Creating a visual novel in RPGMaker

RPGMaker is definitely not intended to be used to create a visual novel, but I'm doing it anyway.

So why am I doing it? I'm doing it because I wanted to create something that is more unique than a JRPG. I initially wanted to create an RPG without the overworld travel, because I always have found that to be the most tedious part. I started simple, creating a battle scene. By doing this simple step I realized that I have no idea how to make combat engaging in an RPG, also I am not very skilled at scripting, so I created a system where you would have to choose specific skills based on hints given during combat (kind of like an easy riddle), this worked, but the implementation could definitely be better*.

The next thing I wanted to implement was endurance-based combat, where the goal would be to survive as long as you can, with failure being the inevitable result. The only problem with this was that it didn't fit the story**. So that idea was scrapped.

It was at this point during development that I realized that I didn't have a good plan for how to continue this without it seeming tedious, so I removed combat completely for the next battle scenes***. The first scene was just dialogue where I figured out how to create choices within the dialogue (show choices in events, crazy). The second scene was a little more interesting since I wanted to allow interaction with separate entities within the scene. The method I ended up using for this was to check to see what the health of the enemy was at and do something if it was, long story short, I found out that I was doing it in the worst way possible and changed it to the second worst way possible, that being that I didn't realize you could have troop events happen per turn instead of per battle, so I set events that check if the enemy is below 99% health each turn (you also heal the enemy so they can't die). I should also note that I changed the attack button to say interact so players don't suspect anything is off (I did not change that damage is shown, so there's that).

I knew that if my game is going to be any longer than a few minutes players needed to be able to save. I thought this would be easy since you can just call the save screen in RPGMaker, but apparently you can't save in the middle of a battle (massive oversight, I know). What I ended up doing as a workaround was having a variable keep track of what scene you were in, then loading to that scene when you reopened the game.

Now I had a few scenes implemented I needed a way for the story to progress, so I created a skill called "explore". This allows the player to progress the story when they are done with a scene. It works by keeping track of the number of times which the player explored and then loading the proper scene, also, once you reach the end of exploration it won't increment anymore so you don't get weird errors (the other option would be to remove the skill). Since players may not know about this skill since it just appears after the intro scene I have dialogue mentioning that the player should check their skills if they are stuck.

I worried that players may want to go back to places they had already visited, so I tried making a skill that allowed them to go back to anyplace they already visited, but I ended up making this just go to the same place, instead of the same event, since there isn't much reason to revisit anywhere anyway. What ends up happening is that after the player sees everything (or before that if they really want to) they can progress the story further by travelling back to people they have already met. The places that have already been visited are stored in a variable so that we know what options to give to the player. Also, since RPGMaker by default only allows 4 options I decided to only have four locations, this also influenced the not travelling to where you already have been.

There is one more skill that I haven't mentioned, it is called pray. Guess what that does, I'll wait...

Almost nothing, since it is a story-based game there isn't really a reason to pray, but I felt bad for having a skill that does nothing, so I made it do something if you use the skill 1,000 times (or was it 100?). This is supposed to offer relief to any player who finds themselves doing the same thing too many times in a row, such that there is a point where they will stop.

The two (three?) parts of developing a game this way that take the most time are writing a story and creating art/music. I really enjoy drawing as well as making music so this is a pretty enjoyable project for me. And since RPGMaker is simple (for the most part, wait until the next paragraph) it allows me to focus on the more enjoyable parts of creating a video game.

I am now trying to port what I have made so far into RPGMaker MV so that I can increase the resolution (trying to create a plugin that does that right now****) without causing weird placement issues and such. And then I will try and make a conclusion to the story so that I can say the game is complete.

So, what have I learned? One, making things easier for yourself isn't a bad thing (*cough*useplugins*cough*) as it allows you to focus on the things you actually care about. Two, terrible implementation is better than no implementation, so if you can't make something work well just make it work. And finally RPGMaker can be used for more than just JRPGs.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

-EXPGST

*How the system works: Skills set flags which are checked during combat to branch dialogue/events

**remind me to make a game like this later, the story doesn't really make sense anyway. More specifically you lose your sanity as battles continue and things get darker/twisted/more scary as the battle goes on. It would be kind of like the horror game, but there was going to be a twist at the end (can't say what that is because I might make the game in 5 years).

***The battle scenes link through calling battle processing of the next scene when certain conditions are met

****I know there are plugins that already exist, I want to practice coding