SMILE GAME BUILDER Live Streaming Event Announcement

I will be attempting a live stream Smile Game Builder on Friday October 20 2017.

The live streaming event will take place on Friday at 8 pm PST/11 pm EST.

I don't know how it'll turn out, as I'm still fine-tuning the settings and trying it out, but I'm hoping this'll be a regular weekly feature!

Smile Game Builder Tutorial #26: Battle System

This is an overview tutorial on Smile Game Builder's Battle System and my own thoughts on it.

The topics covered are:

● Battle (Game Data)
● Character Stats
● Character Battle Commands
● Monsters
● Monsters - Basic Settings
● Monsters - Resistances
● Monsters - Action in Battle
● Spawning Monsters on Maps
● Battle Backgrounds
● Monster Position



For more information on this and other tutorials, as well as Smile Game Builder news and projects, you can visit its official subsite.

Social Media Buttons/In-Game Website Plugin Tutorial (RMMV)

This tutorial demonstrates how to use my Social Media Buttons/In-Game Website plugin for RPG Maker MV.



With the plugin you can place social media buttons (Twitter, Facebook and website) on the Title Screen. You can also call a website from within the game. These will open in a new game window or new tab in your default browser.

Windowskins Update

The Windowskins blog has been updated. Most of the windowskins have now been updated; I'm sure there are others I've done but overlooked, so I'll check and update accordingly.

The Windowskins Tutorials currently on the main blogsite will be migrated to the RPG Maker Times Windowskins, with the current posts already in place simply redirected.

The focus will then shift onto properly recategorising and tagging the windowskins to make searching easier. Updates will then continue on the rest of the blogs.

RPG Maker VX Ace Tutorials - Overhead Mapping (+playlist)

This is a remarkable tutorial on Overhead Mapping by TheUnproPro. He has a LOT of tutorials on RPG Maker VX Ace, conveniently split into "Season Episodes". It's well worth watching if you're starting out or even if you're an expert for the ideas alone.



You can visit his RPG Maker VX Ace Tutorials Youtube channel here.

Just A Quick Update

I've gone through the posts on this blog and rectified the ones that were missing or no longer working. No doubt I've missed a few, so let me know and I'll fix them. This includes links no longer working to software, utilities and online resource sites.

RPG Maker Times Companion has had a number of updates, including tutorials and utilities. I'm putting the updates on the home page for now, but as the rest of the (original) pages are completed, the updates will become more informative again.

The next project after this will be the windowskins.

RMVX Ace Windowskins - Tutorial

There has been a flurry of questions about RMVXA windowskins. Essentially they are the same as RMVX, so any windowskin designed for RMVX will also work with RMVXA. As with RMVX, use the Resource Manager (F10) in RMVXA to import the chosen windowskin into the Graphics/System folder.

When used in a game, they will look almost the same (see the comparisons below). However, RMVXA has additional colour settings that override the background graphic normally displayed in RMVX, resulting in only the border and cursor from the windowskin showing and the background becomes the default window colors.

RMVX Windowskin

RMVXA Windowskin

As you can see, the windowskins are the same, but with the background overridden by the default colors in RMVXA.

There is a script "cheat" to overcome this problem. Insert this snippet between Material and Main:

class Window_Base < Window
  # "true" to enable override, "false" to use default
  USE_WINDOWSKIN = true

  # Update Tone
  def update_tone
    self.tone.set($game_system.window_tone) unless USE_WINDOWSKIN
  end
end

The end result is this:

This is the Status Screen using the RMVXA windowskin, which is the same as the original RMVX one, without needing any conversion.

Scripts and Site Updates

Several scripts, tutorials and demos have been updated. They will also be updated on RPG Maker Times Companion shortly.

Scripts Updates

The following scripts have updates:

• Extra Stats Window v3.0 - Released very soon, pending a few tweaks and bug fixes.
• Q-Engine v2.0 Release Candidate - This has been undergoing a rewrite to make things easier and to address a number of additional conflicts.
• Q-Engine Message System (QeMS) v1.0 - This is a very basic but functional message system, with more added to it as time goes on. (Personal Note: This is more of a personal experiment to apply what I've learnt - am learning - about Regular Expressions; it probably won't be released for awhile in favour of the others.)
• Other Scripts - All other scripts I've written for RMXP and RMVX are being brought up-to-date and will eventually be migrated to RPG Maker Times Companion.

Tutorials/Demos Updates

A number of tutorials are being brought up-to-date as well, including the Complete Chests Tutorial (which has its own section on RPG Maker Times Companion). I'm hoping to concurrently release additional demos for all RPG Makers after the "original" is done. Most of the other demos attached to some of the tutorials will also be brought up-to-date.

Site Updates

All of the windowskins are being migrated to RPG Maker Times Companion. This includes all of the windowskin utilities and the windowskins on this blog, as well as its predecessor Wordpress website. You can find them at the Windowskins RMTC subdomain. They are neatly laid out for ease of use and convenience and on the index page you can preview them before deciding to download them.

RPG Maker Windowskins

Work on the RPG Maker Windowskins weblog has finally begun. The previous hosts have been taken down completely; instead, they redirect to this website.

All of the existing windowskins are slowly migrating to this site and, when finished, I'll be adding more as time goes on. In addition, the site will contain windowskin tutorials and how-to's, with several more planned at a later date.

These tutorials/how-to's are planned, but not implemented yet (these will be updated as soon as the windowskins database is up-to-date):

• How To Install Windowskins
• How To Tweak RMVXA Windowskins
• How To Use RGSS To Change Windowskins
• How to Install Multiple Windowskins

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EDIT: These are available on RPG Maker Times Companion.

Bank Tutorial Using Events (RM2K3/XP/VX/VXA)

Bank Tutorial

The Bank Tutorial (all versions) is finally online!

According to October 2012's poll, the majority voted for a simple event-based bank system as the next tutorial. So, here it is. Note that this is not a complete step-by-step tutorial, but a rough guide for creating our banking system. Instead, each RPG Maker tutorial can be downloaded and, once installed, can be scrutinised.

Make Your NPCs More Interesting

NPCs are essentially the lifeblood of an RPG. Life without them would be boring indeed. They can serve as merchants, old adventurers, town- or city-dwellers, advisers, and a plethora of other things. But many games fall victim to keeping the NPCs in the background, not really that memorable or lifeless.

LagunaXI has written a very good article, Ideas To Make Your NPCs More Interesting, which explains this problem perfectly. Here's a sample of it, a few paragraphs taken at random.

What do you mean place a random statue in the town!? Well let me explain. This is just the comical sub heading of my point, it doesn’t HAVE to be a statue it could be anything. A gravestone, an old abandoned shack maybe an old well. Something that has no real significance other than to be there. Not only does it provide a little back story to the town but more importantly (for this article) it makes an interesting talking point available for NPC’s living in the town. I’ll give a couple of examples.

Say I place a statue of a warrior in the middle of the town, some of the examples it opens up NPC Dialogue wise are…

“This statue was built when my Grandfather was just a small boy, so it must be pretty damn old huh?”

It's worth reading through the article, as it'll give a few additional ideas on how to bring NPCs to life and add dimension to a bustling town or city.

How To Convert an RMVX Game To RMVXA

Here's another essential utility for all RMVX/RMVXA users. I've not had an opportunity to try it out, but judging from the video it is very useful for those who have made the transition from RMVX to RMVXA.

You can download the utility directly here.

Caveat: It's important to note (as mentioned in the video) that it's highly unlikely that this utility will convert scripts, since RGSS2 and RGSS3 are vastly different. You'll have to convert the scripts on your own or find alternative scripts.

Custom Menu System [Radial] for RM2K3

This tutorial demonstrates how to create your own Custom Menu System (CMS) and "radial" menu for RM2K3. This is the first RM2K3 entry I've done in quite some time, but someone I know requested it so this is for you, my friend.

This is the Part 1. The second part can be found here.

Note: This should also work with RM2K with some tweaking.

Cutscene Tutorial - RMVX

This is a very commonly asked question, so here is a good tutorial from GeniusInMotion. It's around 30-minutes long, but it's worth watching to give an idea of how to create a cutscene.



The same principles also apply to RMXP and RMVXA, although if you're competent at making movies from scratch RMVXA will allow you to call the movie instead.

RPG Maker Magazine

RPG Maker Magazine is an online magazine dedicated to "console RPG Maker games", especially RPG Makers 2 and 3 for the PS2.

Not only that, they do have an active forum, which also contains some (though not much) content on the PC version RPG Makers.

There are some interesting articles in its online magazines as well, although this part of the site doesn't appear to have been updated in a while. Notwithstanding, it's still worth reading through them.

The list of games in the "Game Vault" is quite comprehensive, including RMXP and RMVX projects. And, of course, there's the inevitable guides and tutorials, including the game manual.

Overall, the site doesn't have much in the way of active content or updates - for all intents and purposes it's inactive - but it's still worth a mention solely based on its content and list of games. (I spent at least 90 minutes browsing through.)

RMVXAce - Ruby Tutorial 1 RGSS3 Review

Following on from the Ruby Tutorials in RPG Maker Videos series, Gubid has started a tutorial for RMVXA/RGSS3. Here's the first video, which takes a look at some of the changes in RGSS3 from RGSS2.

The rest of the tutorials, along with the RMVX/RGSS2 ones, are on GubiD's YouTube Channel.

Ruby Tutorials in RPG Maker Videos

While browsing around YouTube a while ago, I happened across some video tutorials. They are for RMVX only, but it shouldn't be difficult to port them over to RMXP. I've actually been going through them recently and have been learning a few tricks.

The first video tutorial - "vidorial"? - addresses a commonly asked question: How to remove the Save option from the Status Menu. Simple enough to do, but there are other areas you'll need to find to completely disable it, as the video explains.

Anyway, enough preamble.

Most of the tutorials on this channel are quite informative, easy to follow, and aimed more at the beginner to intermediate programmer. I'd highly recommend viewing the videos from the beginning. Experts, however, obviously have no need. At the time of writing this post, the current tutorial is at 18.

Small Island Town Map Tutorial (RMVX)

If you're like me and never really been too good at mapping, especially towns, then this video might inspire you. I thought it was a really neat way of doing it, so thought I'd share.

What I like about this video tutorial is that it's such a simple design, yet it works quite adequately for the purposes of an island town. And it's easy enough to design something similar for your own games.

Zelda Forest Maze Demo RMXP

Zelda Maze Demo RMXPA day earlier than "scheduled", this is the downloadable demo for the Zelda Forest Maze Tutorial. Incidentally, the demo itself was uploaded to File Factory on Thursday. It's been checked for viruses using Comodo Antivirus and is clean.

Once the file has downloaded, double-click on it to open it and choose the folder name to extract to. The reason it's a self-extract file is because the file size is greatly reduced (for archiving I use 7-Zip as the compression rate is much greater, thereby reducing file size).

Thanks to Decanos for kicking me in the butt with this.

Complete Chest Tutorial - RMXP/VX Redux

I'm still asked about how to create treasure chests, so I'm planning on bringing the Complete Chest Tutorial up-to-date, tailoring for RMXP and RMVX.

Regular visitors will already know about the RM2K3 tutorial I did, and it's easy enough to customize for RMXP/VX, but I'd like to expand upon it. I have a few ideas already, especially for more dynamic and randomized contents via scripting rather than pure eventing.

This is what I've covered so far:

• Chapter 1: Basic Chests
• Chapter 2: Locked Chests
• Chapter 3: Random Contents
• Chapter 4a: Combination Locks (Basic)
• Chapter 4b: Combination Locks (Advanced)
• Chapter 5: Trapped Chests
• Chapter 6: Picking Locks
• Chapter 7: Monster-In-A-Box
• Chapter 8: Items by Level (Hero Level)

• Extra Chapter 1: Front Opening

These are some ideas I've planned (some have been requested), so if you'd like to add to the list, feel free to leave your ideas in the comments and I'll go from there.

• Trap Disarm Skill - Used in combination with Chapter 5
• Lockpicking Skill - Used in combination with Chapter 6
• Monster-In-A-Box based on level - Used in combination with Chapter 7
• Treasure based on terrain/map ID - Omitted previously
• Dynamic Randomized Content - Event/script based
• Treasure Trail - Find the clues in order, then go to the location for the next clue, right up until you find the treasure (more like a mini game than a tutorial)
• Disappearing Chests - The chests disappear after being opened (with some animation)
• Monster Kill Chests - Chests only appear after a certain number of monsters are killed