Category Archives: Tutorials

IGM Tutorial: Flow

Posted on by
Reply

Want to check out a PDF of this tutorial? Right click save as HERE.

We’ve worked with the “Flow” tab previously, but now we’re going to look at it with a bit more depth. Load up your shooting game, or grab this GPD real quick and let’s get started!

Basically what we’re going to do is create two memories, then tell the game that when those memories go up by one it should switch stages. Pretty simple stuff, but it’s just a small taste of what the “Flow” system is capable of doing. So first stop on our adventure is to the “Materials” tab and the “Memories” sub-tab. Create two memories named “Stage 1″ and “Stage 2″. Leave both of their initial values at zero. Continue reading →

IGM Tutorial: Changing Tiles

Posted on by
Reply

Want to check out a PDF of this tutorial? Right click save as HERE.

This is gonna be a short one, but very cool. Load up the shooting game we’ve been working on, or just download the GPD and open it up.

This time we’re gonna make tiles change when our ship crashes into them. It’s a very simple process, but it’s aesthetically awesome. Head to your “Materials” tab first and “Update” your Land tiles, or “Create” a new one using the following resource:

If you choose to “Update” the old Land graphic don’t forget to add 2 to the “Split Graphic (Horizontal)” field making Horizontal 8, and Vertical 1. It still only needs to be used for Tiles so don’t bother changing that. Continue reading →

Creating an Effective Opening

Posted on by
13

So you’ve started your game, but you don’t seem to be getting as much buzz as you like. A few people have played your opening demo but no one seems to care that much.

What we have here, is an opening failure. Now, tons of people will tell you that the opening of a story is one of the most important aspects for acquiring and keeping fans.

And they are right. But with a free indie game, they are even MORE right. Let’s be honest, when we buy a PS3 game (or whatever your system of choice is) for 60 bucks you have much more incentive to keep playing even if you felt the opening wasn’t very good. I may not like the opening, but I’m sure going to play until I get something good just to not have wasted that money.

With an RPG Maker game, even one that you charge a small amount for, you don’t have that luxury. People don’t have anything invested in your game, so you have to GIVE them something to be invested in.

So how do we do that? Continue reading →

IGM Tutorial: Saving

Posted on by
2

Want to check out a PDF of this tutorial? Right click save as HERE.

Today we’re going to make incredibly basic save and load gadgets. These can be expanded upon with menus and graphics among other things, but this tutorial is only going to cover the basic mechanics of how to save to a file and load from it.

We’ll be making these using the Action RPG plugin. You can download the GPD with everything you need to start this tutorial already set up, or you can start from scratch with these resources. Continue reading →

IGM Tutorial: Lives Left

Posted on by
Reply

Want to check out a PDF of this tutorial? Right click save as HERE.

Thus far in our shooting game we’ve made enemies, we have hit points, and we can die endlessly. Let’s go over how to put a cap on dying, show the number of lives left on the screen, and rock a game over screen.

So the first thing we need to do is figure out how many lives we want. I say two (just to keep it a different number from our max health). Open up our shooting game and head to the “Materials” tab and the “Memories” sub-tab. Here you’ll find a bunch of preset memories in red. One of them is “Player Lives Left”. There is also one for “Player Max Lives” but you don’t need to worry about it for now. On “Player Lives Left” just increase the number to two and you’re done here.

Continue reading →

IGM Tutorial: Health Bar

Posted on by
1

Want to check out a PDF of this tutorial? Right click save as HERE.

We’ve already went over how to show enemy and player health with numbers.
Let’s take that knowledge and use it to apply a health bar instead. We’ll be
using the shooting game we were working on. Here is the GPD if you need it.
Health bar resource!

So import your health bar under the “Materials” tab, and then head to the
“Memories” sub-tab. You already have your “Player Health” memory set at 3, but
in order for a health bar to work properly you need to set your Max Health as
well. So go ahead and change that memory to 3 for now. Then head to the
“Menus” tab and the “Menu Parts” sub-tab. Continue reading →

VX Ace: Make Your Own Game Tutorial VII: Creating Encounters Part 2

Posted on by
8

In this tutorial we will finish up creating our encounters, and create the sample games final boss: Morris the Fanatic cultist!

If you would like to read the full version, right click save as the pdf version HERE. But now, let’s get on to the preview! Continue reading →

IGM Tutorial: The Basics Of Menus

Posted on by
Reply

Want to check out a PDF of this tutorial? Right click save as HERE.

So far we’ve made a very basic platformer, and a very basic shooter. What we’re going to do now is go over how to create Menus. Menus can be very complex. They can be altered with switches and memories as well as alter everything about your game if you want. You can use them to create an RPG styled menu, a new game/load/continue screen, or they can be an integral part in your game play. You could even make a text-based RPG just using a series of menus.

We’re going to need options for our menu so load up our shooting game and take a little bit of time to create another canvas similar to our first. Once you have that done create a third canvas and name it Menu if you like, then head to the “Materials” tab and the “Text” sub-tab. Continue reading →

IGM Tutorial: Projectiles

Posted on by
Reply

Want to check out a PDF of this tutorial? Right click save as HERE.

Finally we shall cover projectiles! Let’s make our ship from the last tutorial shoot at some stuff. Resources!

So first you need something for it to shoot. Grab the dark ship and the dark bullets and we’ll make ourselves an enemy that shoots back. The first part of this is easy stuff. Just import the new graphics via the “Materials” tab then head to the “Animations” sub-tab to copy and paste the Player Ship we made last time. After that just replace its graphics with the new Enemy Ship and rename it if you like. Because this is an enemy and not our player gadget we’ll need to change the way its hit detection works a little bit. Use these to make the ship hurt our ship when they collide, and to take damage from our player gadget’s bullets. Continue reading →

IGM Tutorial: Pausing

Posted on by
1

Want to check out a PDF of this tutorial? Right click save as HERE.

Let’s go over how to create a simple way to pause a game. I’ll be using the shooting game from the last couple of tutorials, but this will apply to any game. All you need is a menu set up on the screen you wish to pause (I will be using the HUD menu we created for the shooting game).

Go to the “Materials” tab and the “Text” sub-tab. Hit “Create” and a window will pop up asking you what text you would like for this particular material. This can be changed at any time. For now I just went with “PAUSE”. Next to “Standard Font” select “Font 16 x 16″ from the drop down menu. Over to the right you’ll see “PAUSE” in a preview window. Continue reading →