Do you want to be a programmer? A designer? Both?

There is no wrong answer here. Each person has his own interests and some people find

coding very exciting and challenging and don’t want to be bothered with stuff like level design.

Some other people would rather spend their time writing a beautiful story or creating

interesting maps and quests.

If you decide to become a programmer, buy a good C++ book and learn OpenGL. If you want to

program 2D games you can also take a look at Microsoft’s XNA and C#.

If you decide to become a designer, you have two options:

a) Recruit a team of programmers who will code a game engine for you.

b) Buy a pre-made game engine for some specific genre, such as RPG Maker VX.

The first option will cost you a lot of money and time. You might have some friends willing to

do that for free but keep in mind that this will be their hobby and that they will be doing it in

their free time. That implies that you will have to wait a couple of years until you get your

engine done (if you’re lucky and they don’t give up the project). However, if you are successful

with this, you will have a fully customized engine that will suit perfectly your needs.

The second option will save you a lot of time. Good news is that there are very affordable

game engines. For example, RPG Maker VX will cost you only $60 and you will get some quality

art and sounds assets. Keep in mind that this engine will have some restrictions and might not

adapt entirely to your initial design: you will need to sacrifice some features in order to save

time and money.

Again, be aware that there’s no a best choice. Some people think that makers are for “losers”

and that real men code their own engines. This is wrong. There are some successful games

which are a modding (i.e. use a 3rd party game engine) of another game. For example, Counter

Strike is a mod of Half Life: Counter Strike’s developers created new levels and art assets and

scripted the new game behavior for Counter Strike. Scripting is the medium which designers

use to communicate with the game engine. This can be done by using an editor (this is the case

of RPG Maker VX) and/or a specific script language.

To finish this section, let’s read an extract of an interview to Amanda Fith1, and indie game

designer who has successfully released several games made with makers, all of them were

sales hits in casual games sites such as Big Fish Games.

Q: You've used some pretty high-end toolkits for creating your games -

specifically RPG Maker for your two RPGs. Some people get a little funny

about that. On the one hand, some people treat it as if it's somehow

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You can read the full interview at http://www.rampantgames.com/blog/2006/11/interview-with-

amanda-fitchindie-rpg.html. It’s really interesting.


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cheating - that it is both overly constricting and somehow "too easy." Yet

there are very few finished games out there using these engines, let alone

polished, commercial-quality games of the quality and scope of Aveyond.

So what does it really take to create a polished, commercial-quality game

using a higher-level engine? If it's much harder than it sounds, is a higher-

level engine even useful?

A: I knew that when I released Aveyond that I was stepping into the briar

patch. I was very worried about how the development community would

feel about my approach. I repeated to myself over and over again that

my goal was not to please developers, but to please players […].

And I think she’s right. Most players don’t care about how games work on the inside. They care

about the outside, because that’s what they are interacting with.

THE TEAM

Whether you chose to recruit a bunch of programmers to code an engine or not, you will still

have to get a team: artists, music composers, other designers and so on.

Rule of thumb: you get what you pay for. If you want to create a game and make it look

professional and polished, chances are you will be paying money to your team.

If you don’t want to spend money and just want to create a RPG as a hobby or to learn new

things, you can recruit a team of hobbyists to help you with the project. If this is the case, here

there are some advices for you and your team:

• Aim for quality, not quantity. People would rather play a short, polished game

than a long crappy one. Create good art. Design your maps with love and care.

Write a thrilling story. Make your NPC’s rich and interesting. Balance the combats

with enemies. You can have all that in just one hour of gameplay. Reduce the

scope of your game to be able to pay attention to every detail in it.

• Assign a reasonable time span to the development. If you are designing your

game and estimate that it will take one year to complete it, then don’t do it!

Projects usually take twice, three times (or even more!) more months than

expected. If you plan a game small enough to complete it in three months, you will

be likely working on it for almost a year. That sounds pretty much reasonable and

reduces the risk of someone leaving the team.

• This is not your project. If you work with a team made of people working for free,

everyone should have his saying in every aspect of the game design and

development. You are not their boss, you are their team mate.

Recruiting people can be hard at times. How do you make talented people (who are the most

requested inside the community) get interested in your idea instead of working for some else’s

or their own?


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Prove that they can trust you. Even if this is just a hobby, time is money and people don’t like

losing time. If someone joins your team and is working for a couple of months and then the

project is abandoned, this person would have lose his time. Show that you can complete a

project and get things done.

The best way to do that is to have a small portfolio of completed projects. Yes, it is hard to

complete a project only on your own, but you can complete a very small project. Just make it

look great.

In addition to that, you can start developing your game using existing art assets. If people get

to play a demo and they like it, they might join your team to improve the game.

As you can see, the key here is to have real, tangible stuff to earn other people’s trust.


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LEGEND OF GLADIUS

All along this guide we will be creating a very simple and short RPG, titled Legend of Gladius.

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the story and design of this RPG. Of course, in a real

project, you should write a good design document which describes the full story, characters,

NPC’s, items, tows, etc.

THE STORY

Salazar (a warrior) and Zach (a rogue) are two friends who leave their homeland looking for

adventures. They both lack experience and money, but are brave and ambitious.

In their journey, they arrive to Evergreen, a small village in the island of Kretus. There, they

meet Lime, a young sorceress. She tells them how the whole island suffers the tyranny an evil

ogre. She asks Salazar and Zach to join her and kill the ogre together. They agree, and she tells

them to prove their value by going deep into the Forbidden Forest and taking Gladius, a

mythical sword. Once they get this magic sword, Lime will join the group and together they will

go to the Ogre’s lair and kill him.

LOCATIONS

Our world will be reduced to the island of Kretus. Inside this island, the player can travel to

these different locations:

• Village of Evergreen: this is Lime’s village. The village is small, but has an inn and a

shop.


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• Forbidden Forest: this is a dungeon, inhabited by dangerous creatures such as

slimes, spiders, bats, etc.

• The Ogre’s Lair: this is a small dungeon. The final boss is inside, as well as some

other minor monsters, like rats.

QUESTS

The game has only one main quest, but this quest can be split in two smaller ones, which must

be completed in order:

1. Go to the Forbidden Forest and fetch Gladius, the magic sword.

2. Go to the Ogre’s Lair and kill the evil Ogre, who will be the final boss of the game.

ITEMS AND WEAPONS

There will be these items in the game. All of them can be purchased in the village’s shop, or

found dropped by enemies after a combat.

• Potion: restores life

• Magic water: restores mana

• Antidote: heals poison

• Stimulant: revives a character from KO

The party has established initial equipment which can’t be upgraded. The exception is the

sword Gladius, which will be used by Salazar.


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CREATING MAPS

THE WORLD MAP

Setup a new project by selecting File/New Project in the main menu. Title it whatever you

want.

You can see now the main screen of RPG Maker VX. In the sidebar there are the tilesets you

will use to draw your game maps, and a list of them. There’s a map created by default, called

MAP001. This will be our world map, but we have to adjust its properties.

Right click on it and select Map Properties. In this dialog you can configure all your map’s

parameters. For now, change its name and set its size to 17x13 (this is the minimum size for a

map, by the way).


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You can start to draw your world map now! In our case, the world map is the island of Kretus.

All floor and walls tiles are located in the tab A. The best tiles for world maps are these ones:

Draw your island with non-regular shapes and include some mountains and forests. Also you

can use the deep ocean tile to make your sea more interesting. Here’s what I came up with:


Try to draw irregular shapes: your map will look more realistic and natural. You can take a look

at other people’s maps and learn from them.

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In tabs from B to E you will find tiles that will be drawn over the tiles from tab A: these are

decorations such as trees, windows, etc. Choose some of these tiles to draw the Village of

Evergreen, the Forbidden Forest and the Ogre’s lair.

Here’s the finished world map:

THE VILLAGE

We have to draw the village in another new map. In order to do that, create a new map by

right clicking on your project root’s folder and selecting New Map. Choose a bigger size (for

example, 25x20) this time and type an appropriated name for it. Your project’s map tree

should look like this now:

Choose a terrain tile among the following and use the paint bucket tool on the tool bar to fill

the whole map with grass, earth, sand or snow. Then, use another other tiles to draw roads

and fences. With the rest of tiles from this tab (A), you can also draw walls and roofs. Draw

some houses (minimum of two: they will become later our inn and shop).


don’t right click on the project’s root, but in the village’s map. This way you will have your

maps organized (very useful when you have a large game).

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Now that we have a basic layout, it’s time to add some decorations: pick plants, trees,

windows and the like from tabs B-D.

Don’t forget to add some information signs to the inn and the shop. They will help the player

to locate them.

INTERIORS

There are three buildings in the village and the player will be able to enter into two of them:

the inn and the shop. Let’s start with the shop by creating a new map of size 17x13. This time


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Draw the walls and the floor. Keep in mind that you don’t have to fill the whole map area.

Transparent areas will be rendered with black color or with a custom background.

Once you have the building’s structure, add the furniture and decorations. Some tiles are

special: the counters. Counters are useful because you can interact with Non Player Characters

(NPC’s) even when there are counters in between. You can use these tiles as counters (from

tab A):

And here’s how my own shop looks like:

It’s time for the inn now. Our inn will be a two-story building, so we’re going to need two maps. Create them (minimum size again) and proceed just like we did with the shop. Don’t forget to add some stairs to connect the floors!

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And here they are: first and second floors of our beautiful inn.

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BASIC EVENTS

Events are a core feature of RPG Maker VX: with them, your game comes alive. Events are an

entity with an attached behavior and/or a graphic representation. For example, NPC’s are

events: they have a picture associated with it (graphic representation) and they move around

or talk to the player (behavior). Some events haven’t got a graphic representation (for

example, an event which will launch a battle when you enter some location) and some haven’t

got a behavior (for example, a glowing animated candle on a table).

In this chapter we will begin to learn how to create simple events, such as doors or chests.

STARTING POSITION

The starting position of the main character when the game begins is not an event but it is

created as such. To set it up, you just have to enable the Event mode by clicking the

correspondent button at the toolbar. The map will darken slightly and a square grid will also

appear when changing to Event mode.

Now right click on some tile of your world map and select Set Starting Position /

Player.

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TRANSFERS

Transfer events allow us to set connections between maps: they teleport the main character

from one location to another one (this location can be part of the same map, or be in a

different one).

In our case, we’ll set up a connection between the world map and the village, and make this

connection bi-directional.

Show up the world map and change the editing mode to

Right click on the village tile in the island and choose Quick Event Creation/Transfer.

At the New Transfer Event dialog, set the direction to Up. This direction will be the one that the

main character will be looking at. Since the character will later appear at the road located at

the bottom of the village, Up seems the most appropriated direction. Change this if you draw

your map in a different way. Once you’ve set the direction, click on the ellipsis to select where

the character will teleport.

Select the map for the village and then click on the tile you want the main character appear. It

will look more natural when playing if this tile is a road.

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Accept both open dialog windows and you are done! The player can now enter the village from

the world map. Now we have to make this connection bi-directional: the player should also be

able to leave the village and enter the world map. To do that, repeat the steps to create a

transfer event on a tile at the border of the village’s map.

Now you can playtest your game by clicking the Playtest button. Try to go from one map to

the other.

DOORS

Doors are just transfer events with an associated animated door image. Creating doors is as

easy as transfers, so let’s start!

Go to your village’s map and enable the Event mode. Right click on the empty door space in

the shop’s building and select Quick Event Creation/Door.

A new dialog window will appear. If you double click on the door’s image, you’ll be able to

select a different picture for the door.


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Choose one that suits your building and click on the ellipsis to change the destination. Select a

tile from your shop’s interior map as the door’s destination and you are done!

Once thing you might have noticed is that I didn’t choose as destination the tile which later will

be used as the shop’s exit. Why? The teleporting will work anyway, but if the player makes a

mistake and enters the shop without willing it, he would have to step off that tile and stepping

on it again in order to leave the shop. It’s just a matter of taste; you can set the same tile as

your building’s entrance and exit.

Now that we have set up the door, the only thing left is allowing the player to leave the shop.

Create a teleporting event back to the village’s map and playtest your map to see if everything

is working as it should.

Repeat the steps to create a door for the inn. Don’t forget to create also a transfer event to

leave the inn and two more transfer events to go upstairs and downstairs.

Remember that if you ever make a mistake creating events, you can delete them by right

clicking on them and selecting Delete.

DECORATION EVENTS

Those quick events we have created until now have a behavior attached to them. Now we are

going to create some behaviorless events, which will be only used for decoration purposes.

In the village (well, at least in mine) there is some building without an interior map associated.

The player, therefore, won’t be able to enter on it. If you browse all the tile tabs, you will

notice that there are not closed doors as tiles. However, there are some sprite sheets that can

be attached to events: you have already seen them with the doors events.

So, in order to put a closed door in our map, we have to create a new event. Right click on the

doors empty space and select New Event.


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The new event dialog will appear. It’s quite large, but don’t panic!

First things first: give your event an appropriated name. This will keep stuff organized and will

help you greatly in the long run. Now double click in the graphic area and select a door you like.

No more work here, we’re finished!

Behaviorless events can also have an animated image. Let’s create a fountain for our town.

Right click on the center of the town’s square (I put a well there) and select New event.

The same dialog window will appear. Double click on the graphic area and choose a stream of

water.


And that’s all! Play and get the gold to see it working.

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Right now this is just a non-animated event. To force the image to be animated even when the

event is not moving, check the Stepping anim checkbox (you can uncheck the Walking anim

checkbox as it is right now, it doesn’t matter).

Playtest your game and watch our wonderful fountain!

TREASURE CHESTS

Chests can be created with the quick event creation. We are going to put a chest containing

some gold at the second floor of the inn. Right click on a tile of that map and select Quick

Event Creation/Treasure chest.

Select an image you like and click on the Gold radio button and set the amount of money you

want to reward the player with.

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add custom behavior, double click on the List of Event Commands area.

NPC’S AND DIALOGS

Non Player Characters (NPC’s) and dialogs are also created via events (like almost everything!).

In this chapter we will learn how to create dialogs and setup fully functional shops and inns!

SIGN POSTS

The first thing you should know is that dialogs can be triggered by any kind of event, not only

NPC’s. A sign post is just an event with an appropriate graphic with a dialog attached to it. To

create one, right click on the entrance of your village and select New event.

Give it a name and double click in the graphic area to select an image for this sign.

Right now this is just a decoration, behaviorless event. But we don’t want it to be like that. To

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A new dialog will appear, with tons of tabs and actions. Fortunately, this dialog is quite well

organized, so it is likely you won’t have any problems with that. The command we want to

execute is called Show Text and is located inside tab 1.

Click on it and you will get to configure the text box that will appear. Type the name of your

village and accept the dialogs.

There is still also a small, but very important, change to make. However, to understand it

better playtest your game right now. Go to the sign post and press the Action button (key

Enter). See? Nothing happens! Why?

Let’s do a short test. Try to change the image of the sing post for another one. Pick a tile your

character could walk through if you drew it on a map. For example, these rocks:

Playtest and try again. This time you will notice that you can trigger the dialog if the character

is right over the event.

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However, this is not a correct behavior. What we want to do is trigger the dialog when the

player is by the side of the sign post, not over it! Furthermore, since the sign post image we

chose is a tile that won’t let the character walk over it, the dialog will never be triggered.

Of course, we can change this. There is a panel named Priority with a dropdown list. With

this, you can configure how the character will interact with the event. If you set it to Same as

characters, the event will be like a physical entity with the same “rank” as the main

character. That is, you can “talk” to the sign post as if it were a person!

Other possible values are Below characters and Above characters. The first one is for

events which should be rendered below the main character; the second one is for events

which should be rendered above the main characters (like birds, for example).

Don’t forget to set the sign post image again and playtest the game. It should work now as

expected.

INNS

Creating an inn event it’s very easy because it can be made with the Quick Event Creation.

An inn event will let the party members to restore all their life and mana points in exchange

for money.

Enable Event mode, choose the inn’s map (first floor) and right click on a tile behind the

counter and select Quick Event Creation/Inn.

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In the next dialog you get to choose a graphic for the innkeeper and the price to stay one

night. Set these options as you like and… that’s all!

Playtest your brand new inn and see how it looks. Cool, ain’t it?

DIALOG CHOICES

We have already created some simple “dialog” with the sign post. But dialogs can get more

complex than that: you can assign an avatar to every dialog box and also offer the player

several choices and branch the dialog from there.

Let’s create now some dialog with choices. It will be the start of our shop. In Event mode, right

click on a shop’s tile and select New Event.

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Name the event accordingly and choose a graphic for the NPC (this will be the shopkeeper).

Also, make sure that Priority is set to Same as Characters.

Now double click on the List of Event Commands to insert a new command. Choose Show

Text to display a greeting message. Type some text and choose a face for the NPC’s avatar.

To display the choices, double click again on the List of Event Commands and select Show

Choices (tab 1).

You can set up to four different choices in the next dialog. The When Cancel panel let’s you

configure which choice will be selected if the player press the Cancel button (key Escape).

Leave the defaults (Yes and No) and accept the dialog.

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Playtest it and check everything is working fine.

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If you playtest the game now, you will be able to trigger the greeting and the choices, but

nothing will happen when you select one of them.

Let’s fix that. Right click on the event and select Edit event. The event’s dialog will appear

and you can continue to make changes to it. Take a look to the List of Event Commands:

You can see a bifurcation with two branches: When Yes and When No. These are our

options. Inside the Yes branch you can insert the commands that will be executed when

the player selects Yes in the dialog. Double click inside this branch, select a Show Text

command and create some test message.

Now you should have something like this:

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Your list of event commands should be like this one:

SHOPS

Let’s now finish the shop. Edit the shopkeeper event and delete the test message we created

to test the Yes branch. You can do this by right clicking on the command and selecting Delete.

Fortunately for us, a shop is just another command. So double click inside the Yes branch and

choose Shop Processing in tab 3.

In the new dialog that will appear you can set up all the items that will be sold in this shop. If

you check the Purchase only checkbox, the player won’t be allowed to sell items from the

inventory. Double click on the panel to pick an item. Insert Potion, Magic Water, Antidote and

Stimulant. This shop will only sell items, neither weapons nor armors.

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Let’s try this with an example. Edit your sign post event and add a new command to the List of

Command Events. Choose Show Text and type the following message:

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Play the game to see the shop in action. If you want to buy something, you can get some

money in the treasure chest that is located at the inn’s second floor.

CUSTOMIZING TEXTS

The text you type in dialog boxes can be customized to display the character’s name or to

appear written with a different color, for example. The way to do this is via some markup tags

(like those you use in some forums to put text in bold, for example). Some of these tags are:

• \. stops for 0.25 seconds

• \| stops for 1 second

• \c[x] changes the color, where x is the number of the color we want to use. Default is

0 (white)

• \G opens an additional text box displaying the money the party has got.

• \N[x] displays the actor’s (a member of the party) name, where x is the number of

that actor.


Now you can delete this last command, for it makes no sense in a sign post.

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Hello, \N[1]. \. Welcome to \c[2]Evergreen\c[0] \| How long you and \N[2] are you gonna stay?

Playtest the game and trigger the sign post event. You should see something like this (pay

attention to pauses made with \. and \|).

From this example you can learn that, in order to write text with a different color, you have to

use \c[x] and \c[0] to write in white color again. Also, you will notice that characters (actors)

number 1 and 2 are called Ralph and Ulrika. How do we know which character corresponds to

which number? Easy, just click on the Database button in the toolbar.

In the Actors tab you will see the characters that RPG Maker VX creates by default. They can be

changed, of course (and you don’t have to use exactly 8 characters), but we will do it later.

Character number 1 is always the main character, so it’s pretty safe to use that number.


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WALKING NPC’S

NPC’s (and events in general) don’t have to be static in a tile: they can move across the map.

There are different types of movement; all of them correspond to options in the Autonomous

Movement panel.

• Fixed: no movement at all (default)

• Random: movement in random directions

• Approach: makes the event chase the main character

• Custom: let’s you customize the movement

Also, you can set the Speed (how fast the event moves) and the frequency (how often the

event moves).

As an example, let’s create a kid who lives in the town and just plays around. Create a new

event in the village’s map (or maybe he’s the son of the innkeeper, that’s up to you), set a

graphic for it and select the type of movement Random.

In addition, make her to say some words when the main character talks to her.

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Playtest the game to see this new NPC in action. Experiment with different values for both

Speed and Frequency and see what happens.

Let’s create another walking NPC: this time it will be Lime, our sorceress. Create a new event,

assign a name and a graphic to it and set her movement to Custom. Then click on the

Move Route button.

From this new dialog you can change the character’s route step by step. There are a lot of

options: you can make the NPC move towards any direction and also turn. You can also make

him/her jump, approach the main character, run away from him, etc.

For now, give her some simple route which she can follow (this depends on how you built your

map and where the event is placed). In my example, I made her move four tiles down and then

return to her original position.

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If you check the Repeat Action checkbox, the NPC will repeat this same route forever. Playtest

his now and experiment with the different movement commands you can assign to the NPC’s

route.

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GAME ELEMENTS

We are going to make a break here to customize our game elements: items, weapons, jobs,

and such. This configuration is vital for your game —it will really make a difference! So in your

own games you have to think all this stuff very carefully.

You can customize your game elements in the Database Manager. To open this window, click

on the Database button in the toolbar.

GETTING RID OF JUNK

Items are objects that the party members can use. Some items can be used always, but some

of them can only be used under some circumstances (for example, while in battle). You can

view all the items in your game in the Items tab. You will see a bunch of them, since RPG

Maker VX creates some items by default.

We are not having all of these in our mini-RPG, so let’s delete all items we don’t need. The

same very steps apply to weapons, armors, jobs, etc.

To delete an item, right click on its name in the list and select Delete. You can also left click on

it and press Supr key.

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And here is how our items list looks now:

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Proceed to delete all items but Potion, Magic Water, Stimulant and Antidote. Notice that

deleting an item only deletes its data, but its slot still remains on the list.

You have to fill the slots which cause gaps on the list. In our case, we have a two-slot gap

caused by slots number 2 and 3, so we have to put Stimulant and Antidote in that gap. To do

that, right click on Stimulant and select Multicopy. In the new window, type 2 as a number of

items to copy and click OK.

Now right click on the slot number 2 and select Paste.

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item. Left click on the new slot to customize its behavior.

2 Darkness state cause a character to miss most of his/her physical attacks. In some games is called

Blindess.

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To get rid of the duplicates, click on the Change Maximum button at the bottom of the dialog

window.

Now type the numbers of items you want to keep (4 in our case):

And voilà!

ITEMS

Now that we know how to delete all the junk we don’t want, we will learn how to create our

own junk. We will start by creating a custom item for our game: a Colirium to cure Darkness

state2.

To do so, go to Items tab and click the Change Maximum button. Increase by 1 the number that

will appear in the window (in our case, type 5). This will create a new empty slot for our own

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40

Start by given the new Item a name and a description. The Scope configures who can use

the item. In our case, only members of the party can use this item, so set it to One Ally.

Ocassion sets when the item will be able to be used. Since Darkness is a state that occurs

only in battle and is healed afterwards, select Only in Battle. Choose also an icon for your

item.

Now set its price (30 money units, like the Antidote) and the animation that will be displayed

when used.

The other panels in the window are used to customize the item’s effects. This item will only

cure Darkness, so go to the State Changes panel, and click on the Darkness checkbox until a

minus sign appears:

This will remove the Darkness state from the item’s target. If you are curious about what does

some option, click on the interrogation icon in the title bar and then click on an element:

To finish this item, click on the Apply or OK buttons.


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STATES

States are conditions which affect a character (being a party member or an enemy). States can

change temporally the amount of damage that a character does per attack, drain his life,

paralyze him, increase his defense, etc. Some states only take effect when in battle (and are

cancelled afterwards) and some of them still take effect when the character is moving around

a map.

In our small RPG, we will be having these states:

• Incapacitated: a character is knock out (“dead”) and cannot participate in the fight.

• Darkness: a character misses 75% of his physical attacks. This state is healed after

battle.

• Poison: a character loses life in every action he does.

• Berserker: a character does more damage than usual, but he attacks physically (and

automatically) the enemies. This state is healed after battle.

The Berserker state will be induced thanks to Gladius, so only the main character will be able

to go on berserk.

All of these states are already created by default in RPG Maker VX, except Berserker. So, first of

all, delete all the other states and create a new slot for the Berserker. You can access to the

different states in the game from the States tab in the Database.

And here is the configuration for this state.


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It has a custom icon and Always attack enemies as a restriction. This emulates the “blood

thirst” of this state, so the player won’t be able to select actions for this character when in

berserker: the character will always attack the enemy. In the Parameter Changes, a bonus has

been set for Attack: the character will cause 50% more damage than usual.

Furthermore, with the Nonresistance checkbox enabled in Options, changes to the berserker

state will always be successful (some states can be cancelled by a character’s resistance or

luck). Release conditions specify how the state will be “healed”. We have set it to End of

Battle and also after 4 turns with 15% chance.

Now we just have to fill the information messages that will be displayed in battle regarding this

state. Since we only will inform the player when a character has gone berserk or not, we only

have to fill two message boxes (enemies won’t be able to go berserk).

The only thing left is configuring the priorities for the icon’s display. In RPG Maker VX only one

icon can be displayed to indicate the character’s status, so you have to choose which states are

more important, so their icons will be displayed instead of others. You can set priorities in the

Priority control of each state (the higher the number, the more priority)

Our states priority is: Incapacitated -) Poison -) Berserker -) Darkness.

WEAPONS AND ARMORS

In our game, the party will not be allowed to upgrade their equipment, except to equip the

sword Gladius. We will have then a reduced set of weapons and armors.

• Salazar: long sword, leather shield, leather breastplate.

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• Zach: two daggers, leather breastplate.

• Lime: robe, rod

In the Weapons tab you can configure all the weapons in the game. Delete all the default

weapons, unless Long Sword, and change the maximum amount of weapons to 4.

First, we will create the Dagger for the rogue in the party. If you look at the Long Sword

attributes, you will see that has an attack of 5. We want the dagger to be less powerful, so we

will set it to 4. Other parameters are very similar.

In the animation list we get to choose how this attack will be displayed while in battle. You can

browse the different animation sin the Animations tab. The Hit Ratio is the percentage of

success when hitting. 95% is the standard, but you might want to lower it for weapons such as

great axes, for example.

Indicate also which kind of damage does your brand new weapon. In our case, it will be

Slashing.

Regarding the Price, set it to 0 to avoid this weapon being sold in shops. Don’t forget to set to

0 the price for the Long Sword!

Let’s create now the Rod for the sorceress. It will be a weak weapon, since the real power of

the sorceress is in her spells. It will be a two-handed weapon.

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The Armors tab is really similar to the Weapons tab, so we are not digging in it. Use the Help

button when in doubt!

And this is Gladius, the legendary sword. Notice how this sword does Fire damage and this

gets reflected on its animation.

Now that all weapons have been created, let’s go for the armors. In order to save time, we are

using some armors that come by default: Robe, Leather Shield and Leather Breastplate.

Remove all armors but those from Armors tab.

Don’t forget to set their price to 0 to forbid the player to sell them in shops.

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SKILLS

Skills are powers or abilities that a character can use, such as fireballs, healing, a special attack,

etc. Skills can be used in battle and/or in maps.

In our game there will be these skills (keep in mind that enemies can use skills too):

• Darkness attack: adds Darkness state to a common attack

• Poison attack: adds Poison state to a common attack

• Berserk: goes on Berserker state

• Bash: single, powerful attack

• Poison breath: adds Poison state to all enemies

• Double attack: attacks two random different enemies

• Ice: causes ice damage to one enemy

• Blizzard: causes ice damage to all enemies

Some of those skills are already created by default, so go to Skills tab and delete all skills but

these ones:

Let’s create the remaining skills! We will start with Bash, which will be a special ability for the

final boss: the Ogre. This skill will be a powerful attack (200% damage) that will affect all

enemies. Here you can see that this skill requires no magic points to be casted, and that can be

used only while in battle. The rest of the parameters are pretty self-explanatory.

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The Use Message is just an informative text that will be displayed in the fight to tell the player

what’s going on. The Damage Effect specifies the power of the attack: with 200 of Base

Damage, the damage will be the double as usual. If you ever want to create a healing skill,

enter a negative value here (for example, -100). Last, with the Physical Attack checkbox

enabled, we are telling RPG Maker to treat this as a physical attack and not a spell.

The other skill, Berserk, is pretty simple. It just changes the user’s state:

CLASSES

Classes are the jobs available for the characters. Each class different skills and equippable

weapons and armors.

We are gonna have three different jobs in our game, and we will be creating these from zero,

so delete all classes and get only three cleared slots. Name these slots as Warrior, Rogue and

Sorceress.

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We will begin by creating the Warrior class. Set its name and also its equippable weapons and

armors. The Position list is for setting the relative position in the battlefield. Characters at the

front line will be more likely to be selected as enemy targets. Jobs such as warriors, paladins

and the like should be in the front line.

In the Elements Efficiency and States Efficiency panels you get to configure the job

weak and strong points regarding element damage and state changes. You can tweak it, but in

my own project I left the default values for everyone.

In the Skills to Learn panel we can set which skills the character with this job will learn at a

given level.

The only skill that our main character will learn is Berserker, and he will get it when he gets the

sword Gladius, so we will leave this panel blank.

It’s time for the Rogue. Set the Position and Equippable items this way:

As for skills, the rogue will learn how to perform a double attack when he reaches level 3. To

do that, double click in the Skills to Learn panel and a new window will appear:

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As for the Sorceress, the configuration would be this one:

And the sorceress will have these skills to learn at levels 1 and 3:

PARTY MEMBERS

You get access to the party members at the Actors tab in the Database. There you can

find some actors created by default. Delete them all and create three empty slots.

Inside this tab you can configure the appearance of your characters, their stats, initial

equipment and other details. Let’s start with our main character, Salazar.

Give him a name and set his Class to Warrior. You can also select his avatar and his sprite to

be displayed on maps.

At the right, there are his Parameter Curves, which configure the evolution of his stats

(agility, attack, etc) depending on the earned experience.

If you click of one of those curves, the following window will appear. With the Quick Setting

buttons you can automatically generate different curves. If you click several times on one

button, you will see variations of that curve.

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Another quick method of generating curves is to click on the Generate Curve button. In the

new window you can set the initial and end values of that stat and how fast/slow is the

transition.

For example, the configuration displayed above generates this curve.

You can also hand-draw your own curve, although is much easier to generate it using the

methods we’ve just described.

Since Salazar is a warrior, create some parameter curves which make sense to his job (i.e. lots

of attack and life points, but less spirit, for example).

Here there are mine:

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At the bottom of the screen you can configure the initial equipment of that character. Give

Salazar the long sword and the leather shield and breastplate.

Now we’ll create Zach, our Rogue companion. Set his name, class and graphics this way:

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Now, create some parameters according with his job. For example:

And about his equipment, check the Two Swords Style checkbox in the Options panel so

he can use two weapons in combat instead of one weapon and a shield. Give him two

daggers and the leather breastplate.

Lime is the only character left. As always, start by giving her a name and a job. Notice how her

initial level is set to 3. This is because she will join the party later, not at the beginning of the

game.

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We are done with some of our game elements configuration. In this category would also fall

enemies and troops, but I think they deserve a whole chapter in their own. So keep reading!

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Set her parameters to something similar to this:

And don’t forget to equip her!

Since Lime won’t be in the party since the beginning, we have to remove her from the initial

party. To do that, go to System tab and remove Lime from the Initial Party list.

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ENEMIES AND BATTLES

MONSTERS!

In the Database manager you can create all the monsters and enemies that will populate your

world. They are located inside Enemies tab.

Balancing the game it’s a hard task, so we will build up our work from some pre-set enemies.

Delete all enemies in the list but Slime, Bat, Hornet, Spider, Rat and Ogre.

We are going to customize these enemies. Let’s start with the Slime. The part of the window

displayed below configures the enemy’s main parameters.

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You can see the stats for the slime and also how much experience and gold will be rewarded to

the player when he defeats this enemy. Notice that you can also configure which items the

enemy might drop when defeated.

We are going to leave those stats just like they are, but we’ll change the image for the Slime a

little bit. Double click on the picture area.

With the Hue slider you can tint the image for that enemy. Choose a color you like.

At the Elements and States Efficiency panels you can configure the weak and strong

points for this enemy. The Slime is especially vulnerable to Ice, since it has an A for that

element. In our game, the Slime won’t have such vulnerability, so click on it until you choose C.

In the Action Patterns panel you can set the enemy’s behavior. Each action has a rating

associated to it. The highest rating will be the standard action and every action with the same

rating will have exactly the same odds to be executed. Ratings two points below the highest

one will get its action executed too, but with much less probability.

The default Slime would always attack the party. But if the Party Level is 5 or above, the Slime

will have a 50% chance of fleeing in its turn.

With that in mind, let’s customize our other enemies. Select the Bat. If you look at its Element

Efficiency panel you’ll see that the Bat is vulnerable to Wind and Holy elements. Since these

elements are rated with a B, any spell or weapon causing Wind or Holy elemental damage will

get a 50% bonus.

Now click on Drop Item 1. We are going to make it drop one Potion with 20% of probability.

The configuration would be this:

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In the Action Patterns list there is an Ice action. It makes no sense, but it is there because

we messed with the default skills. Change that action (double click on it) for a Darkness Attack

and give it a 4 rating. That way it will have less chance to be chosen than the common attack.

Leave the Hornet and the Spider as they are by default and go for the Rat. Change its second

(and empty) action for a Double Attack with a rating of 3.

As for the dropped items, set them as you like. Later, when you test your game, you can adjust

the loot to balance the game.

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55

The Ogre is our final boss. It has pretty high stats, so we will have to adjust them to give a

chance to the player for win. However, until we don’t play through the game we won’t know

certainly which level will reach the players when they get to the Ogre’s lair. That’s why we’ll

leave his stats they way they are for now, and focus on the Action Patterns.

You will also see that the Ogre, by default, is vulnerable to Fire and can perform critical hits

(like the party members). That sounds pretty reasonable for a final boss, but you can change it

if you don’t like it.

TROOPS

The Enemies tab is some kind of bestiary. In order to make combats with the Party Members,

you have to organize your enemies in troops.

Troops are groups of enemies (though a single enemy can appear on his own). You can set up

the troops in your game in the Troops tab.

Delete all troops but Slime*2, Bat*2, Hornet*2, Spider*3 and Rat*3. Create also a new empty

slot for the Ogre.

The Spider*3 and Rat*3 seem quite hard troops for the party, so let’s change them. Select the

Spider*3 troop. Click on a spider and then on the Remove button to delete that monster from

the troop.

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56

Now select a Bat from the list and click on the Add button.

You can drag the Bat picture to put in wherever you want in the battle screen. Click on the

Autoname button to rename this troop.

Repeat the steps with the Rat*3 troop to change it for two Rats and one Hornet.

The Ogre troop is quite simple. Just select the empty troop slot and add the ogre at it. Don’t

forget to autoname this troop too!

At the bottom of this screen you will see some kind of Event editor. That’s right; you can have

events in battle! This way, you can add dialogs or make a magician summon monsters, etc.

For example, let’s make the Ogre say some lines when the battle has just begun. Double click

on the list of event commands and insert a Show Text command. As Condition, set it to

Turn number 0 (that’s the beginning of the battle) and choose Battle as Span. The Span

controls how often the event checks for the condition. With Battle, the event will only be

triggered once per battle.

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To test if it works, click on the Battle Test button at the top of the screen. You will get to

configure the party members and equipment. You can leave the defaults and click on OK.

A battle simulation will begin! If you have set up properly the event, you will see something

like this when the battle starts.

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ENCOUNTERS

Once that you have enemies and troops you can create encounters which will lead to battles.

These encounters can be either random or triggered by an event.

For example, let’s create an encounter with the Ogre when the player goes over the tower in

ruins (the Ogre’s lair). In the world map, create a new event at the lair.

Insert a new command called Battle Processing (in tab 3) and configure it to fight the Ogre.

If you want to prevent the party from fleeing, uncheck the Can Escape checkbox. Change the

event’s Trigger to Player Touch so the player won’t have to press the Action button to

fight the Ogre.

Playtest the game to see if it works as it should.

Random encounters are very popular in RPG’s. Let’s create some random battles with weak

enemies at the world map. Right click on the world map at map’s list and select Map

Properties.

If you double click in the Encounters panel you will be able to choose a troop to battle to.

Create encounters with Bats and Slimes.

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Also, change the Average Steps to trigger one encounter, since our world map is very tiny.

If you ever want a troop to appear more frequently than the others, you will have to repeat

the encounter twice or several times.

Go and play the game now to make sure it works.

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61

STORY

In this chapter we will learn some techniques to tell a story to the player and making the game

“advance” through quests.

CUT-SCENES

Cut-scenes are the key to tell a story. In them, the player acts like a TV spectator and watches

some scene with action and/or dialogs. In RPG Maker VX, cut-scenes are created with events.

For example, let’s assume that our game begins with the party entering the village of

Evergreen. We could arrange things so when the game starts the two characters on the party

have a conversation. This cut-scene should be only played once in the whole game, so we will

introduce an important concept in RPG Maker VX: switches.

Set the starting position for the player somewhere in the village’s entrance. Now create a new

event two tiles north from it.

First things first: put the Trigger on Autorun. This way, the event will be triggered

automatically and the player won’t be allowed to do anything until it ends.


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Be aware that if you don’t end the event somehow, the player will be stuck in an infinite loop!

Now, change the event’s graphic for the picture of our Rogue.

In order to establish a proper conversation, the characters should be looking at each other.

We’ll have to change then the direction the main character is facing. Create a new event

command Set Move Route.

You will see a lot of options now. Note that you can set the move route not only for this event,

but for the player’s character and every other event. For now, make the player look at North

by selecting Turn Up.

It’s time to add some dialog with Show Text. If you want to make your dialog more expressive,

you can insert some balloon icons in it. To do that, choose the command Show Balloon Icon.

You get to choose then the character will display the balloon and what kind of expression will

be inside it.

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62

Once your dialog is finished, you want the secondary character to disappear. Instead of making

him vanish, let’s make him “join” our main character by walking towards him (like in Final

Fantasy VII). Since the Rogue is placed two tiles North from our main character, just insert a

Set Move Route command and make the event move down twice.

Now the cut-scene is finished. How do we make now the Rogue to disappear? How do we

cancel the playing of this cut-scene every time the player enters the village? This is what

switches are for. A switch holds the ON or OFF status. There are switches local to events (self

switches), but there are also switches which can be accessed from anywhere (control

switches). Most of the times we will be using self switches and this is one of those occasions.

The trick is that some events can condition its execution to the status of some switch. So, if we

create a new page for the event and make this page execute when a switch is ON, we will stop

the cut-scene. But first, let’s insert a command that turns ON a self-switch at the end of the

cut-scene. This command is called Control Self Switch.

There are a few self switches for each event, called by a letter. In this command, turn ON the

switch A.

Now create a new page clicking on the New Event Page button and condition the execution of

this page to the ON status of self switch A.

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Don’t put any image for this event’s page and that will make the character disappear. And

that’s all!

Well, if you actually execute the game now you will detect a nasty bug. The cut-scene never

ends because the Rogue can’t “join” the main character by walking over him. To do so, set his

priority (remember, this priority belongs to the event page number 1!) to either Above

Characters or Below Characters.

With that fix it should work now. By the way, this is how my cut-scene turned out:

And… ta-dah!

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FORBIDDEN PLACES

Often, we will have to restrict the access to certain areas of our game until the player has

completed a quest, or possess some item or has talked to some NPC. There are several ways to

achieve this; one of them is using control switches.

For example, let’s prevent the player to enter the Forbidden Forest until he has talked to Lime

in the village. To do that, create a new map and name it Forbidden Forest. You don’t have to

draw this map yet, so fill it with grass for now.

Now, create a new transfer event to that new map from the world map.

Once created, right click on it and select Edit Event. Now you have to condition the

execution of the transfer to the value of a control switch. Either create a new conditional

branch or a new event page. This time, we will use the conditional branch.

Click on the ellipsis to manage switches. Right now you have empty slots. It’s better to give

them proper names because in a non-trivial project like this, you will be using a LOT.

Now you can fill the condition for the branching. Set it to check if the Talked to Lime new

switch is ON.

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Your branching will look like this:

Now cut the transfer event and paste it the true branch (the one before the Else). Now it

should look like this:

To tell the player what’s going on, insert some dialogue lines in the Else branch, like the main

character saying “It seems too dangerous and I have no reason to go in!”

Since all switches are OFF by default, if you play the game and try to enter the forest, you will

get the main character complaining. Go and check it.

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Now we have to turn that switch ON once the player has talked to Lime. Go to Lime’s event in

the village (remember that NPC following a fixed path?) and edit it. Add some dialogue lines

first and insert a Control Switch ON command at the end of it.

Now, we are going to avoid repeating the same dialog again and again. Create a new branch

like this one:

And paste the entire dialog in the Else branch. Like this:

In the true branch, insert some dummy dialog for now. We will work on it later. Go and try to

enter the forest once you have talked to Lime. It should work properly!

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FOREWORD

PART II

I guess I should introduce myself. I lurk around a lot on the rpgmakervx.net boards, I’m

known as Kelsper on there. I learned from BenKo’s brilliant guide how to originally work

with RPG Maker VX. Unfortunately, BenKo does not have enough spare time to continue

work on this – but they have done a fantastic job already with this. Great applause to BenKo

for this.

I hope to continue in the same sort of vein, but you will probably notice a change in writing

style and the like. Hopefully you can follow the guide as easily as BenKo’s first part of this

guide. So, while I am talking about writing style…

Bold text indicates that whatever it is bolded is the name of a variable, switch, skill, or just

generally the name of something that is important. (i.e Berserk skill, TalkedToLime

switch)

Italic text indicates something that is related to the story or an ingame object, like an area or

character’s names. It is also sometimes used for technical things. (i.e Forgotten Forest, Lime)

Highlighted Text indicates something that is a command or event that should be followed

in order to achieve things (i.e Resource Manager, Change Party Members)

Send any queries or any suggestions my way if you want – my email is

[email protected]

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IMPORTING TILE SETS

Sometimes the normal tile sets provided with RPG Maker VX are just not enough to create what

you really want to with them. Luckily there is a (relatively) painless way to import custom or pre-

made tile sets. The reason why I bring this up now, is because that I will be using this tile set to

create the Forbidden Forest map.

Luckily there already is a blank tile set provided by RPG Maker VX, in tab “E”. It’s completely

blank, perfect for importing our tile set. I should have included the specific tile set (the main

reason being the trees are, in my opinion, much better than the standard ones for building a

forest.) It is known as Mack’s mapchips and it is an especially popular tile set collection.

However, to overwrite the “E” tab, the name of the image must be TileE.png, so make sure it is

named that. You can just download it from here:

http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/3294/tilee.png

Now what you want to do is go into your Resource Manager (F10) and navigate to the

Graphics/System tab. The blue dots mean that the files are already included in the RTP, and do

not needed to be downloaded by the person running your game unless they lack the RTP.

Afterwards, click the Import button and find the tile set that you downloaded. (Make sure it is

called “TileE”. Importing it should cause the blue dotted TileE file to disappear and at the top a

red dotted TileE file will appear. This means that the file has successfully been imported and this

is an “extra” file associated with your project.

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Now back out of the Resource Manager and check the “E” tab. You should get this:

You have successfully imported a tile set into RPG Maker VX. Congratulations. If you want to

overwrite the Tile E set at a later time, you will need to rename the file you want to replace it

with TileE and import it in the same way you did with this through the Resource Manager.

There is a problem, though – Passage Settings. What this means is that generally anything

you put down from this tile set can be walked over by the player. This is a bad thing, since many

of the things you do not walk to be able to walk over, such as the trees or statues, so we are

going to fix this.

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PASSAGE SETTINGS

You can find the Passage Settings button on the toolbar. Afterwards it highlights everything in

the tile set as an “X”, an “O” or a star. Clicking on the object will cause it to change its tile

setting.

An “X” causes an object to be completely impassable, meaning that the character will not be

able to move over it at all, or go behind it. Consider it as having a square block where the object

occupies.

A “O” means that the object can be walked over. You should use this for things such as small

stones or flowers, but not big objects as it is illogical.

A star is a special case that means that the character can walk behind the object on this tile. It is

mainly used for taller trees where the stump of the tree is impassable, but the top of the tree

can be walked around behind it.

I did not do every tile, but make sure you at least make the trees, logs and rocks impassable,

because we are going to have to use them to make the Forbidden Forest map. Otherwise, you

can leave the other tiles unless you feel obligated to use them later. If while testing you can walk

over anything that you really shouldn’t be able to, come back to this setting and fix that.

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CREATING THE FORBIDDEN FOREST

We want our first real dungeon area to be fairly big and lead players through a mostly linear

pathway. Create a New Map and think of an appropriate size. It does not have to be that

elaborate, I settled on a size of 25x25. The area where we are going to get Gladius is going to be

a separate small area so do not worry about squeezing it in. Make sure you are especially

comfortable with the multiple trees tile, as it does get some getting used to before you can

make the trees look more like an actual forest rather than randomly thrown together. Following

this example of the area, you can’t go much wrong. It might be a good idea to add different

treasure chests on different paths if you want to.

The trees can be rather complicated to put down, so we are going to look at them.

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It is rather simple to put down cluster of trees – just find the multiple trees tile (a 2x2 one at the

bottom of the tile set, along with the single tree tile) and go crazy with it.

To finish off the cluster take the single tree tile and go around the edges with whatever side you

need to use:

This is kind of unnatural for a forest though. You want to make it so that some of the trees “stick

out” randomly. Use the multiple trees tile to achieve this. This presents a problem, though.

These tiles are jutting out – you need to use the other section of the tile from the cluster of trees

to make it look natural. (In this case, the bottom right tile of the 2x2)

There you go! It takes a little fiddling around with, but you’ll get it eventually.

Leave this area after you have made it and put a Transfer back to the world map inside it. We

will come back to it later.

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TITLE SCREEN

Let’s take a break in order to customize our project a little more. Everyone new to RPG Maker

always wants to find out to change the title screen it seems, so here we go. First of all, you want

to either get your image that you want to have as your title screen. Make sure it is of an

appropriate size (the picture must at least be 544x416 to fill the whole screen) and that it is

named Title much like how the tile set worked.

After you have your image, you want to go back into the Resource Manager again, in the

Graphic/System sub tab again. Once again simply Import your title file.

You will get a screen asking if you want Transparent or Semi-transparent colors in your title

screen. I have not really experimented with this, so I just clicked okay as this was exactly how I

wanted it.

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It should turn into a red dotted Title file now. This means that it was successfully imported. After

that, Playtest your project to make sure it works properly. This is what it will look like:

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CONTINUING ON

GLADIUS RUINS

The Gladius ruins is the area that will have most importantly the Gladius sword. When we collect

the sword, it will set the second global switch we are going to use, Get Gladius to ON, so that

when the player goes back to Lime she will respond accordingly to the fact that Salazar has

found the Gladius. To save time we are also going to make the Gladius auto-equip when Salazar

picks it up, and makes him learn the Berserk skill for as long as he has it equipped. First of all we

have to Create a New Map. I kept it relatively small at a 17x15 map.

Do not worry about the events right now, just create the map.

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Since the sword is going to do quite a few things when it is picked up, we want to right click and

use Quick Event Creation to create a treasure chest. Pick the sword graphic from the sub-tab

!Other3 so it is like this.

There are a few errors with using this though. One is that it uses the chest sound effect, which of

course doesn’t fit. Another is that it does not have the glowing sword animation, and the last is

that it does not equip automatically like we want it to. Let’s fix that. We want to edit several of

the events and while we are it, let’s make it so that it automatically leaves the area afterwards

via a Fadeout Screen and a Fadein Screen.

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Here is a breakdown of what has changed here:

• The Stepping Animation checkbox has been ticked. This means that the sword will run

its normal animation.

• A Battle Processing was added at the start of the event commands. This means that

as soon as the player goes to take the sword, it will engage them in a battle. (In this case

with 2 slimes. They are just placeholders at the moment.)

• The sound effect Sword3 has been edited in instead of the chest sound effect, which

sounds like a sword unsheathing, which is perfect for us here.

• There is some speech after picking it up – remember that \n[1] refers to Salazar, or

whoever is your first party member.

• Salazar equips the Gladius automatically through the Change Equipment event.

• The Got Gladius global switch has been switched ON. This is important for initiating the

last part of the quest.

• The Fadeout Screen happens after some dialogue, and then a Transfer event occurs

to the World map, followed afterwards by a Fadein Screen.

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MINI BOSS

We want a mini boss to be created for the purpose of guarding the Gladius – well, 2 slimes aren’t

exactly the best choice for an exciting fight at the end of a major dungeon, so let’s fix that. First

all we need to think out two of the skills that this boss will have. I decided on:

• Heightened Defenses, a skill that raises defense by 50%. He will cast this on turn three,

and only on turn three. The effect will drop off after 5 turns or at the end of the battle.

• Fury, an attack that does three attacks in one attack to three random enemies. He will

use this move on turn 2 and every 5 turns after that. (i.e turn 2, turn 7, turn 13.)

First of all we need to create the Defense Up state which will raise the mini bosses defenses, so

to start off go to your Database (F9) and after going to the states tab, changing the maximum

amount so you can fit it in. Call this state Defense Up because that is what it does!

Just copy the settings as seen here for your Defense Up state.

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Next, go to your skill tab and create the Heightened Defenses skill which causes this state.

The only thing the Heightened Defenses skill will do is cause the Defense Up state. This is

exactly what we want.

This is a very easy way to have “war shout” like abilities that cause attack % or the like to go up.

Simply tweak the numbers or stat increase and you can get your traditional, war cry that gives

150% attack for a short amount of time in battle. Notice that you can also use this state later on

for actor skills or even different skills altogether. Moving on, our fury skill is rather simple.

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As you can see the Scope of this attack is 3 Random Enemies which means of your current two

party members at this time, one might get attacked 3 times and the other no attacks, or one

might get attacked twice and the other once. Since this can be rather devastating, the base

damage is a little meek at 75. The Physical Attack checkbox means that this attack takes into

consideration normal hit formulas, meaning that any of the attack CAN miss. This is about all we

want for this mini boss, so go to the Enemies tab and we’ll finally make this guy.

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As we can see, this mini boss has a specific graphic (pick any one you want really, I just felt this

one fitted nicely.) At the bottom we can see the two skills… if you go into the action pattern

editor we can see that Turn No. is the option selected. (using the Fury skill as an example) The

first option selects turn no. 2 as the original usage, and the second box (+5*X) is how every five

turns after this it does the same move. Rating 10 ensures the skill will go off. For Heightened

Defenses it is the same, just with no extra +number*X modifier, so that it only activates on turn

3. I called this mini-boss Defender.

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Change the battle processing on the Gladius to this guy and you are done.

COMMON EVENTS

We still have a problem, however. While we have the Berserker state and the Berserk skill, there

is nothing that is saying that Salazar has ever learned the skill Berserk. (as we decided to make

the Gladius teach him the skill) A way to get around this is to use a common event.

Common Events are events that you may either want to link to multiple events to save time, or

link to skills to generate effects, one example may be a stealing skill may randomly roll the

chance to steal something, which has to be done through a common event. We want Salazar to

learn Berserk as long as the Gladius is equipped and “forget” it when he unequips it. First of all,

open up your Database (F9) and go to Common Events.

As you can see the common event has been given the Berserk name. It is a Parallel trigger,

meaning that it will always be checking for the event. The condition switch is when Got Gladius

is on, since there is no point checking for it before you get the Gladius anyway. The event itself is

very simple: it checks if Salazar has the Gladius equipped. If he does, it changes his skills:

As you can see, he learns Berserk. The else statement says how if he doesn’t have it equipped,

he forgets the skill, by just ticking the Forget box.

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Testing it out, we find that it works.

#

This is with the Gladius equipped.

After unequipping the Gladius.

VERY BASIC SCRIPTING

By very basic, I mean very very basic. We are going to do the easiest script ever, just two lines

long. All it is going to do is change the games default font and with no default bold. If you decide

you don’t like the font, just go back and change it later.

First of all, we want to go to the Script Editor (F11) Here’s what you should see:

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Great, now what you want to do is scroll down until you see the Materials heading. There

should also be an (Insert Here) page that you could give a quick read. Basically, this is where you

will put most of your scripts under unless it is changing the scripts already used by the game.

To keep organized, you probably want to delete that (Insert here) page. You click on the lines to

get a new page ready for you to write script into. If you need another space, right click and click

on Insert or just hit the Insert key. Call your page Font and prepare to write a few lines.

Font.default_name = [“Arial”]

Font.default_bold = false

What does the first line do? In essence, it simply changes the font that RPG Maker will use when

you are running it to whatever you put in the quotes. I used Arial as an example, but others

popular ones will work too, though the less popular ones will not be recognized and will need to

be imported. If the game does not recognize what you put in the quotes, it will simply not display

any text. The second line means that font will not ever be bold, which is the default anyway.

There are a few other lines you can use for this script, but that is about it:

Font.default_size = 18 (the default size is 20)

Font.default_italic = false (default = false)

Font.default_shadow = true (default = true)

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WRAPPING UP LIME’S DIALOGUE

Since we have basically done most of the stuff needed for the rest of Lime’s dialogue, we should

go back and finish it off and let her finally join our party.

This is the new part of Lime’s dialogue. You should have the conditional branch for

TalkedToLime already done, but the rest you will need to add. It is more or less just another

conditional branch within this one checking if Got Gladius is ON. If it is ON, it gives the player a

choice, yes/no. Yes lets Lime join your party, no will leave her there, and if Got Gladius is OFF, it

automatically responds with “Sorry, we don’t have it yet.” The only real new part of this is the

Change Party Member event. Here it is:

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The Initialize option means that it uses the database information. This is what we want. The

next part is creating a new page to make her join the party by physically bumping into Salazar.

Set the conditions to Self Switch A is on, which will occur after you answer “Yes” to the previous

Yes/No choice. After that make the trigger an Autorun, set the priority to Below Characters (or

above, technically) and make sure the Move Route is Move toward Player because you are not

sure what direction they will approach Lime from, then put Transparent ON, meaning that the

event will seem to disappear, though it is still live. As this is an Autorun trigger, the game will

freeze after this, so be sure to use the event Erase Event. We could have used another Self

Switch to make the graphic disappear, but I showed you how this could also be used to achieve

the same effect. After that is done, you have completed all of the necessary dialogue for Lime.

Now we can move on to creating and making the final dungeon, the Ogre’s tower!

We have got our basic level progression down for the Forbidden Forest now. We can talk to

Lime, get the Gladius, and talk to Lime again to make her join our party. That means the first part

of our quest in our project is finished!

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MUSIC & SOUND EFFECTS

Importing music is done in the exact same way as importing the title screen or tile sets – through

the Resource Manager again. It will actually probably be harder finding the music compared to

importing it. The file can be a .mid, .ogg, .wma, .mp3 or a .wav giving you a lot of choices.

I assume that you will have your music files already prepared. I am going to import both a battle

theme and a title screen theme. There is a way to switch music through events, too, which is

very handy for boss battles, but we can worry about that later.

As long as you have a clearly labeled name for your music file that allow you to organize it and

know exactly what it is, then there is no naming restrictions on music, because you aren’t

replacing any RTP things, you are adding a music file.

First of all we go into the Resource Manager. This time we will be navigating to the Audio/BGM

tab. While you are there, unfortunately you can’t listen to any of the music there, so just Import

your music the same way as before.

After you have imported your files exit out of the resource manager and instead go into the

Database. We want to go into the System tab this time.

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Here’s what you should see:

As you can see, these are all the music or sound effects that are used in the project. I have the

Battle music selected. If you click the … next to all the names of the sound files, a window like

this pops up:

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This will allow you to simply pick some background music to use for the Battle Theme.

And that’s all there is to it! You’ve pretty much discovered how to change the music for the main

battle theme and the title screen music. Sound Effects work in the same way:

Sound Effects work in much the same way, simply click the … and it will open up pretty much

the same window, only difference is that it opens the Audio/SE section instead of BGM.

Simply Import your custom sound effects into the Audio/SE section and you can change them

in-game exactly the same way as background music.

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OGRE’S TOWER

We are now going to design our final main area; the Ogre’s Tower as a smaller dungeon, not as

big as the Forbidden Forest, but still some random encounters with rats and insects to fight

before your party confronts the final boss, the ogre. Create a New Map as a 25x21 area. It does

not have to be complex, and should have a linear path. Here’s what I came up with:

This should do fine. It does not need to be that elaborate, just enough to make sure the party

will gain a few levels before fighting the final boss.

Create an Event with the Ogre as the graphic – talking to him will initiate the final fight and

also change the music.

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Simple event commands here – the only one you might have trouble finding is the Change

Battle BGM event. It’s found in the third page of the event commands menu, under the

Systems Settings sub-tab. Afterwards, set up the Battle Processing event and put a self

switch on.

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This event occurs when you beat the ogre – the game will remove the ogre graphic, wait a total

of 180 frames (around 3 seconds) before fading out to the title screen. Remember to set this to

Autorun and Below Characters for Priority.

First of all, you want to find the Wait event. It is on the second event page, on the top right,

under Timing. You can set it to the amount of frames that you want – 60 frames usually signifies

approximately one second, so feel free to add more if you want to wait longer. Fadeout Screen

is also under Screen Effects on the same page, while the Return to Title Screen event is on

the third and final page.

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REFINEMENT AND BALANCING

PROGRESSION

Often it is necessary to go over a previous area in order to make sure that it is fit for play. For

example: after we link the Ogre’s Tower to the World map it is possible for the player to go

straight to the Ogre’s Tower without getting the Gladius or speaking to Lime. This is an issue

because we want the players to do the areas in a linear order, since it is likely that they would be

faced by enemies much higher level than them if they went to the “wrong” area first.

We are going to change this; go to the Quick Event Creation and create a Transfer event.

Set it to the desired area in the Ogre’s Tower. Next we are going to change the Conditional

Branches when moving into the area.

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The first Conditional Branch checks to see if the Got Gladius switch is on. If it has, it will

successfully move the player to the Ogre’s Tower because they both have the Gladius and have

therefore talked to Lime at least once. However, it does not check to see if Lime is in the party –

this could be used instead of the Got Gladius switch because it may be a forced decision to make

sure Lime is part of the party before going into this area of the dungeon. I left it optional; you

can decide what you want to do with it.

Moving on, the second Conditional Branch will check if the TalkedToLime switch has been

activated. If it has, the text displayed will mention the Ogre since we have learned from Lime

that the Ogre resides here. Else the dialogue that will appear will simply not mention the Ogre but

both options will still move the player away from the Ogre’s Tower since they have not yet acquired the

Gladius.

Another possible choice is that it is possible to revisit the Forbidden Forest after you have

acquired the Gladius. This can be a good thing if you think that the player may wish to grind in an

area, but if you want to keep it linear you have to somehow prevent the area from being

transferred into again. Decide whether you want to allow old areas to be revisited or not, as it is

a key part in the progression of a game. Once again we use a simple Conditional Branch to

check that the Got Gladius switch is on.

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The change is that there is a second Conditional Branch inside the first one. The first option if

both the TalkedToLime and Got Gladius switches are both on, is that Salazar will say “There’s no

reason to go back in there,” and move the player away from the Transfer event.

The second part of the branch (the Else) is if the TalkedToLime is on, but the switch Got Gladius

is off. This will move the player successfully into the area.

The last part is the other branches Else statement that we had before: if the player tried to

enter the Forbidden Forest before talking to Lime, it will not allow you to enter. We had done

this back in the “Forbidden Places” section of the guide.

Now it is possible to play the game from start to finish: the player can only enter the Forbidden

Forest once they have spoken with Lime, after they get the Gladius they cannot enter the forest

again and can enter the Ogre’s Tower. After they beat the Ogre, there isn’t a specific cutscene

implemented yet but it will go back to the title screen.

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With the area progression fixed, there is a couple other things we need to take care of. The fact

that we do not have any random encounters in the last two areas yet is a problem. After testing

out the areas to make sure they work as intended, then you can activate the random

encounters. Let’s take the Forbidden Forest first. Remember to set encounters you go into the

Map Properties to change them.

We have the troops that appear as Slime*2, Spider*2 + Bat, Bat*2 and Hornet *2. This should

do for our Forest area, but unlike the World Map, we should set the Steps Average to

something higher – since this isn’t a straight corridor to walk down, 25 or 30 steps seems about

right. As a rule of thumb, for your areas that are 20x20 or more, 25 steps is a pretty good

amount, while areas that are 30x30 or more should be upwards of 35. People will get frustrated

with a game that has random encounters every two steps, so make sure you keep the

annoyances down.

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Set your Ogre Tower area to have the troops of Rat*2, Hornet*2 and Spider *2 + Bat. You want

the same sort of Steps Average as the Forbidden Forest – keep it at 25.

WEATHER EFFECTS

Our Forbidden Forest is lacking life. It would be a good idea to add some rain weather effects

and sounds to it. We can do this by using a Parallel Process event so that it will trigger when

the player enters the area. The problem with this is that if the player then leaves the area then

the weather effects will continue – which is fine if our player enters the Gladius Ruins area, but

we want it to stop when the player exits to the world map. We use another Parallel Process

event to achieve this.

Start by creating an event in the Forbidden Forest.

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There are a couple new events here. First of all the Set Weather Effects event can be found

on the second event page under Picture And Weather and its options are displayed here:

Since we want a heavy rain effect, we set the weather type to Storm and the Power of the

weather to 8. We want it to instantly happen, so have the Time set to 0.

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The next thing we want to happen is for the event to Play Background Sound of the storm.

This is found on the second event page under Music And Sounds and once again its options are

displayed here:

Since we want the Storm background sound and the volume should be relatively loud – let’s say

70% Volume and that should do us.

The next thing we want to insert is a Loop. It is on the first page under Flow Control and its

use is to repeat a thing for an indefinite time or until a Break Loop event occurs. For our

weather effects, we want thunder to strike indefinitely every 10 seconds and play a thunder

sound. After you have set the Loop, the first thing you want to put in it is a Wait event for 600

frames – this is 10 seconds since 60 frames is one second. Next we want a Flash Screen event,

found under Screen Effects on the second event page.

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This is a simple enough event, just set everything to 255 and make sure the time is 60 frames, so

that the flash lasts for one second. Next in the Loop is the Play SE event. It’s found under Music

and Sounds.

Our desired sound effect would be Thunder9 and the Volume should be 80%. That is our event

finished – now we just have to put a “kill weather” event on the map so that we can bring this

section to a close.

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Start by creating a Parallel Process event on the World Map:

The first command that should be called is the Set Weather Effects command. Just set

weather effects to “none” and have the time be instant. (0 frames)

The next command is Fadeout Background Sound and you want to simply set it to 1 second.

You’ll find it under the Sounds And Music section on the second event commands page.

With these two events created, you now know how to set weather effects up when you enter an

area. Try messing around with various effects such as snow and tinting the screen if you want to

be creative.

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BALANCING

One of the most difficult parts of game development is the balancing of a game. It is a very

design heavy process and not easy to accomplish. If you want people to be impressed by your

game, you should make sure the game is challenge, instead of being a cakewalk on one hand, or

nightmarishly difficult on the other. Sadly, there is not a real formula for how you should balance

your game.

There is a guide in particular that I recommend checking out if you are having trouble – it is

called “Making a Balanced Level Progression” originally written by mithos and continued by

ZeroManArmy, it is a really good read, so I will link the tutorial here:

http://www.rpgmakervx.net/index.php?showtopic=38049

Note: you will have to sign up to the RPG Maker VX.net boards to view this tutorial. This is not

necessarily a bad thing. You probably will have already signed up there if you are reading this,

however.

While it is up to you to decide how difficult you want standard enemies to be, remember that

while you are the developer, will the standard player have enough knowledge to get through the

areas without repeatedly dying and getting frustrated? Take this into consideration.

Bosses are a special case, as they should have the ability to overpower the standard party by the

time they reach it. Designing bosses so that a specific strategy or tactic is necessary to beat them

is not a bad idea, but make sure it does not consist of something asinine like defending for

twenty minutes before being able to get one hit in or a boss with 100 million HP.

Also you have to take into consideration the mechanics of your game. Does it make sense that

you expect a player to clear an entire area out without having to run back to get healed halfway

through it or chugging down multitudes of potions? I will show you how to make a save system

that replenishes your health next, but if you decide that you don’t want to use it, then that is

fine.

SAVE POINTS

Save points are traditionally used in games to save your game. It may not be possible to save

freely in the game so you can only save at these specific points. Many of them they will replenish

all your health and mana so that you can continue to fight. They are scattered through areas so

that it is guaranteed that the player can return to this area if they die or to simply heal their

parties.

We are going to use one of the crystals from the !Crystal set to signify our save points and make

them instantly recognizable.

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Make sure the Stepping Animation box is checked and the Priority is the Same as

Characters. The first thing we want the save point to do is heal the entire party. Use the

Recover All event which is found under the Actor section on the first event command page.

Play an appropriate sound effect, for example “Recovery” afterwards and then display some

dialogue saying that your party has been fully healed and if you would like to save your progress.

Then Show Choices so that when Yes it will Open Save Screen and when no it will Exit

Event Processing. That is our save point finished, if you want copies then you can simply copy

and paste the event as you see fit. There is one problem though, you can still save whenever you

want. We’ll fix this by adding a Disable Save Access event to the World Maps weather event.

(Okay, technically not a weather effect, but it saves creating another Parallel Process event.)

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So when you first start out at the World Map, your save access will be disabled and it will never

be enabled again, the only way you can save is through the save points. It might also be a good

idea to ensure that you can save at inns – otherwise what is the point of having them in towns?

Whether or not you decide to disable save access and just have these as “heal points” or just

omit them completely is entirely up to you. Here is the proof that saves are being disabled in the

menu:

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ADVANCED SKILLS

We are going to make an advanced skill that does something outside the norm using common

events. When might this be useful? In this example we are going to make a “steal” skill that will

allow Zach to randomly have a chance to steal an item or currency. So let’s get started. Go into

the Database Manager (F9) then in the Skills section make another space for this new skill.

Now we need to create the common event required for this attack to do anything, as it does no

damage as you can see. Go to the Common Events tab and we will begin to create this skill.

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This common event uses variables, which are essentially like switches that can hold numbers.

They are extremely useful for things like this where a number is specifically needed. While we

have not used variables a lot, they can be extremely powerful for things like multiple-step quest

progression or in-game variables like how much gold the party currently has; but I digress.

Now this looks like a complicated logic system, but this is basically how it works. A variable,

called Steal in this case, is set to 0 to begin. Then it will roll a random number between 1 and

100. In this case a Conditional Branch will check if it rolls above or equal to 70, which triggers

a “failure to steal” dialogue. This means that the steal skill has a 30% chance of missing. Feel free

to change this by changing the branches equal to or above value.

If it succeeds, it goes onto another Conditional Branch that checks if the variable that was

first rolled was fewer than 25. If it is, it will take another variable, StealItem and roll a random

number between one and ten in this case. Another Conditional Branch checks whether or not

StealItem was under or equal to 5, which in that case will steal a potion, and in the else section

will steal a magic water.

With that branch ended, another variable is rolled if the first variable, Steal, was above 25 but

equal to/fewer than 70, StealGold between 5 and 25. This is the range of the possible amount of

gold that can be stolen from a foe. It will then display that \n[2] (which is Zach) stole \v[3] (the

amount of gold, i.e variable number 3’s value (StealGold))

It will then add the variable of StealGold to the total party gold. That will conclude the skills

logic. A rather primitive system and not that advanced, but it is functional for what it is.Changing

it so that it checks the enemy level to give better rewards or more gold is definitely something

you would want to look into if you plan to have this type of skill in your game.

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The last thing to do is to apply the common event to the skill and give the skill to Zach at level

one. Done simply enough. Just drag the common event bar down and find your common event

in the Skills tab.

And then added to Zach’s skill list:

Now Zach will start off with this move and be able to use it straight away. Success!

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BATTLE BACKGROUNDS

Unfortunately, the battle background that comes with RPG Maker VX isn’t terribly interesting,

but there is a way to counter this by using a battle background script. The one that I will be

using, Battle Backgrounds Based on Area by diakonas, will allow for greater customization of

the backgrounds so you can set them to specific areas of the same map using Areas.

You can find the script here:

http://www.rpgmakervx.net/index.php?showtopic=4491&st=0&p=48517&#entry48517

First of all, go into your Script Manager (F11). Copy and paste the script into a new script

section under Materials.

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Next, we have to import the actual battle backgrounds. I have supplied a number of them in the

Battle Backgrounds folder.

Or here: http://www.multiupload.com/UX7BSQB2GV

Import them using the Resource Manager (F10) into the Graphics/Pictures section.

Now we need to configure the script so that it will recognize our area names – go back to the

Script Manager (F11) and after selecting the Battle Backgrounds script, scroll down to view

this part of the script:

Essentially this part of the script is taking the name of the area, and linking it to a battle

background file name. For the first line (61), when the name of the area is Grassland, it will use

the battle background called Grassland from the Graphics/Pictures folder.

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To add our own one, add a line that follows the same syntax as the above example.

Here I added the “Mine” line (62), so now Mine is a recognized area name that will change the

battle background. Do remember that the last line must not have a comma on the end of it. So

what will happen if we have no designated areas?

These lines a little further up show that the default battle background is now Grassland. Good

enough. Now let’s go create some areas, for example, It’s strange that a grassland background

would be displayed in the tower, isn’t it? Go to the Ogre’s Tower. Then right click on the Map

and click New Area.

Call this area Tower as this corresponds to the Tower02 background, and then click on the area

position.

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Since we want it to cover the whole area, do so, make sure you highlight everything. Then click

Ok, and then Ok again to create the area.

And then the area will be created. It is worth noting that areas can have special “encounters”

that can be configured in their properties and these encounters will only occur if you are in their

vicinity. It’s handy if you want scorpions to appear on the desert section of the world map etc.

Now let’s test the default background and the Tower02 background.

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The first one is displayed when the character is not in an area, the second if the character is in

the Tower area, which covers the entire Ogre’s Tower map. Now you should do the same with at

least the Forbidden Forest map. You should call this area Forest, and the script will take care of

the work for you. Here’s what it looks like:

This script is very useful as it gets you accustomed to using areas, and it gives you much nicer

backgrounds to use. You can experiment with it to give different battle backgrounds in different

areas of the map.

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FINISHING UP

FINAL CUTSCENE

Let’s say we want to finish up with a final cutscene to wrap our story up. Our cutscene is going to

be very short but is going to cover one of the biggest problems new users of RPG Maker VX have

– a cutscene that changes area. First of all we change the Ogre’s second event page instead of

the placeholder we had before. (wait 180 frames, fadeout, title screen)

So there has been a new Control Switch added – I called this OgreDead. Then a Fadeout

Screen occurs, and then the Wait 180 frames we had before, then a Transfer event, and finally

a Fadein Screen. Check that this event page’s trigger is Autorun.

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The Transfer event destination is here, where the cursor is.

Now we create another Autorun event in the Village.

Create an event with Lime’s graphic here on the map.

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The most important part of the event is that you make sure there is a switch condition for

OgreDead so this will not appear until the final cutscene. The rest is simple eventing we’ve

already done – remember to call your event name something appropriate like LimeFinal and the

trigger should be Autorun. The Change Speed modifier in the Set Move Route event may be

new, but it isn’t anything complicated.

And with that, your cutscene is complete. After the fight with the ogre, the screen will fade out,

transfer the player to the village, and fade in. A small conversation will ensue and finish with

Salazar moving to the exit of the village where the screen will fade out again and will finally

return to the title screen.

The only step left is to test to make sure it works.

I have included a few extra sections at the end here for things that I have not went into detail on

because they were not necessary in our small campaign like vehicles and parallax backgrounds.

In essence, however, your Mini RPG is finished unless you want to add anything you see fit. If

you want to compress the game data down into an extracting file that you can publically

release/privately send, then scroll down a few sections to Distributing.

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KILL “X” MONSTERS QUEST

This is one that is often comes up – and it is actually harder to do then it seems! The problem is

that you have to use variables to track the amount of monsters killed. We’ve already talked

about variables briefly in the Common Events section for the Steal skill, but here we are going to

use them more efficiently instead of just in one skill. However, first I want to talk to you about

the Game_Interpreter fix.

There is a problem with a part of a script that comes with RPG Maker VX that can cause variables

to sometimes not work, or so I’ve heard. I’ve never had a problem with the variables I use, but I

would follow these steps and fix your Game_Interpreter file just in case. Here’s the tutorial to go

and do it:

http://www.rpgmakervx.com/variables-fix

After you’ve done that, we need to see to this actual quest. Will it be of epic proportions? Will it

involve the slaying of six dragons, spread across the vast world map of the island?

Not quite. For now, let us stick with a glorious quest to kill three slimes. Let’s think about what

we will need to do here:

1. Place NPC that gives quest.

2. Give NPC Conditional Branch that when no reminds player of quest and when yes

gives player reward if variable is above or equal to 3.

3. Change it so when a slime is killed, one is added to the variable that tracks slime kill

counts.

The one problem with this is that you could kill three slimes before talking to the NPC and

completely defeat the purpose of having to go kill three slimes. Which means we should set the

variable to 0 after receiving the quest. Let’s get started. We should place an NPC in town. I’ve

put him over by the rock on the right side of the village.

117 117

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First of all we should put down his dialogue that gives the quest:

Pretty simple stuff here – some text from the NPC, a choice to accept or decline the quest, and if

the quest is accepted it will set the SlimeCount variable to 0, and put Self Switch A on.

Control Variables works in the same way as Control Switch but for variables there is

obviously a lot more options like Set to a desired number, add a number, divide by a number

and so on. I created the variable called SlimeCount already here.

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Obviously I have left the Conditional Branch rather empty. A good idea would be to give the

players a reward on the completion of the quest and then put another Self Switch so it would

be impossible to keep getting that reward. (Since the SlimeCount would still be over 3 every

time you talk to him again after the completion of the quest)

Here the Conditional Branch is when variable SlimeCount is greater than or equal to (thus

the >= symbol) 3. It’s fairly easy to set up in the Conditional Branch settings.

So with that figured out, we need to now increase the variable by one every time a slime dies.

How do we do this? Go into the Database Manager (F9) and navigate to Troops, and find the

Slime * 2 troop.

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Here we can see that the condition for this Battle Event is the Enemy Slime (the first one,

indicated by the 1. Slime) HP is 0% or below. Essentially, dead. It will add one to SlimeCount and

then it will change the slimes state to Incapacitated so it will actually die. This will just do it for

the first enemy slime, so remember to create a New Event Page and do the same for 2. Slime.

There is still one problem, however. The slimes will die before they can add one to the

SlimeCount variable. How to get around this? Well, this is a slightly hack-y solution, but we can

employ the Immortal state to these slime. You can do this by right clicking the enemy on the

troop and clicking Immortal. Do this for both slimes. Now it will work correctly, and that’s why

we needed the change enemy state to incapacitated, as they wouldn’t die otherwise.

Now you can test it and it should work! There are other ways you could have done this, such as

scripts that will help you do this easily, but I wanted to show you this way of doing it.

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VEHICLES

Vehicles are a way to get around and progress your game. If you have an area only reachable by

airship or boat, you can make it an obstacle that allows your game to flow. There are three

vehicles – the boat, the ship and the airship.

You can find the Vehicle Graphics section in the Database (F9) under the System tab.

You can change these by double clicking the graphic. It will bring up a normal graphic choice

page.

You can set the starting position of the vehicles by right clicking and picking Set as Starting

Position and then either Boat, Ship, or Airship.

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The three vehicles have different properties:

The boat cannot travel over deep water and is restricted to shallow water tiles.

The ship, however, can travel on deep water tiles.

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The airship can fly over both land and water. Keep in mind that unlike the other two, this one

cannot be accessed when it’s landed on water (you have to actually be able to walk into the tile

it is on)

You can also change the music that plays while you are in a vehicle (under System in Database):

And lastly, the event that allows you to Set Vehicle Location, can be found in the second

event page under Movement.

There is also a Change Vehicle Graphic event on the third event page.

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Now let’s say that you want to move the vehicle’s location after a certain event. If you want to

have a quest or event that moves the boat to the world map, you will want to set up the event

like so:

It is really as simple as that. You do not even have to set down the boat’s starting placement.

Another thing that could be done on vehicles is that could be useful is the ability to have battles

on vehicles. To set it up, it’s a simple script by BulletXt, Enable Battles on Vehicles.

http://www.rpgmakervx.net/index.php?s=&showtopic=12384&view=findpost&p=109648

It is a simple plug and play script, so just paste it into your Script Manager (F11), and that is all

you need to do. Really. Note that if you haven’t set up the water as an area, it will keep the

default battle background and will look very out of place.

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PARALLAX BACKGROUNDS

Parallax backgrounds are a way to replace the blank with an image that will cover the

background and make it more interesting. For example, in this area I would like to put outer

space as the background, instead of just having black (since this is in the editor, blank spaces are

represented by blue and dark blue checkers.)

Go into the Map Properties and look at the Parallax Background settings.

You should tick Show in the Editor so we can see it without play testing. The two of the

options to Loop Horizontally or Loop Vertically means that the parallax background will

loop. The Auto Scroll option means that the image will move constantly horizontally,

vertically, or both. This can be handy to create affects, and you can set the Auto Scroll speed

accordingly.

After you are done, hit the … beside Graphic.

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There are some default parallax images, but you can import your custom ones by using the

Resource Manager (F10) and importing to the Graphics/Parallaxes folder.

And ta-da! Your desired effect will be created (note that if you have used an Auto Scroll

effect, you will need to playtest to see it.)

You can use parallaxes to map as well, but this is rather more difficult. I suggest you read C-7’s

guide here: http://www.rpgmakervx.net/index.php?showtopic=7498 127


DISTRIBUTION

Once you’ve got to a point where you feel like you want to share your project or make it

available, you have to go through some steps to make your project download file. How do we do

this? First of all, go the File menu and select Compress Game Data.

This will show a menu with options:

The output folder is where the file will be stored. Now, the Create Encrypted Archive and

Include RTP Data are both important.

Create Encrypted Archive will ‘lock’ your project file so that others cannot open your project

in RPG Maker VX to see how your events are working or change anything, etc. If you want to give

this to someone so they can look over it on the technical side, you do not want to click this

option, but if you are publically releasing your project, then it would be a wise idea to tick the

box.

Include RTP Data means that the extractor file that you will create will also include the

standard RTP data such as characters, battlers, etc. This means that someone that already has

the RTP installed does not have to download extra files they already have. However, if a person

does not have the RTP installed, they will not be able to run the game. It may be worth the extra

size the RTP takes up. This will add around 35MB or more to your file size.

After you are finished, click okay. It will compress. Afterwards, find your output file.

This is your project extractor file. This is the file you want to upload and give to people so they

can play your project.

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Lastly, here is the difference between encrypted and unencrypted project files:

This is an unencrypted file. Anyone can click into this and open your project in RPG Maker VX.

This is an encrypted file. This will not allow access to anyone who wants to open your project in

RPG Maker VX. As such the file size is a lot bigger (though not substantially.)

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EPILOGUE

SUMMARY

I’m going to leave you to your own devices to either choose to finish this simple RPG, or dive

straight into your own adventures with RPG Maker VX. Either way, this guide has given you a

basic overview about how to create maps, events, and custom resources in order to create your

very own project. I hope it has been informative. I may add additional sections in the future.

But this is just for beginner stuff. There is a lot more customization and possibilities available in

RPG Maker VX. With scripting, especially, the only limit is your imagination. So where should I

direct you to next? Well, that depends. If you want to find specific tutorials for mapping,

graphics, events etc, then a good source of information would be the rpgmakervx.net tutorial

forum, found here:

http://www.rpgmakervx.net/index.php?showforum=30

If you would like to learn the Ruby scripting language, then try this forum, it has a lot of

information about the usage of scripts, but be aware that it will take time and effort to be able

to master scripting. I never said it was going to be easy:


Lastly, if you would like to check out other users completed projects in order to get some ideas

on what exactly can be achieved in RPG Maker VX, check this forum out:


And as a last word, I would like to say thank you for reading this on behalf of BenKo and myself.

If you would like to contact me to suggest changes or if you have a problem, then you can

contact me at [email protected]

Good luck!

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GLOSSARY

Agility – The stat that affects battle order.

ATB – Stands for Active Timed Battle. It is a different take on traditional turn-based systems

where instead it plays with slightly more action-orientated gameplay. Generally, a bar will fill up

showing you when a character or enemy can attack. When the bar is full, you can use an action.

There are generally two modes of Active Timed Battle systems – Active, and Wait. In Active

mode, time flows regardless of what is going on in game. In Wait mode, time stops when the

player is navigating menus.

Attack – The stat that determines the amount of damage that is done to an enemy.

BGM – Stands for Background Music. This is where the longer music files will go and any custom

battle, boss, scene or town music that you want should go in this category.

BGS – Stands for Background Sound. This is generally for weather effects such as rain or storm

sounds.

Defense – The stat that reduces the amount of damage taken from enemies.

HP – Hit points. The maximum amount of damage a character is able to withstand before they

are “incapacitated.”

ME – Stands for Music Effect. For small music files like the victory fanfare or the inn sleep sound.

MP – Mana points. The maximum amount of spells a character can cast (depending on spell

cost) before they will have to recharge their mana supply in some way.

Plug & Play – A script that can be copy pasted and requires little or no customization for it to

run.

RGSS2 – Stands for Ruby Game Scripting System, the method used in RPG Maker VX for scripting

purposes.

SBS – Stands for Sideview Battle System. This is a special type of battle system as the characters

are positioned to be viewed from the side instead of a “straight-on” battle style. This is one of

the more popular systems, but it does require some knowledge of how the battle system script

is set up. A very popular one is Tankentai Sideview Battle System.

SE – Stands for Sound Effect. This is for things such as attack sounds or novelty sounds.

Spirit – The stat that affects the magical strength of a character or enemy. It also functions as

the stat for magical defense, reducing the damage taken from enemy spells.

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CREDITS

First of all I have got to give a huge thanks to BenKo for starting this guide and writing the first 66

pages for purely altruistically reasons. Otherwise I would have in no way had any motivation to

write a guide like this. Please, send an email of appreciation to [email protected] if you can.

I cannot emphasize enough the amount of work that must have gone into designing this.

Credit to diakonas for his script of Battle Backgrounds Based on Area. This was very helpful in

the creation of this guide as I had no clue on how to do battle backgrounds before his script. Also

thanks to Synthesize for his original battle backgrounds script which inspired diakonas.

Making a Balanced Level Progression originally written by mithos and continued by

ZeroManArmy, is also a very impressive method used to balancing games that I had to give

credit and a link to in this guide.

Parallax Guide Mapping 1 & 2 by C-7 is very good for people who want to use parallaxes

effectively.

Thanks to all the users at rpgmakervx.net for having a really great community with a huge

amount of help available in the form of support forums or tutorials. I love using the site and it

was where I first went to get help for RPG Maker VX, and there are many things that helped me

with events, such as Gordelox’s steal system.

And thanks to you all for reading this. ☺

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beginner's guide to rpg maker vx

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