Scripting in RPG Playground

My RPG creation software will allow you to create an entire online role playing game, but as you probably know, it is still in early development. Currently you can let characters say something, but this is of course not enough. You want the player to have entire conversations with characters, and to have cut-scenes that reveal a part of the story.

My first thought on allowing you to create this extra functionality is by using ‘screenplays’. These screenplays would allow you to define conversations and animations in an easy, straight forward way. Screenplays are created entirely by using a point-and-click GUI. You basically can’t do anything wrong.

screenplay02 (more…)

Game designers need instant feedback

When I started programming games, I had the same workflow as most game developers: Program the game logic in a programming language, compile it, and then playtest the game. Once you stumble upon an issue, the whole cycle starts again.

I did the same for resources. So when a graphic needed updating, you stop the game, edit the resource, and start the game to test it.

This process seems fast and easy on paper, but most of the time it’s pretty tedious. The part you want to see might be at end of a level, so you first need to reach that point (again). You can work with cheat codes, but it still remains pretty annoying. (more…)

Exporting RPG Maker games to iPhone, Android or other platforms

Mobile devices are so popular

Mobile devices are so popular

Although RPG Maker doesn’t officially support building games for other platforms than Windows, some people have succeeded in doing so. All available options will be explained in this blog post. So if you know of any other options to port an RPG Maker game to other platforms, please contact me or leave a comment below, so I can improve this article.

RPG Maker is probably the most popular tool to make your own JRPG’s. Unfortunately, it is only available for Windows, and can only create Windows games.

As far as Enterbrain (the creator or RPG Maker) is concerned, Windows will remain the only platform that they officially support. This is extensively explained in a forum post on their official website. The general conclusion is that it’s technically too difficult or costly for them to support other platforms. RPG Maker heavily depends on Windows only technology, which makes it nearly impossible to go beyond the Windows platform. (more…)

RPG Playground 0.12: Proper mouse navigation

Time for a small update of your favorite RPG creation tool. The most important fix is that you can now control the hero properly with the mouse. I implemented A* pathfinding for this. So now he moves to the place where you clicked, not in the direction of the click. Other things also improved: NPC’s say “…” by default. Tilemap and entity editing are now completely separated. Fixed a nasty glitch where the grass is Read more…

RPG Playground 0.11: Talk to characters

Are you ready for a new release of RPG Playground? It’s right in time before Christmas! This release allows you to talk to characters, and edit their dialogue. I know a lot of you have been waiting for this, so go ahead and try it! The conversation is currently still limited to the NPC saying maximum 3 lines of text, but in the future this will be extended to full blown conversation trees. Besides this Read more…

RPG Playground 0.10: rescale levels

The new version for RPG Playground is finally here. This one took a long time to finish, I blame it on the nice weather during the summer ;). (So good news, the summer is gone!). This release adds the following new features: 1. Set NPC orientation. 2. Rescale your levels. 3. Buttons have mouse-over highlight. 4. Buttons are greyed out when disabled. So now everything is ready to start implementing the Talk to NPC’s feature! Read more…

RPG Playground 0.9: Full Fullscreen

Time for a small RPG Playground release! I improved the fullscreen mode so it doesn’t scale RPG Playground, but it resizes it. This means you will have a lot more overview on your level when working on it. You can now also scroll your level in edit mode, which makes editing a bit easier, because you don’t have to move your character everywhere you want to modify something. New registered users now also see a Read more…

RPG Playground 0.8: Improved GUI

Time for a new RPG Playground release! This time I made the GUI a bit nicer. I was planning on adding ‘talking to characters’ first, but the current GUI was holding me back, so I fixed that first. I also added a welcome screen showing the brand new RPG Playground logo. Remark that it now requires you to log in or register first before you can start designing. But when you share a level, anyone Read more…

RPG Playground 0.7: Improved project management

The new release of RPG Playground has arrived! This time I improved managing your projects, so you can give your project names. You can also rename them later and delete them. This should allow you to manage your projects a bit better than in the previous version with the static 8 slots. I also made a lot of improvements behind the scenes, mainly on the server side. RPG Playground is growing out of the fooling Read more…

RPG Playground 0.6: Add characters

It’s time for a new release of RPG Playground! This time you can add characters and monsters to your levels. Unfortunately they currently just stand there doing nothing. But don’t worry, in the next releases the NPC’s will be able to talk, and the monsters will walk around and attack the hero. When loading your old levels, you will see a popup that it is an old level. You can add characters to these levels Read more…