#rpg maker tutorial series

[arcadekitten]

how did you start out with rpg maker, were there any tutorials that really helped or did you just mess around until it made some sorta sense?

I learned from Venthros's RPGMaker VX Ace tutorial series! [https://youtu.be/bzqt1PzBxxQ?si=3Jfxtk3BGprJ3Mpg]

Even though I primarily use MV, lots of the same principles still apply and it's easy to learn from!

[zepickiddzan]

HETADVENTURE: THE HIDDEN KINGDOM [DEMO Ver. 0.3]

Synopsis: As a child, Hong Kong, before he was sent to live with England, was gifted the White Tiger medallion from China. In the present, Hong Kong is now a teen, grappling as all nations do with responsibilities and the passing of time. When people hunting for a lost kingdom invade begin searching for ancient medallions with magical properties, Hong Kong is left to join with his friends and find the treasure before it falls into the wrong hands.

(The current demo covers a few introduction scenes and some tutorial gameplay.)

Click on the keep reading to get the download link.

PLATFORM: RPG Maker XP

GENRE: Modern Fantasy / Adventure

CHARACTERS: Hong Kong, South Korea (Playable), China

RATING: 10+

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Any connections to real-world incidents, places, or people are coincidental. Some of the characters belong to the webcomic series Hetalia. This is a fan-created game that makes no profit.

Dev Notes: This game is officially discontinued due to a lack of interest in the project over time. Maybe I'll rework the concept with different characters, but I thought that I might as well post this so that potential interested fans can check out what I had of the idea so far.

BEFORE YOU DOWNLOAD:

To play this game, you need to make sure that you have the RPG Maker XP RTP downloaded, you can find a link to it here: (Link)

DOWNLOAD LINK: HERE

Credits regarding the game's content are found in the notepad document.

Hetalia © Hidekaz Himaruya.

[fearcrowz]

My advice for if you ever do decide to turn Knell into a game; look for the pros and cons for video game engines and learn to program and code.

Because while yes, both Unity and Unreal 5 are popular on the indie scene, both engines are built differently from each other with different demographics in mind and different programming and coding needed to learn to use one or the other.

Then there's engines like Godot, RPGMaker series, GameMaker, and so many more.

Also, there are a lot of programming and coding tutorials on YouTube and a bunch of books on the subjects at both Thriftbook stores and Amazon.

Good luck.

Ah yes, I know! I have a bit of knowledge, not a lot, but I was going to use RPG maker when I had a good computer. ^^ I knew basic coding (i need to learn a lot more) and I did do research and looked into it. Sadly with how my adhd brain works, when it gets overwhelming I tend to drop it and find something else to do and I just never got back to doing it before my computer fried TT There's a lot of work to it all for sure! I have the drawing and music skills, I just need to learn the computer skills and hope I'm not too boomer for them.

Thank you for the tips they do help! And I will look into the other engines too! It's mainly just for fun and prolly never for a profit or anything pff--

[kyokyo866]

hey, I know I am just a random person on the internet, but I have been a long time fan of your dreamtalia work back in the day ever since I was in middle school! I have been enamoured by your skill and writing and just all of your game designing since and have been wondering how to mess around and make projects on rpg maker XP since I believe that was one of the programs you worked with. I know you've made a whole tutorial series on how to work with it on youtube, but I wonder if you would be able to help me personally with figuring it out at some point, and if not then that's okay! <3 hope you have a nice day and much love!

Awwwh that's super nice of you to say! I mean if you need some hints you're free to send asks but I'm not sure I would have time for one on one tutoring (unless i was like paid but thats neither here or there).

[skyllion-uwu]

The closer I get to the YNFG Jam start date the more I don't think I'll be able to do it this year, but I think I just won't officially enter and just keep playing with RPG Maker 2003 by following the tutorial series I'm watching right now and making my own "game" (AKA a Hit and Run in this Mundane World! prequel thing that's mostly just throwing the characters around like dolls)

[vanillacreamcones]

The game communities, where people appreciate every effort that the creators are creating

Have you ever played a free or low-cost small game on itch.io or Steam and loved it really much? I am!

I remember the time when I stumbled upon a simple horror game, yet intriguing and mysterious, which made one of the foundations of my whole interest in gaming!

"A young girl named Ib visits an art gallery with her parents. While observing the many exhibits, she suddenly realizes she is alone. And in her search for others, she finds things awry in the gallery..." - (Vgperson, n.d.)

If you want to try this game too, click here!

Apparently, this game was made by a single developer nicknamed Kouri in 2012, using the game engine RPG maker which is famous for its easy-to-learn interface to create from simple to professional and complete RPG game (Role-playing game). This game is quite popular in the RPG Maker community, where it's received a commercial remake on Steam, and to the point that it's recently announced to collaborate with a commercial e-sport game named Identity V thanks to Ib's fan demand!

And there are a lot of other popular games that have been made using RPG Maker too!

OMORI

TO THE MOON

But why do such an easy game engine can make a lot of impact like that? One of the reasons may be because of the RPG Maker developer communities!

Owens’s (2011) research has found a lot of interesting pieces of information related to this, let me tell you! RPG Maker software series is a budget-friendly commercial tool for developing video games, priced at under $60, or even getting a seasonal discount to the point of being free software, mostly the older version. With the engine licenses, you can distribute both free games and commercial games with no additional fee! Aimed mainly at hobbyists and fans, it is not a highly advanced game development platform. Rather, it emphasizes simplicity, allowing users to easily create games that follow the typical norms of the genre.

RPG Maker MZ Interface

Interestingly, each version of the software has its own community forum with a significant number of members associated with it. The software company initially established these forums, but as time went on, the community members themselves reorganized the structure and arrangement of the forums to better suit their requirements and roles, and that’s where the key point when in! The way it lets people adopt various roles and identities helps them see themselves in new ways. This supports the complex social connections and interactions that are a key feature of these communities. Each developer can help others in making their game in things they are best at, contributing socially with a whole-heartedly attitude and respect.

An official tutorial on how to develop the game in RPG Maker

You can check the RPG Maker forum site here!

So if you are an amateur who is interested in developing an indie game, RPG Maker engine is one of the good game engines to try!  Wait! What do indie games even mean?

Actually.. defining the “indie game” term is challenging, but to understand it in a way, it can related to how it depends on alternative production and distribution methods and pricing strategies compared to AAA games. It may also be characterized by its innovation and artistic approach or developed by just one or two developers (Mikhail Fiadotau, 2019). However, the terms ‘indie’ and ‘independent’ are identifiers that do not represent a unique or uniform approach to being a video game creator (Keogh, 2020).

You may have an interesting idea, why not try to develop one by teaming up with some people in the developer’s communities? and if you have some progress, why not try to show off on social media and create a crowdfunding campaign? It may be successful!

Well, to say, this is one of the really good examples of how unlike AAA games, which benefit from massive marketing budgets and corporate-driven media coverage, indie games thrive through direct interaction with their player base! Crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter, Patreon, and Fig have allowed indie developers to secure funding directly from their audience, bypassing traditional publishing models. Many successful titles, including Hollow Knight and Undertale, originated as crowdfunded projects, proving that player trust can be just as valuable as corporate backing.

The reliance on community-driven promotion is also another defining characteristic of indie gaming culture. Since many indie developers lack the resources for large-scale advertising, organic visibility through social media, streaming platforms, and peer recommendations becomes essential. Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, and Discord serve as hubs for indie developers to interact with fans, share progress updates, and build anticipation for their releases. Meanwhile, platforms such as Twitch and YouTube play a crucial role in game discovery, as popular streamers and content creators can propel an obscure title to mainstream attention overnight. I also discover IB through a Youtuber in the past too!

And furthermore, the player communities of certain games like multiplayer games, whether indie or AAA, thrive on the communities they create, turning gameplay into shared experiences that extend beyond the screen. 

Let’s look at the prime example of a coop game that makes a hit in the COVID era!

Genshin Impact (GI) is a fantastic RPG available on most dominant platforms including mobiles, PCs, and consoles that offers an open-world adventure, heavily influenced by both Breath of the Wild and anime elements, resulting in a truly unique experience (Northup, 2020). It even has a cooperative feature where players can join other player worlds to play together!

The game really resembles the definition of the term ‘Ambient Play’ which describes the modern game's impact on life right now. GI gameplay, for example, can follow us through different social networks, platforms, devices, and in both public and private contexts, as well as during mediated and face-to-face interactions (Hjorth et al., 2020, pp. 22–47).

Clemente & Realgo’s (2024) research stated that GI is a virtual platform that fosters digitized communication in creating different forms of connection between local and global participants. Interestingly, the game can improve the personalities of players, especially those who tend to be introverted thanks to a different sense of belonging while playing the game.

Not only communicated through in-game chat, GI players also want to keep their conversations outside of the game through apps such as Discord and Facebook, and can go up to face-to-face gatherings!

Developers also really embrace the communities by adding in-game social hubs, community events, or player-driven content. Ultimately, games don’t just offer mechanics, they create spaces where friendships, rivalries, and cultures emerge, making players as much a part of the game’s evolution as the developers themselves.

Together, gaming communities are a really interesting aspect of digital community in general with a lot of sides to explore, each has its own unique practices and creates a harmony in diversity!

References

Clemente, C. H., & Realgo, B. R. (2024). Social Opportunities and Digitalized Communication of Genshin Impact Players. Integrated Journal for Research in Arts and Humanities, 4(2), 49–51. https://doi.org/10.55544/ijrah.4.2.7

Hjorth, L., Richardson, I., Davies, H., & Balmford, W. (2020). Exploring Minecraft Ethnographies of Play and Creativity (pp. 22–47). Palgrave Macmillan.

Keogh, B. (2020). The Melbourne indie game scenes. Routledge EBooks, 209–222. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367336219-18

Mikhail Fiadotau. (2019). Indie and Dojin Games: a Multilayered Cross-Cultural Comparison. Gamevironments, 10, 46–46. https://journals.suub.uni-bremen.de/index.php/gamevironments/article/view/95

Northup, T. (2020, October 13). Genshin Impact Review - IGN. Www.ign.com. https://www.ign.com/articles/genshin-impact-review

Owens, T. (2011). Social videogame creation: lessons from RPG Maker. On the Horizon, 19(1), 52–61. https://doi.org/10.1108/10748121111107708

Vgperson. (n.d.). Ib - vgperson’s Translations. Vgperson.com. Retrieved March 23, 2025, from https://vgperson.com/games/ib.htm

[capstoneyap]

Week 15 December 11th 2024: Research and Final Semester Post

Throughout this semester, I have been diving deep into researching the Soul. As well as researching different aspects of it and figuring out how I'd like to represent everything I've learned. I decided that I would represent it through an RPG Maker style game, as I always wanted to create a game like that after being inspired by other RPG Maker games. Much like Corpse Party and Misao, as well as Hanged Man and anything from that series.

So I have been working on this project. I've researched a lot of Youtube tutorials in order to figure out how to work RPG maker and Gimp.

Gimp was fun to use despite not being entirely used to creating pixel art. But it was fun and pretty easy to use, so I might see myself using it for this project. Or I may use another recommended app called Aseprite. I believe I'll have a final answer after winter break.

As for RPG Maker, it did not work on my computer. So sadly I may have to use something else. Maybe Godot. Or I might need to get another computer that supports RPG Maker. Once again, I will see after winter break.

Above is my plan that I may go through. Until then, I'm gonna be fucking around and finding out. Wish me luck!

[emeraldcatears]

Another quick link to another person's tutorial because this is both very quick and very helpful. She explains things concisely (the series is called RPG Maker in 100 seconds) but clearly.

[legy]

random game roundup

Not the Robots - $9.99

Included in Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality, Indie bundle for Palestinian Aid, Earthquake Relief Bundle for Turkiye & Syria

technical difficulties made it extremely hard for me to get very far in this one unfortunately. for whatever reason any tutorial text would only half render which made it impossible to really tell what was going on or what i needed to do. from what i can tell Not the Robots is a stealth game where you are a robot cleaning up offices by eating furniture without getting noticed by lasers or patrolling robots.

i really think the randomized levels are a design flaw. i only spent a few minutes with this game (as i do any game in this series) but i already hit multiple immediately unwinnable levels where i started with patrols sitting directly where i spawned. i understand this game released right when procedural generation roguelites was really in the indie cultural milieu but come the fuck on man. maybe if i could read any of the text i could have avoided that

Stars Die - $5

Included in Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality, Indie bundle for Palestinian Aid

^^^ PLAY THIS ONE ^^^

THIS ONE FUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i dont have anything interesting to say other than you should drop everything to try this game right now

HubWorld

Included in Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality

i got to play proteus at a museum exhibit once. it was pretty cool

The Clans - Saga of the Twins - $4.99

this is very stupid. it kinda rules. i full party wiped on the first boss but i had like 5 seconds left on my timer so i didnt really care to retry. mostly negative reviews on steam. ive never seen an rpg maker game control like this. the music is so bad i just took my fucking headphones off lol. dont spend money on this but if you just happen to already own it for some reason

Nib

Included in Indie bundle for Palestinian Aid

stolen screenshot from the itch page sorry

nib is a platformer with entirely art repurposed from the solo dev's inktober project. it's pretty charming but very jank. it expects a lot of combat out of you but i could not consistently get my character to actually swing the pen nib. the platforming itself is very floaty but the environment felt suited for that kind of physics and i did quite enjoy exploring the environment. this one is free so check it out if it looks interesting to you

[arcadekitten]

You get a lot of asks about rpg maker, but I'm starting to use Renpy for the first time, so I wanted to ask if you have any tips.

Honestly my best resource is this tutorial series--it's what I learned from!

It's a decade old but all the basic principles are the same and they do a really great job at making things clear!!

(this is such an old version of Ren'py so when Ren'py asks what engine you use, I personally use the Atom editor!)

[talenlee]

3e: The Excellence of the D&D Onramp

There’s a recurrent pattern of discourse in the TTRPG community, especially amongst indies, that, cooked down into its parodically simple position, goes:

D&D is hard to teach, and nobody plays it properly.

So let’s talk about D&D having one of the absolute best onramps of all time starting with when I started to play it, in 3rd edition D&D. I bring up this edition of the game because it is absolutely a pigs arse of a game, and I know that a lot of the systems of the rules are only attempted by extremely bold people who needed something systematised.

Lemme tell ya, you run one aerial combat in 3rd edition you quickly invest in every technique you can to ensure you don’t have to run another.

First, a qualifier. D&D’s existing onramp is that it is part of our culture and has been for nearing on sixty years. When I started playing D&D it was older than I was and some of the people I first played with are dead from having lived too long. The current edition of D&D is from 2014, which means it’s now two years older than 4e was when it launched. D&D has had multiple movies, it had literal physical stores for its own branding at one point, it is without a doubt one of the most infrastructurally entrenched RPG brands in the world.

That is a big part of how D&D’s onramp works. It’s everywhere and you can almost always find someone to talk about it with you, or someone on the internet to help you with some element. There’s what we call a paratextual industry around the game. Speaking as someone who has tried to promote the work of indie RPG makers, and for it been called ‘a weirdo who talks about shitty games that aren’t D&D nobody cares about,’ the communal infrastructure is part of D&D and it is powerful.

It’s also, very much not something you can brush off.

Like, it’s really easy to want to do that. After all, it can feel like cheating, right? D&D gets to have poorly written Dungeon Master’s Guides because there’s a huge communal pool of video, podcasts, and personal tuition happy to show it off, and people even learn about how to DM from watching actual tv series and stuff? Right? It’s like how the art of documentation feels like it’s being crushed under a world of video tutorials.

So anyway, let’s pretend for a moment that D&D doesn’t get to be judged on the basis of the sixty years of market dominance and successful entrenchment. Let’s pretend we’re just talking about the books.

D&D gets you playing almost instantly and the thing it gets you playing with is your stuff and that immediately pushes you towards understanding what that means.

The onramp to D&D is in the character creation, which is itself, something like a game. There’s a reason gigadorks like me have spent twenty years caring about 3e D&D builds even though we don’t play the game any more. The actual mechanical puzzle starts with a phrase like:

“Elf Wizard.”

“Dwarf fighter.”

“Half-orc bard.”

The game presents you two pieces to work together, and those things are, you may notice, incredibly stereotypical and basic. A lot of D&D’s racism problems start baked into this part of the game, because of how the game tries to present whole cultural groups. The demihumans, that grouping, yeah, them.

There’s this idea Mark Rosewater talks about in D&D, that he refers to ‘preloading.’ The idea is that if you approach game mechanics to express stuff the players already imagine, or that makes sense to them, when players engage with the mechanics, they’ll have a pre-existing handle on them and be able to imagine a way to treat them that gets them to care and invest.

And they invite you down two paths: What’s an elf do? Okay, cool, I can look that up. It’s over here. And over here there’s what a wizard does. And oh wow that relates to this stuff. And you might be looking at me like I grew a tentacle in my forehead because you’ve probably heard me bullying games for having a complicated, non-streamlined character creation system – how is it okay that D&D makes you look up tables and not okay that Rod Reel And Fist does it?

It’s a matter of why you’re engaging with these things. When you’re checking around the D&D character creation system, in these first times, you are playing with pieces, you’re playing with some of the most familiar pieces in literary canon. The idea of ‘our hero, and his dwarf fighter friend,’ that’s language that’s standardised outside of the game media. And that means that you’re building something that’s both very familiar, and gives you freedom to be playful in that space.

Can it be better? Absolutely, 3rd edition’s character building is extremely cumbersome. There are tons of problems in the game, in its systems, but the thing that starts you playing is so painfully efficient that people don’t even notice it. People act like making your character isn’t playing the game, because, when taken as a whole task people need to do perfectly, to achieve certain results, it is a big homework task. But making choices and learning about those choices is presented as a playful activity.

I’m not trying to be uncharitable with this summary, and I want to make sure that if you’re reading it, I’m not trying to make your position sound silly. Nor am I thinking of anyone specific – that kind of thing is for discord sessions of meanspirited gossip. This is about the general idea that D&D is ‘hard to learn’ or a ‘bad system’ because of it, and that ‘nobody plays it right.

And for that I have to pull one of those memey faces like ‘ehhhhhhhhhhhhhnnnnnn’ because I feel like people are speaking to an emotional truth while making factual assertions that don’t respect the way the actual game that exists exists, and this kind of talk makes for conversations about games and how to make games… worse.

It makes them worse.

And it makes them worse in an unhelpful way.

There’s an impulse in the not-making-D&D community, even those of us who play D&D, to overstate its weaknesses and minimise its strengths. I don’t know why necessarily. On charitable days, I feel like it’s because the problems D&D presents to a designer can seem large and obvious, and on less charitable days I feel like it’s because a lot of us are pretty pissed that we can put in tons of work to make original material and get passed over by someone pooping out stock-art modules on DMSguild.

But if you can appreciate what D&D’s doing good – and its unfair advantages! – then I think you get into better habits, and better perspective on how to make your own games more engaging. Technical superiority isn’t actually an inevitable good, and turns out that sometimes you lose in the Big Game of Capitalism even if what you made is great.

Waging a war against D&D for your life sucks, but I feel like it works better when you’re honest about it. If nothing else, it means someone who sees you talking about it will at least be able to test for yourself what you say. And when we appreciate this problem system, and the problem it represents in the ways it actually is, we’ll avoid weird brain-boiling conversations like ‘Players don’t actually like rolling dice.’

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[eigwayne]

My first instinct was "whichever one is on sale for cheapest" because there's so many transferable skills, any Maker is an entry point to the series. But each version has it's own perks.

2003: The oldest version released in the West for PC. If you want to start simple, this is a good spot. Lower resolution means it basically forces you into a pixel style, though, and it doesn't support adding code in later once you become more adept with the system. A lot of famous Japanese horror games were made in 2003 or it's closely related Japanese forerunner, RPGMaker 2000. Which may be an incentive to try it out, I don't know.

MZ: Newest version. Lots of quality of life enhancements. Has a built-in tutorial so the learning curve is less steep and you'll spend less time hunting down beginner tutorials online. If you have the funds, I think this would be my top rec for a newcomer just for that.

MV: The precursor to MZ. A solid RPGMaker with lots of resources and tutorials online. Lacks some of MZ's features, though. The wealth of available plugins (extra code made by fans, many of which just drop in so no coding is necessary) means that this is still an attractive option.

VXA: The 2012 RPGMaker release. It's a solid engine that you can get a lot out of, too. There's a lot of resources and tutorials online but because of the age, websites are starting to disappear. I found the coding language easy to parse and even started learning how to edit existing scripts on this one, before MV came along and distracted me. So I think VXA is a good learner engine.

XP: An even older model. While all the above versions are very similar, this one has some differences that may make the learning curve steeper when starting off or when switching between Makers. And again, because of the age, the resource websites are disappearing and the volume of lost resources is starting to be annoying, in my opinion.

VX: Don't get this one, actually. It's extremely similar to VXA but lacks some of the flexibility and functionality. You'll still learn on it, sure, but every other RPG Maker is a better option, so I don't think there's value in starting here.

Anyone know which rpgmaker version would be the best for a beginner? I’ve been hesitating because I have no coding experience  and I saw that rpgmaker is a good place to start, but I cant decide which version to get.

[ponett]

when making a game, where do you, like... start? i've been wanting to work on an RPG Maker project for a while, but i always get overwhelmed. which parts should i be focusing on first?

it depends on the project and what type of game you wanna make. (for example, you wouldn't exactly need to do much gameplay prototyping for a ren'py visual novel, and likewise rpg maker already has its base mechanics built in.) but you should definitely start small

don't worry about things like presentation or the big picture just yet. use stock assets and just start prototyping to feel around for what you wanna make. it's easy to get a big idea for something with a massive scope and a whole story and all that before you even start and overwhelm yourself, so set that aside. focus on one area, one scene, one battle, one mechanic, one vibe you want to capture, whatever at the start just so you have a baseline. it doesn't have to be the very beginning of your game - this part will probably get either thrown out or radically altered once you have a better idea what you're doing anyway. it should just be something. learn the tools you're working with. ideas will usually come up naturally through this process. you'll figure out how to do things you didn't realize you could do before and think of ways to improve the tiny prototype. if you don't have any specific ideas to start with and a blank canvas scares you, honestly just follow some tutorials for the engine you're working in and see if anything comes to you

then, once you have a direction, instead of ballooning your scope right away, try to focus on getting a small chunk of your game somewhat presentable. something that can show off a little bit of every aspect of your game - mechanics, level design, art, story, pacing, UI, whatever your specific project requires. a demo, basically, although it doesn't have to be something you release as a demo. this is what's called a vertical slice. it lets you test the waters on a small scale across multiple different disciplines and gives you something that people can playtest and give feedback on. from there, it should be easier to figure out where to go next, whether you want to expand upon your vertical slice or start over with something totally different

it's about making a puzzle platformer in unity and not an rpg maker game, but i would highly recommend mark brown's "developing" series for game maker's toolkit, in which he's chronicling the things he learns in the process of trying to make his first game (with a little bit of guidance from pros). he goes through many of the trials and tribulations that first time devs go through and gives advice on how not to make the same mistakes. and, of course, remember that the first things you make will probably be pretty rough, but in the timeless words of jake the dog: sucking at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something

[beebfreeb]

how did you make ur neocities website and how do you come up with comic ideas?

HEHEHE THIS GOT LONG <3 WHOOPSIE <3

hm hm... basically i just looked at w3schools.com HTML and CSS tutorials until i understood enough to feel confident enough to start sharing the site 😌😌😌 GKJLDFSH

plain HTML and CSS isn't really all that complicated for the most part!

they are markup and styling sheets so there's no actual programming involved but there is a lot of adjusting for CSS elements to make things look the way i want them ! i know neocities also has its own guides + links + tips and such somewhere!!

what is complicated is actually adding interacting javascript stuff which i havent learned yet 😔 i wanted the little email application to be more interactive and have functioning tabs + buttons so you could look at the other emails but i never got around 2 learning how 2 do that...

FOR THE COMING UP WITH IDEAS PART: man i dont know (JOKE MOSTLY) <3 my tip for just coming up with ideas is READ A LOT OF THINGS and THINK ABOUT THEM but in a writing sort of way. what did you like about it ? what DIDN'T you like? what made this story work or what pulled you out of it? what themes and patterns reoccur in the media that you like ?

then just let that roll around in your head + write down literally any vague idea that you have EVER somewhere to look at later.

i often see things and go haha i can do that Better (or at least, interesting to me specifically).

BASICALLY I MAKE THINGS THAT ARE INTERESTING AND ENTERTAINING TO ME SPECIFICALLY. i see a neat idea and bat it around in my head like a cat.

how would i have done this idea? how could it have gone differently? how much of an effect does the setting and worldbuilding have on this? would this idea/character/thing behave the same in a different location? and so on !

my process usually comes from me seeing an element in Media of some sort and it lives in my head forever now. then i scribble out a character design or two based around said elements and themes, then try to build the basics of a world around them.

for example, i designed daisy, salesman, and k2 first! all of dreamland was originally informed by the designs and basic personalities of those three :-D! mostly it was just "i want a character who is just a REALLY regular, sorta dick-ish guy, trying to do errands in a dream logic vaporwave hell where people try to sell them things constantly and are incapable of sincerity"

then i let myself get really invested in the world itself and started just. populating the setting with people who Live there and just try to go about their lives, before i went back to refining the actual story/plot !

that is just my process of making stories and it may not work for everyone, but that is usually how i do things <3

i make the basics of the major characters, start to detail the world they live in + background elements, then go back to working the main plot!

just, dont be afraid of being unoriginal! nothing exists in a vacuum, basically any idea has been done in Some way before. things get rearranged and reused constantly. dont be afraid of shelving ideas to look at for later, or cutting things from stories completely! feel free to rearrange and reuse your Own ideas !

also get into weirder or more obscure media. get into media that Kind Of Sucks Bad and dissect it like a bug. play free rpg maker games. watch animated childrens movies from the 80s but the ones you never watched as a kid. look at weird abandonware games! youtube web series with only 4 episodes!

let yourself Dislike Things and analyses Why you dislike it, but also look at what it does good or interesting! what made some things intriguing and what made some things fall flat?

even with things you do like a lot! what could it do better? what felt unsatisfying? why did it feel unsatisfying?

and by god. write it down <3

[livewireprojects]

This pic is what lead to stuff being held back, this was meant to be done last year but it took a long time. I think I got burnt out from dealing with it so I lagged behind. Despite that it's not a good excuse for taking this long especially since it took a while to post it outside of DA.

So @belles--rose​ commissioned me to make this parody/bootleg Megas XLR gang after a joke or something involving RPG maker. From there these guys kind of started, eventually they kind of became OCs in the Megas universe with one being Coop & Jamie's kid. Funny enough S found out that if we did try to make the game(I don’t have the ability to make a game without tutorials & possible help since I don’t know how to code past really basic html text) Cartoon Network can’t sue us as in S’s words “CN would have to petition to IRS the show wasn't a loss, pay the tax write off and then get the rights back”. i forgot the name of this parody but pretty much Megas XLR in California. There’s some slight differences that I don’t remember but S will likely inform me later in the night so I’ll update this later. Kurt: Kurt is the Coop of he group, like him he likes food & games. Unlike Coop Kurt isn’t a slacker as he has a job as well as having graduated collage & is active doing stuff. He is Johnny’s husband. Johnny: Johnny is Kurt’s partner & is the Jamie of the group. I can’t remember much else about him other than he was jealous of the Kiva of the group for a while. At some point S turned Johnny into Coop & Jamie’s son, he is I think the youngest of his siblings. Something happened that lead to Johnny running away when he was 12 & only reconnecting 8 years later, it’s unknown what happened but Jamie did become a bit snippy at some point. Nika: Nika is the the Kiva of the group, I don’t know much about her past info on her name & something I’ll mention in a bit. Kurt & Johnny’s names are Coop & Jamie’s Danish and Swedish dub names, Nika’s name comes from “Not Kiva”. At some point she joins Kurt & Johnny’s relationship & they become a poly family. Angela: Angela is the Goat of the group, she is a mechanic & runs the junkyard. She’s not impressed that Kurt won’t pay his tab on all the shit he gets from her junkyard to the point she had her husband track him down for money. Angela is married to possibly the Tiny of this bootleg series & they have a toddler daughter.

Here’s the ref pic, I worked on this first before making the pic above(which was just removing some reference bits & moving stuff), I think at some point I just edited in the ring refs cause the ones I was drawing were to small to show the features & I was getting annoyed.

[hauntingjackalopes]

All the questions :3c (minus any you want to skip)

!!! Kestrel you're too good to me. Under the cut ❤️

2. First console you owned?

Probably Gameboy Colour but actual console would've been N64 or SNES

3. A game that holds a special place in your heart?

Ib! Partially cause of where I was in life when it came out, partially cause a friend and I bonded like crazy ovee it

6. Favourite genre?

RPGs, survival horror, text based choose your own adventure

7. Video game character you've had a crush on?

Dante from the Devil May Cry™️ series, obviously

8. First video game you remember playing?

Probably Super Mario World for SNES with my brother

9. Age you started gaming?

Uhhhhhhhhhh. Like 5 or 6 probably?

10. Hardest video game you've played?

Devil May Cry 3

13. Scariest video game you've played?

Silent Hill 2

15. Video game character you wish you could meet in real life?

Arthur Morgan, we both need a hug :(

16. PC, Xbox, Playstation, or Nintendo?

Playstation or Nintendo

17. Gaming company you're most loyal to?

God help me but probably Game Freak. I've played most of the mainline Pokemon games

18. If you could only play one video game for the rest of your life, which one would you choose?

RDR2 lmao. It's somehow become a massive comfort game for me

19. Do you use strategy guides?

Not usually. If I'm really stuck on something I'll look it up but otherwise no

20. How often do you use cheats?

In regular gaming? Very rarely. In Sims? Constantly

21. Competitive or single player?

Single player

22. Video game character you want to/have cosplayed?

There's a bunch I'd cosplay if I had the confidence but I've done a very bare bones modern day Link

23. Ever gone to a video game convention?

Yup! Fan Expo and Anime North

25. Video game you wish you could burn from your memory?

I can't for the life of me remember the name but there was an old RPG maker game I played years ago that was god awful and pretty fucked up

26. Favourite gaming series?

Legend of Zelda, Dragon Age, Devil May Cry, Resident Evil

27. Do you skip tutorials, or find them useful?

Most of the time I at the very least skim the tutorial. If it's just telling me the attack/interact/jump buttons I'll skip it, but important mechanics get read

30. Why do you game?

Escape lmao