During the forum switch a bunch of my posts got messed up. I went through and fixed most, but I can't seem to get things to be centered so I'm just going to link this to my thread at the pav. It's got all the info on the game. I'll still be updating this thread.

http://www.pavilionboards.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19830

I now know what people mean about nitpicking in RPGM1. I've been going over the opening part of my game over and over. Tweeking things here and there.

I have the custom Title/Start Game menu (or whatever you want to call it) done. I also have the opening scenes setting up the story and mood of the game.

I also found the way I'm going to be using skills outside of battle. If you have the right class equiped and you know the skill an event will be triggered. When you examine it You will warp to a new "Menu." It will actually take the sourounding Field/dungeon graphics with it and the rest will be blacked out to give it an important feel. The character using the skill will be in the center of four button graphics. The buttons will cange color in a sequence then you need to trigger them in the same way using up down left right. Once you do it in the correct order it will warp you back to the original map and the special effect will happen.

Update

I've made some good progress so far. I have the opening sequence done. It's probably 30 minutes of gameplay. I made my first town and the insides. I just need to populate it. I also have one small minigame.

RPGM1 is a major memory eater. I already have 2 blocks of System and 3 of scenario, but I can have as many cards as I need so I'm not going to let the quality suffer because I'm scared of running out of memory. Using a PS3 is helpful cuz I won't have to buy any more cards.

be careful with rpg maker 1. dont let yourself get too far ahead of your memory. its a pain to squish events and prioritize when you need a big amount of memory to scroll back to fix something.

you will quickly learn secrets to making events more economically viable, but concentrate on just making them look good. you can go back later and free up space by compacting them.

Yeah, I have heard about how hard it is. My plan is to wrap things up with an extra block then go back and add stuff with the extra memory. Sounds better then going back and taking stuff.

Still it's impossible to predict those kind of situations until you're there.

~Update~

I'm due for one. I've made a good deal of progress that I really like so far. I'm basically focusing on the story events right now. Then I'll go back and tweak the other stuff.

-Made the Zander Mountains. It's actually part of the opening scenes I mentioned.

Very careful. I attempted something similar myself, once. It just threw things out of whack. Made it way too easy to overpower one character. If you're worried about having incentive to battle the enemies, simply needing to in order to gain levels should be good enough. It's been good enough in commercial RPGs that have visible encounters.



That's good to know.

Yeah, but the battles in commercial games are a lot better then RPGM 1's default system. It's something I'll play with.

I finished the interactive cutscenes. I'm really happy with the way they turned out. I think it will add a bit more depth to draw in the player. I know where I want the story to go from here, but I may have to take a bit of a break until I can get two sprites converted to .PSV format. I'll be working on the class systems while I wait.

That's quite a bit of progress! Nice.

Thanks.

I have made some more progress too. I've finished up a couple cutscenes. I want to finish up the main story events up to a certain point then go back and tweek everything in that section. It shouldn't be too much longer until I reach that part. Then I'm gonna iron out the class system. I have a couple new ideas.

I just broke the 80 hour mark. I guess I work kind of slow.

Update

I finished a couple more story events. I'm at a good spot to stop working on story and go back and fine tweak everything. I planned out how I want the class system to work out.

12 classes each with 5 skills to learn. When you unlock the class you can use any of the skills, as long as you have the Cryolite for it. At first the skills cost MP. When you level up with the class equipped you will master one of the skills and it will no longer cost anything to use. And you'll be able to use it with any class equipped.

I plan on using a cursed item on the left hand so you can't equip two weapons. When you equip a certain class the cursed item will be removed.

With 6 playable characters all being able to do this the custom menu's going to take a LOT of memory, but I think it should be worth it. A lot of switches will be needed. With so much stuff going on in it I'm going to be focusing on the flow of things. I don't want the menu to be clunky. I haven't started it yet, but I'm sure I'll be able to do it.



The top is the save crystal I'll be using. The bottom is Cryolite. I don't really have a use for the sword yet, but why not right?


These are the arrows I'll be using for the custom menus. I have a few plans for the fire balls.

Those sprites look great!

Just remember, you can't force equipment onto a player through events, so unless you use some workaround, I hope you don't intend to allow the player to unequip said certain class.

Hmm... I didn't know that. I'll have to figure out another of doing it then. Thanks for saving me the trouble of finding this out the hard way.

Edit: I moved the box art to the first post.

It's not impossible, mind you. You could always force the player to re-equip the cursed item. Just surround the spot the player changes class with events that check if the cursed item is in the inventory. If it is, force them back and tell them to equip it.

That might work. I still haven't worked on the classes so I'll have to experiment.

I busted out the party-changing menu today. It surprisingly only took 1600 scenario memory. The killer was the near 40 SWITCHES I had to use. The class systems going to be a lot worse though. It will take 60 switches. One for each skill you can learn through classes. It's a good thing you can recycle switches or I'd be screwed!

I broke the 90 hour mark today.

I edited out the pics and put them in the first post.

looks good. some advice though, turn off your flash and the picture quality will improve dramatically. that bright spot is the result of the flash.

Thanks for the tip. I'll try to get some better quality ones soon.

Also, I completly changed the first post. Take a look. Is there no way to center stuff?

Unfortunately, that doesn't work. I tried to do something similar. If you have the weapon equipped, the system will still register it as being in the inventory.