I have a good excuse this time, though: Faraway Times, a game enthusiast and indie dev I follow on the fediverse, started an RPG Maker game jam and it's a perfect fit for me. If you're unfamiliar with game jams, it's an informal competition in which individuals or teams work to make a game within an intentional set of constraints in a limited time frame. It's a friendly competition and there are no prizes, the idea is to help people create something socially and have a point to start from.
My experience with RPG Maker goes back to the PlayStation version (released in North America in October of 2000) and unfortunately that's pretty much where it ends. As I recounted on the fediverse:
My main experience with RPGmaker was the playstation version. I didn't have a PSX but I had a friend who had it, and it was a terrible UI for making a game, so we never finished anything, and we'd have had no way to share it even if we did, but that didn't stop us from spending hours and hours brainstorming and passing the controller when our fingers started hurting. Making something for the joy of making it. I wish I didn't have that energy beaten out of me by the internet.
By the time there was an RPGmaker I could get on the computer, I was an adult, internet gamer culture was a thing, and there was such a stigma against games with default RPGmaker assets I would've been ashamed to release anything. I sure didn't have the chops to make something with original art like Yume Nikki or Sunset over Imdahl, and that was the only way you could get respect with an RPGmaker game. I wish I didn't let it get to me so much. I bet I could've been having fun.
So yeah, despite the classic JRPG being one of my favorite genres and despite good tools being available, I never tried to make one because the general consensus is that RPM games with default assets are a blight on gaming, even little ones that are put out for free. That, and the common wisdom that an RPG is too big of a project for one person, except the most committed and those who could dedicate Job amounts of time to it, and that was never me. I didn't want to start a game that would take me 10 years of free time to finish (and I already have one of those...)
So the cookie cutter RM2k3 jam seems tailor-made for me. It has a deadline of less than a month, so I can't get too carried away. There's a limited number of pre-designed maps I'm supposed to use without adding any, so I'm obligated to avoid scope creep. We're allowed to use custom assets, but with such a limited time frame we're not expected to. They're supposed to look like generic RPG Maker games, that's the point.
Still, I wasn't planning to join because I didn't have a copy of RPG Maker 2003. (I have a copy of MV that I bought for no money in one the numerous Steam Sale events. I've never used it.)
But then it went on sale for 90% off on Steam (which it still is until Feb. 23 if you wanna hop on the jam train.) Even a penniless woodland critter like myself can find two bucks for something important. I took it as a sign and shook the loose change from my proverbial couch cushions and picked up a copy.
I had been looking at the maps and thinking about the kind of game I would make with them if I had the engine, so once I did, I imported the maps and started sketching out my ideas. Then I realized "oh shit, I think I just joined the jam". So I joined the jam.
I have most of the game planned out in notes and in my head. I still don't know if I'll finish before the end of the month. Even with such a small scope, with no asset work required, I still don't know if I'll have time. It's not the writing; I don't like when games are too verbose, so I'm keeping the dialogue etc. pretty efficient.
It's the scripting: every new event you introduce creates fractal contingencies that you have to plan for. Like, what if after getting important story dialogue X, the player unexpectedly leaves town and goes across the map and does Y out of order which totally contradicts it? Yeah, they probably won't, but you have to account for it just in case they do. Or what if you forget to update an NPC's dialogue after a major event so they repeat what they said the last time the player talked to them, which now feels out of place and nonsensical? Too much of this and a world that could otherwise feel coherent and alive collapses into a jumbled mess of tangled logic.
Any RPG that aims higher than a Dragon Quest I level of story complexity is going to have to deal with this; the more things that happen, the more you have to plan for. The next time you play a big open-world RPG, try to imagine all the ways the player could break the game by doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, and all the sleepless nights the devs must have spent adding failsafes to make sure none of it happens. It boggles the mind.
I've been bringing my laptop to work (like, my actual computer that I use at home) so I can work on it during my lunch break. My brain hates it when I only work on something for one hour, and it bullies me. It makes me feel like I barely did anything at all, which makes me feel despair; but I'm going to have to get over it because that's the only chance I have of finishing by the deadline. Even then, I don't know if my chances are better than 50/50. I'm still going finish it and release it even if I don't make the deadline, but I'll be a lot happier if I do.
The cable station has been moved fully to the backburner while I work on this, and everything I've been wanting to write is going to have to wait too; but making games is the main thing I wish I could do with my life, so it feels good to be doing it again 🦝