Create Relationship System with Variables

Skyfrid · 2014-03-11T03:05:04+0900

Hey my name is Skyfrid, that's Sky- as in blue and -Frid as in fridge. Have you ever had a crush on a game character, only to have her repeat the same thing, every time you speak to her/him. That would be a major set off for anyone. Well lookno further, because I'm here to teach you how to set of a relationship system using variables! Relationship/Friendship System: What the character said, and certain events can be triggered if the required amount of Friendship is high enough. This is set up by variables and will look like this: Acquaintance: 0-99 Friendship: 100-199 Best Friends: 200-299 Love: 300-400 Step 1: Defining Variables In order to fully understand this guide, you must understand the basic of Variable Click Here! Once you understand that, all there is to set it up. Create a Variable name Relationship : [Name of Character]. This will set the relationship for the character. Step 2: Defining Relationships This step has several stages listed above, but you can skip around if you need.Every time you talk, to that person will increase the variable . The amount may vary, if you decide to change the value. Acquaintance: Spoiler This stage is set up when the Relationship Variable you set up, is between 0-99. This stage includes when the character introduces, him/her to you. Plus their normal conversion. This stage will not require the need of setting up a variable. The Relationship Variable will increase by 5 each time you speak to them. The first thing you should do is to set up the text, when the character meets the player. Then create a switch, leading to the normal text. Friendship: Spoiler This is the next stage of the relationship. It is defined when the Relationship Variable is 100-199. This requires the use of a variable condition. Best Friends: Spoiler After the Friends Stage, is the Best Friends Stage. It is defined when the Relationship Variable is 200-299. Love: Spoiler The last stage is the most important of them all! It is defined when the Relationship Variable is 300-400. With that your done! You can customize it how ever you like, and this system can also be used to trigger "certain" events!

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Started by Skyfrid Mar 10, 2014, 06:05 PM 20 posts View original ↗

Skyfrid

#1 Mar 10, 2014, 06:05 PM Source
Hey my name is Skyfrid, that's Sky- as in blue and -Frid as in fridge. :D Have you ever had a crush on a game character, only to have her repeat the same thing, every time you speak to her/him. That would be a major set off for anyone. Well look
no further, because I'm here to teach you how to set of a relationship system using variables!

Relationship/Friendship System:

What the character said, and certain events can be triggered if the required amount of Friendship is high enough. This is set up by variables and will look like this:
- Acquaintance: 0-99
- Friendship: 100-199
- Best Friends: 200-299
- Love: 300-400
Step 1: Defining Variables
In order to fully understand this guide, you must understand the basic of Variable Click Here!
Once you understand that, all there is to set it up. Create a Variable name Relationship : [Name of Character]. This will set the relationship for the character.

Step 2: Defining Relationships

This step has several stages listed above, but you can skip around if you need.Every time you talk, to that person will increase the variable . The amount may vary, if you decide to change the value.

Acquaintance:
Spoiler
This stage is set up when the Relationship Variable you set up, is between 0-99.

This stage includes when the character introduces, him/her to you. Plus their normal conversion. This stage will not require the need of setting up a variable. The Relationship Variable will increase by 5 each time you speak to them.

The first thing you should do is to set up the text, when the character meets the player. Then create a switch, leading to the normal text.
Friendship:

Spoiler
This is the next stage of the relationship. It is defined when the Relationship Variable is 100-199. This requires the use of a variable condition.

Best Friends:

Spoiler
After the Friends Stage, is the Best Friends Stage. It is defined when the Relationship Variable is 200-299.

Love:

Spoiler
The last stage is the most important of them all! It is defined when the Relationship Variable is 300-400.

With that your done! You can customize it how ever you like, and this system can also be used to trigger "certain" events!
Benja

#2 Mar 12, 2014, 02:10 AM Source

I love this tutorial! I'm making a village sim-esque game and this will be perfect!
Kaiser Knight

#3 Mar 15, 2014, 06:41 PM Source

I really love it, I give you like +1 :thumbsup-right:
Mrwolf2

#4 Mar 21, 2014, 10:39 PM Source

A very clear tutorial, which is always a very good thing. I do have one question. Do you know if it also possible to somehow see how many variable points you got in total at any time?
Skyfrid

#5 Mar 21, 2014, 10:58 PM Source

Mrwolf2 said:
A very clear tutorial, which is always a very good thing. I do have one question. Do you know if it also possible to somehow see how many variable points you got in total at any time?
Well this scripts should allow you to:

Ceodore: http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/14605-cdr-show-variables/

(I hadn't tested it yet)
Mrwolf2

#6 Mar 21, 2014, 11:54 PM Source

Awesome, thank you very much.
EHEBrandon

#7 Nov 3, 2014, 07:02 PM Source

I'm having issues... It goes smoothly when I have one event like just going positive or going negative... But when I try to combine the two by choices.. Like select one option it goes positive select the other it goes negative.. But when I add it to self switch to A for positive and to B for negative it works fine but once I add the second event for the negative part it always plays that line first..
Skyfrid

#8 Nov 3, 2014, 08:57 PM Source

EHEBrandon said:
I'm having issues... It goes smoothly when I have one event like just going positive or going negative... But when I try to combine the two by choices.. Like select one option it goes positive select the other it goes negative.. But when I add it to self switch to A for positive and to B for negative it works fine but once I add the second event for the negative part it always plays that line first..
Have you tried using the switches other then the self-switches? It could be that you enabled the self switch in another dialogue.
Patryk

#9 Jan 14, 2015, 11:35 PM Source

When I was thinking about how to do system like this in theory, I thought it would be hard, but it turns out it's very easy, thank you, sir!
xonox

#10 Jan 16, 2015, 11:36 PM Source

I had some animal crossing inspired ideas and didn't think it would be possible. Thanks for sharing this tip, very clear.
Patryk

#11 Jan 17, 2015, 09:30 PM Source

By the way, does anyone knows how to make it so relationship increases only once when we talked to the npc, and then we have to wait a certain amount of time for it to reset?
xonox

#12 Jan 17, 2015, 09:41 PM Source

Patryk said:
By the way, does anyone knows how to make it so relationship increases only once when we talked to the npc, and then we have to wait a certain amount of time for it to reset?
I have not tried it but you could probably work something out with control variables. In an event command, you can store the play time or timer in a control variable. Then when the player talks to the npc, you could check if a certain time has passed. I'm a beginner in rpg maker, so maybe this wouldn't work.
Patryk

#13 Jan 17, 2015, 10:10 PM Source

xonox said:
I have not tried it but you could probably work something out with control variables. In an event command, you can store the play time or timer in a control variable. Then when the player talks to the npc, you could check if a certain time has passed. I'm a beginner in rpg maker, so maybe this wouldn't work.
Actually, I'm 99% sure now that it will work! Most of the time I have to use switches for my games, and I forget how powerful the variables are. Thank you so much!

Again by the way, if anyone's looking for more ideas to the relationship system I've got few, I thought I'd share. I have it so that when you active the event (npc) you have multiple choices.

First, npc have a greeting, that changes with relationship level. And then there are the choices.

Talk - Various random dialogue based on the relationship level, increases relationship by 5. And now it resets after certain amount of time to not be overpowered.

Quest - I'm still considering if it will be series of linear, more in depth quests, or randomly generated ones, kinda like random dialogue. Quests will increase the relationship between around 20-50.

Leave - if you don't want to choose anything right now.

I'm also considering gifts, but I'm sill thinking how to balance their price to not be too cheap, so we won't abuse the system, and won't be to expensive so we can still buy other items and equipment like weapons, armor, and potions.

And finally, I recommend considering Day and Night cycle, with full npc schedules. It makes the game by default so much more fun to play, and with combination of the relationship system it's even more fun. Currently I have 4 phases: day, sunset, night, and morning, with each phase the npcs are in different places, having different dialogue, doing different things, and sleeping (most of them) at night.
xonox

#14 Jan 17, 2015, 11:19 PM Source

Patryk, the day and night idea is great and i just messed today with the event command that lets you change the tileset. Someone could build multiple tilesets that change during the day. RPG Maker does it really quickly on my computer, i can do it many times per second even if it's not useful for now.

This would be a lot of work but i'm amazed at the possibilities RPG Maker provides. Also, i just started messing around in Ruby. If i could spent a year or two on a desert island, i could create nice things!
queenchrom

#15 May 15, 2016, 07:04 PM Source

Patryk, How do you get it to reset? I've looked around and played with the engine but can't figure it out.
Crispy-Ghee

#16 May 15, 2016, 10:42 PM Source

This is so relevant to what I'm doing right now! Thanks so much for posting this, it really cuts down on some time I would've spent trying to concept some thoughts out. I'll definitely try this out today.
zousug

#17 Mar 4, 2020, 01:21 PM Source

Hey everyone,

So I know this post is old, but wanted to ask a question, how hard would it be to add a check on this so that if the party member is male the relationship wont turn into love?
Ebanyle

#18 Mar 7, 2020, 12:43 AM Source

zousug said:
Hey everyone,

So I know this post is old, but wanted to ask a question, how hard would it be to add a check on this so that if the party member is male the relationship wont turn into love?
You can simply set "best friends" as the max level. For example, even if the condition surpasses 300 points, the dialogue of best friends wouldn't change because you would not make a new interaction out of it.
zousug

#19 Mar 7, 2020, 12:58 AM Source

Ebanyle said:
You can simply set "best friends" as the max level. For example, even if the condition surpasses 300 points, the dialogue of best friends wouldn't change because you would not make a new interaction out of it.

I dont know why I was thinking it was harder then that :S to much stuff going on at once I guess lol, thank you
TheRamenGirl

#20 Jan 24, 2021, 02:43 PM Source

Thank you for this tutorial! Its the easiest Relationship System!