New and a little overwhelmed. Please help!

Hello, I've been looking through these forums from a little bit, and I want to get involved but I'm really not exactly sure how or where to start. So bear with me really!

I came across rpg makers through like game playthroughs and I'm really interested in learning. Specifically, I'd like to create horror games, or games that focus more on narrative rather than turn based, magic oriented RPG games. However, I have so many questions and I'm so unfamiliar with things like this I don't know where to start. I'm a digital artist and you can check out my art at glisean.deviantart.com, I also have a good gist of code, as I'm an engineering student and I'm familiar with C++ and I think I can pick up other languages pretty quickly.

If anyone has the patience to answer or direct me to the answers to these questions, that would be great!

1. What are sprites exactly? (I understand they are 2D character images) Do they involve code? How do I learn to make them?

2. Does creating games involve pixel art? If so, are there any good tutorials out there on how to start creating pixel art. (I would very much like to create my own visuals.)

3. What are the languages required to code RPG maker games? Where can I find information or tutorials on the language.

4. What version of the RPG maker would be best for someone who is first starting out.

5. Where can I find informative tutorials on RPG maker?

I know these are a lot of questions but I feel like if I know how to approach these tasks one at a time I can head in the right directon. 

If there's anything else you think I would need to learn it would be great if that would be included in your answer as well.

I know learning these things may often be a long, difficult and tedious process, but this is just a personal project I'd like to take up for myself and I'm willing to go through all that even

though it might take a long time to actually learn to do everything by myself. I'm fine and ready for that task.

Therefore I also have no interest on working on projects with other people, because I'd like to work at my own pace and free time.

Thank you again!

1) No code. You can make them with Game Character Hub.


2)You do not have to create pixel art for the games, but you can if you like.


3) Ruby is optional. However, the main bulk of game dev does not require coding.


4) Ace. There's a lite and a 30 day trial you can try.


5) On this forum and in the help file - I'm sure someone else will link you to some videos soon!

Follow the link in my signature - that tutorial was written exactly for people who want to know how to start.

I worked through all these tutorials before I attempted the Indie Game Maker Contest:

http://www.rpgmakerweb.com/support/products/tutorials

Just gradually work through them and you'll see how everything works. Your programming background should help you a lot with understanding the eventing system. Just drop me a PM if you have problems, I think the game I made is in line with what you want to do, so I'll be able to help. You can even play through my game if you want to (Link in my signature) and see if it is what you are aiming for.

Good Luck

Thanks a lot, I'll take a look at these resources.

Your programming background will help a lot in understanding how to use the Event system.

You don't need to be able to create pixel art (or any art, really) or music because there are a ton of great resources (see Grandma Deb's exhaustive list of free resources), as well as high quality Resource Packs which often give sets of sprites, graphics tiles and sounds so you can easily make a horror game.  However, if you want to, there are specific Resource formats required to use the resources in the game.

If you want to get into scripting, which changes how the game engine behaves in significant ways, it's all written in Ruby, which is an object-oriented language sort of like Java in its syntax.  You can get Ruby for free from https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/downloads/

But again, you don't need to do this to start making a game.  There is a very large, active community which has probably produced literally thousands of scripts doing things from adding a crafting system to a total rewrite of the battle engine.  So, although you can easily create a full game without using any script or touching Ruby, you can get quite far without any of these.  Or, just use the many existing scripts.

Personally, I would download the VX Ace Lite evaluation version.  VX Ace supports Ruby scripting and is the most up-to-date version of RPG Maker.

And, if you really like RPG Maker and decide you want to purchase it and possibly some of the Resource Packs (there are a few dedicated to horror --- a Zombie graphics pack, a Survival Horror sound pack and even a Cuthulu-esque Mythos pack), a Member + membership can quickly pay for itself because you get a discount off the cost of the Resource Packs from the forum's web store. 

But that's really jumping the gun.  I'd say start with the evaluation version, use any of the free resources you want and see if you like working with RPG Maker.  Good luck!

Keep in mind, the 2 free versions of VX Ace are the "Lite" which has limited features but no time limit, and the "trial" which has unlimited features but only 30 days of use. Neither of them can be used to make commercial games, you need to buy the full version for that.

Welcome. Also keep in mind that we'll all be willing to help you in some way. Some of us may look scary, but we all pretty much look out for eachother here. If something's wrong with what you share with us progress-wise, people will tell you what it is, WHY it is, and what you can do to fix it.

Happy developing!

Yeah, people here on the forums are very helpful and it's a great place to get feedback.

To answer your questions:

1) That's right, sprites are basically 2D images of the characters in-game. You don't need coding to make them. It's pretty much pixel art. If you know how to do pixel art, you should be able to pick up pretty quickly how to make them. Different sprites work differently of course and it helps to know the formats that the engine uses. For example in VX Ace, the standard sprite uses the 3 x 4 format. What it means is that each row is treated as a direction (top row is facing down, second row facing left, etc) whilst the columns are treated as a walking animation (middle column being the standing/intermediary pose).

2) Creating games may or may not involve pixel art. If you're starting out with RPG maker, I would highly recommend for your first game or two to use the graphics that are already made by others. That way you can concentrate more on learning the engine and the process of game-making. There are a lot of great resources posted here on the forums for free (check the resources section), as well as plenty of great resource packs in the store. Once you've gotten a hang of the engine and how it works, you'll find it easier to make your own graphics, because you'll already have the knowledge of what sort of formats and dimensions the art needs to be so to be used properly in the engine.

3) You don't really need to know any coding to be able to make games in RPG maker. It all can be done via the default eventing system, which is incredibly versatile. If you do want to enhance the game further beyond the limitations of the eventing, you can of course do some coding. The language the engine uses is Ruby. There are, however, many scripts out there done by others, so you might not even need to do your own coding and can simply use those scripts. There are a lot of them.

4) I like to say that it doesn't matter too much, because they're all equally user-friendly, but if I had to recommend one, I'd say go for VX Ace. It's the most recent one and offers a lot more features and customization than the others (probably with the exception of mapping, which some people could argue XP was better at). Because of being the most recent engine, it also has more support and probably more scripts available (I could be wrong though). As others have suggested, it's best to check out the 30-day trial version or the Lite version first and see if you like it.

5) Mainly the tutorials subforum. They're all grouped by the maker, so depending on which RPG maker you get, you'll know which section to check out.

Best of luck.

Thank you guys so much for the answers. I'm taking it one step at a time and it's good to know where to start.