Beginner's Guide To RPG Maker VX

BEGINNERS GUIDE TO RPGMAKERVX
H ow t o ea sil y g et st a rt ed wit h R P G M aker V X

Created by BenKo & Continued by Kelsper June 2011 V 0.8
Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX
INDEX
Introduction ............................................................................................ 5
Why this guide? The methodology
Game development................................................................................. 7
Programmers versus designers The team
Legend of Gladius .................................................................................. 11

The story Locations Quests Items and weapons
Creating maps ....................................................................................... 13

The world map The village Interiors
Basic events .......................................................................................... 19

Starting position Transfers Doors Decoration events Treasure chests
Basic NPCs and dialogs ......................................................................... 25

Sign posts Inns Dialog choices Shops Customizing texts Walking NPCs
Game elements ..................................................................................... 37

Items States Skills Weapons and armors Jobs Party members
Enemies and battles .............................................................................. 53

Monsters! Troops Encounters
Story ..................................................................................................... 61
Cut-scenes Forbidden places
Foreword, Part Two ............................................................................... 68

Importing tile sets Passage settings Creating the Forbidden Forest Title Screen
Continuing On ....................................................................................... 76
Gladius ruins Mini Boss Common events Very basic scripting
Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX Wrapping up Limes dialogue Music & Sound Effects Ogres Tower
Refinement and Balancing......................................................... 95

Progression Weather Effects Balancing Save Points Advanced Skills Battle Backgrounds
Finishing Up..................................................... 115

Final Cutscene Kill X Monsters Quest Vehicles Parallax Backgrounds Distribution
Epilogue..........................................................130
Summary Glossary Credits
INTRODUCTION
WHY THIS GUIDE?
Truth is I wrote this guide mainly for myself. I downloaded RPG Maker VX and began to tests things until I got stuck with something and had to browse the Net for the solution to that problem. Most of the times, I found a tutorial which taught what I wanted to do. Other times, however, I had to dig in some forums or read blogs. This system works but has some flaws: What if I forget something? Lets say I stop using RPG Maker VX for a couple of months Will I be able to remember everything, considering that Im a newbie? I dont think so. This leads us to... I dont want to lose my time! Everything I needed to know was scattered all over the Net. And not every answer was clear Sometimes I was confused and didnt understand how something was explained until I learnt other stuff. This is because the information is not organized. And this implies that My way of getting knowledge was wrong. Whenever you want to learn something, you must learn the basics first. So, this guide is for me because I wanted to have all the basic stuff covered in just one place, and organized. This guide is also for my friends whom I try to convince to create games with me ;-) And, of course, this guide is for everyone who downloaded RPG Maker VX and doesnt know where to start.
Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX In addition, Id like to recommend you to these forums: http://www.rpgmakervx.net . I learnt a lot of stuff there and the community seems friendly and willing to help. At those forums you will find a tutorial called RPG Maker School (created by Andria), which is a RPG that will teach you a lot of useful things. You definitely want to download and play it! If you have any comments or suggestions about this guide, you can send an e-mail to ladybenko@gmail.com.
THE METHODOLOGY
In this guide well be creating together, step by step, one mini-RPG. Attached to this guide you should have also got the RPG Maker VX project so you can take a look if you ever get lost. In order to get the most of this guide, you should run RPG Maker VX and execute the instructions provided as you are reading the text. You will work much faster if you print a copy of this guide or use two video displays. Each section of the guide explains a single concept and they are convenient titled and indexed, so you can find quickly this information later when you are working on your own project. However, chapters and sections are ordered so you can learn concepts increasingly. Thats why you should read the chapters in order the first time you read the guide. This guide contains a lot of screenshots detailed explanations at the beginning, but I tried not to repeat much stuff. Please dont get scared when you look at the number of pages of this document! Most of the space is filled with pictures, so reading should be quick. Happy learning!
GAME DEVELOPMENT
This chapter does not contain information specific for RPG Maker VX, but you should read if you are new to game development.
PROGRAMMERS VERSUS DESIGNERS

Nowadays, developing a professional game takes a team working full time for months (in casual games like Bejeweled) or even years (in AAA games like Diablo). Each member of the team has a role: concept artist, animator, coder, tester, producer, designer, etc. In amateur and casual game development teams are usually small (five or less people) and most of the times a member of the team has several roles assigned to him: designer, programmer and tester, for example. Young people usually become interested in game development because they want to make a game. Then they learn that in order to do that, they need to create a program with a thing called compiler (they heard that C++ is the industry standard and start to learn that) and APIs such as OpenGL or DirectX. At the same time, they join a game development forum and post a message saying that they are going to create a RPG and that they need help and advice. The most common thing that will happen is that veteran members of the forum will laugh and discourage that newbie. And they are right: you cannot develop a RPG on your own, especially if you dont have previous experience. However, you can design a RPG on your own. Being a programmer is different from being a designer. If you want to program a RPG, you will have to code the game engine, which handles stuff such as rendering meshes and sprites on the screen, collect input from the keyboard and gamepad, detecting collisions, the AIs core, etc. If you want to design a RPG you will have to
Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX create the maps and levels, set the AI for the enemies, balance combats, jobs, weapons and stats. You will also likely get to write the story and dialogues and design the main characters Do you want to be a programmer? A designer? Both? There is no wrong answer here. Each person has his own interests and some people find coding very exciting and challenging and dont want to be bothered with stuff like level design. Some other people would rather spend their time writing a beautiful story or creating interesting maps and quests. If you decide to become a programmer, buy a good C++ book and learn OpenGL. If you want to program 2D games you can also take a look at Microsofts XNA and C#. If you decide to become a designer, you have two options: a) Recruit a team of programmers who will code a game engine for you. b) Buy a pre-made game engine for some specific genre, such as RPG Maker VX. The first option will cost you a lot of money and time. You might have some friends willing to do that for free but keep in mind that this will be their hobby and that they will be doing it in their free time. That implies that you will have to wait a couple of years until you get your engine done (if youre lucky and they dont give up the project). However, if you are successful with this, you will have a fully customized engine that will suit perfectly your needs. The second option will save you a lot of time. Good news is that there are very affordable game engines. For example, RPG Maker VX will cost you only $60 and you will get some quality art and sounds assets. Keep in mind that this engine will have some restrictions and might not adapt entirely to your initial design: you will need to sacrifice some features in order to save time and money. Again, be aware that theres no a best choice. Some people think that makers are for losers and that real men code their own engines. This is wrong. There are some successful games which are a modding (i.e. use a 3rd party game engine) of another game. For example, Counter Strike is a mod of Half Life: Counter Strikes developers created new levels and art assets and scripted the new game behavior for Counter Strike. Scripting is the medium which designers use to communicate with the game engine. This can be done by using an editor (this is the case of RPG Maker VX) and/or a specific script language. To finish this section, lets read an extract of an interview to Amanda Fith1, and indie game designer who has successfully released several games made with makers, all of them were sales hits in casual games sites such as Big Fish Games. Q: You've used some pretty high-end toolkits for creating your games specifically RPG Maker for your two RPGs. Some people get a little funny about that. On the one hand, some people treat it as if it's somehow
You can read the full interview at http://www.rampantgames.com/blog/2006/11/interview-withamanda-fitchindie-rpg.html. Its really interesting.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX cheating - that it is both overly constricting and somehow "too easy." Yet there are very few finished games out there using these engines, let alone polished, commercial-quality games of the quality and scope of Aveyond. So what does it really take to create a polished, commercial-quality game using a higher-level engine? If it's much harder than it sounds, is a higherlevel engine even useful? A: I knew that when I released Aveyond that I was stepping into the briar patch. I was very worried about how the development community would feel about my approach. I repeated to myself over and over again that my goal was not to please developers, but to please players []. And I think shes right. Most players dont care about how games work on the inside. They care about the outside, because thats what they are interacting with.
THE TEAM
Whether you chose to recruit a bunch of programmers to code an engine or not, you will still have to get a team: artists, music composers, other designers and so on. Rule of thumb: you get what you pay for. If you want to create a game and make it look professional and polished, chances are you will be paying money to your team. If you dont want to spend money and just want to create a RPG as a hobby or to learn new things, you can recruit a team of hobbyists to help you with the project. If this is the case, here there are some advices for you and your team: Aim for quality, not quantity. People would rather play a short, polished game than a long crappy one. Create good art. Design your maps with love and care. Write a thrilling story. Make your NPCs rich and interesting. Balance the combats with enemies. You can have all that in just one hour of gameplay. Reduce the scope of your game to be able to pay attention to every detail in it. Assign a reasonable time span to the development. If you are designing your game and estimate that it will take one year to complete it, then dont do it! Projects usually take twice, three times (or even more!) more months than expected. If you plan a game small enough to complete it in three months, you will be likely working on it for almost a year. That sounds pretty much reasonable and reduces the risk of someone leaving the team. This is not your project. If you work with a team made of people working for free, everyone should have his saying in every aspect of the game design and development. You are not their boss, you are their team mate.
Recruiting people can be hard at times. How do you make talented people (who are the most requested inside the community) get interested in your idea instead of working for some elses or their own?
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX Prove that they can trust you. Even if this is just a hobby, time is money and people dont like losing time. If someone joins your team and is working for a couple of months and then the project is abandoned, this person would have lose his time. Show that you can complete a project and get things done. The best way to do that is to have a small portfolio of completed projects. Yes, it is hard to complete a project only on your own, but you can complete a very small project. Just make it look great. In addition to that, you can start developing your game using existing art assets. If people get to play a demo and they like it, they might join your team to improve the game. As you can see, the key here is to have real, tangible stuff to earn other peoples trust.
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LEGEND OF GLADIUS
All along this guide we will be creating a very simple and short RPG, titled Legend of Gladius. The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the story and design of this RPG. Of course, in a real project, you should write a good design document which describes the full story, characters, NPCs, items, tows, etc.
THE STORY
Salazar (a warrior) and Zach (a rogue) are two friends who leave their homeland looking for adventures. They both lack experience and money, but are brave and ambitious. In their journey, they arrive to Evergreen, a small village in the island of Kretus. There, they meet Lime, a young sorceress. She tells them how the whole island suffers the tyranny an evil ogre. She asks Salazar and Zach to join her and kill the ogre together. They agree, and she tells them to prove their value by going deep into the Forbidden Forest and taking Gladius, a mythical sword. Once they get this magic sword, Lime will join the group and together they will go to the Ogres lair and kill him.
LOCATIONS
Our world will be reduced to the island of Kretus. Inside this island, the player can travel to these different locations:
Village of Evergreen: this is Limes village. The village is small, but has an inn and a shop.
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Forbidden Forest: this is a dungeon, inhabited by dangerous creatures such as slimes, spiders, bats, etc. The Ogres Lair: this is a small dungeon. The final boss is inside, as well as some other minor monsters, like rats.
QUESTS
The game has only one main quest, but this quest can be split in two smaller ones, which must be completed in order: 1. Go to the Forbidden Forest and fetch Gladius, the magic sword. 2. Go to the Ogres Lair and kill the evil Ogre, who will be the final boss of the game.
ITEMS AND WEAPONS

There will be these items in the game. All of them can be purchased in the villages shop, or found dropped by enemies after a combat.
Potion: restores life Magic water: restores mana Antidote: heals poison Stimulant: revives a character from KO
The party has established initial equipment which cant be upgraded. The exception is the sword Gladius, which will be used by Salazar.
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CREATING MAPS
THE WORLD MAP
Setup a new project by selecting File/New Project in the main menu. Title it whatever you want.
You can see now the main screen of RPG Maker VX. In the sidebar there are the tilesets you will use to draw your game maps, and a list of them. Theres a map created by default, called MAP001. This will be our world map, but we have to adjust its properties. Right click on it and select Map Properties. In this dialog you can configure all your maps parameters. For now, change its name and set its size to 17x13 (this is the minimum size for a map, by the way).
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You can start to draw your world map now! In our case, the world map is the island of Kretus. All floor and walls tiles are located in the tab A. The best tiles for world maps are these ones:
Draw your island with non-regular shapes and include some mountains and forests. Also you can use the deep ocean tile to make your sea more interesting. Heres what I came up with:
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX In tabs from B to E you will find tiles that will be drawn over the tiles from tab A: these are decorations such as trees, windows, etc. Choose some of these tiles to draw the Village of Evergreen, the Forbidden Forest and the Ogres lair. Heres the finished world map:
THE VILLAGE
We have to draw the village in another new map. In order to do that, create a new map by right clicking on your project roots folder and selecting New Map. Choose a bigger size (for example, 25x20) this time and type an appropriated name for it. Your projects map tree should look like this now:
Choose a terrain tile among the following and use the paint bucket tool on the tool bar to fill the whole map with grass, earth, sand or snow. Then, use another other tiles to draw roads and fences. With the rest of tiles from this tab (A), you can also draw walls and roofs. Draw some houses (minimum of two: they will become later our inn and shop).
Try to draw irregular shapes: your map will look more realistic and natural. You can take a look at other peoples maps and learn from them.
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Now that we have a basic layout, its time to add some decorations: pick plants, trees, windows and the like from tabs B-D.
Dont forget to add some information signs to the inn and the shop. They will help the player to locate them.
INTERIORS
There are three buildings in the village and the player will be able to enter into two of them: the inn and the shop. Lets start with the shop by creating a new map of size 17x13. This time dont right click on the projects root, but in the villages map. This way you will have your maps organized (very useful when you have a large game).
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX Draw the walls and the floor. Keep in mind that you dont have to fill the whole map area. Transparent areas will be rendered with black color or with a custom background.
Once you have the buildings structure, add the furniture and decorations. Some tiles are special: the counters. Counters are useful because you can interact with Non Player Characters (NPCs) even when there are counters in between. You can use these tiles as counters (from tab A):
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And heres how my own shop looks like:
Its time for the inn now. Our inn will be a two-story building, so were going to need two maps. Create them (minimum size again) and proceed just like we did with the shop. Dont forget to add some stairs to connect the floors!
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX And here they are: first and second floors of our beautiful inn.
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BASIC EVENTS
Events are a core feature of RPG Maker VX: with them, your game comes alive. Events are an entity with an attached behavior and/or a graphic representation. For example, NPCs are events: they have a picture associated with it (graphic representation) and they move around or talk to the player (behavior). Some events havent got a graphic representation (for example, an event which will launch a battle when you enter some location) and some havent got a behavior (for example, a glowing animated candle on a table). In this chapter we will begin to learn how to create simple events, such as doors or chests.
STARTING POSITION
The starting position of the main character when the game begins is not an event but it is created as such. To set it up, you just have to enable the Event mode by clicking the correspondent button at the toolbar. The map will darken slightly and a square grid will also appear when changing to Event mode.
Now right click on some tile of your world map and select Set Starting Position / Player.
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TRANSFERS
Transfer events allow us to set connections between maps: they teleport the main character from one location to another one (this location can be part of the same map, or be in a different one). In our case, well set up a connection between the world map and the village, and make this connection bi-directional. Show up the world map and change the editing mode to
Right click on the village tile in the island and choose Quick Event Creation/Transfer.
At the New Transfer Event dialog, set the direction to Up. This direction will be the one that the main character will be looking at. Since the character will later appear at the road located at the bottom of the village, Up seems the most appropriated direction. Change this if you draw your map in a different way. Once youve set the direction, click on the ellipsis to select where the character will teleport.
Select the map for the village and then click on the tile you want the main character appear. It will look more natural when playing if this tile is a road.
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Accept both open dialog windows and you are done! The player can now enter the village from the world map. Now we have to make this connection bi-directional: the player should also be able to leave the village and enter the world map. To do that, repeat the steps to create a transfer event on a tile at the border of the villages map. Now you can playtest your game by clicking the Playtest button. Try to go from one map to the other.
DOORS
Doors are just transfer events with an associated animated door image. Creating doors is as easy as transfers, so lets start! Go to your villages map and enable the Event mode. Right click on the empty door space in the shops building and select Quick Event Creation/Door.
A new dialog window will appear. If you double click on the doors image, youll be able to select a different picture for the door.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX Choose one that suits your building and click on the ellipsis to change the destination. Select a tile from your shops interior map as the doors destination and you are done!
Once thing you might have noticed is that I didnt choose as destination the tile which later will be used as the shops exit. Why? The teleporting will work anyway, but if the player makes a mistake and enters the shop without willing it, he would have to step off that tile and stepping on it again in order to leave the shop. Its just a matter of taste; you can set the same tile as your buildings entrance and exit. Now that we have set up the door, the only thing left is allowing the player to leave the shop. Create a teleporting event back to the villages map and playtest your map to see if everything is working as it should. Repeat the steps to create a door for the inn. Dont forget to create also a transfer event to leave the inn and two more transfer events to go upstairs and downstairs. Remember that if you ever make a mistake creating events, you can delete them by right clicking on them and selecting Delete.
DECORATION EVENTS
Those quick events we have created until now have a behavior attached to them. Now we are going to create some behaviorless events, which will be only used for decoration purposes. In the village (well, at least in mine) there is some building without an interior map associated. The player, therefore, wont be able to enter on it. If you browse all the tile tabs, you will notice that there are not closed doors as tiles. However, there are some sprite sheets that can be attached to events: you have already seen them with the doors events. So, in order to put a closed door in our map, we have to create a new event. Right click on the doors empty space and select New Event.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX The new event dialog will appear. Its quite large, but dont panic!
First things first: give your event an appropriated name. This will keep stuff organized and will help you greatly in the long run. Now double click in the graphic area and select a door you like. No more work here, were finished!
Behaviorless events can also have an animated image. Lets create a fountain for our town. Right click on the center of the towns square (I put a well there) and select New event.
The same dialog window will appear. Double click on the graphic area and choose a stream of water.
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Right now this is just a non-animated event. To force the image to be animated even when the event is not moving, check the Stepping anim checkbox (you can uncheck the Walking anim checkbox as it is right now, it doesnt matter).
Playtest your game and watch our wonderful fountain!
TREASURE CHESTS
Chests can be created with the quick event creation. We are going to put a chest containing some gold at the second floor of the inn. Right click on a tile of that map and select Quick Event Creation/Treasure chest.
Select an image you like and click on the Gold radio button and set the amount of money you want to reward the player with.
And thats all! Play and get the gold to see it working.
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NPCS AND DIALOGS

Non Player Characters (NPCs) and dialogs are also created via events (like almost everything!). In this chapter we will learn how to create dialogs and setup fully functional shops and inns!
SIGN POSTS
The first thing you should know is that dialogs can be triggered by any kind of event, not only NPCs. A sign post is just an event with an appropriate graphic with a dialog attached to it. To create one, right click on the entrance of your village and select New event.
Give it a name and double click in the graphic area to select an image for this sign.
Right now this is just a decoration, behaviorless event. But we dont want it to be like that. To add custom behavior, double click on the List of Event Commands area.
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A new dialog will appear, with tons of tabs and actions. Fortunately, this dialog is quite well organized, so it is likely you wont have any problems with that. The command we want to execute is called Show Text and is located inside tab 1.
Click on it and you will get to configure the text box that will appear. Type the name of your village and accept the dialogs.
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There is still also a small, but very important, change to make. However, to understand it better playtest your game right now. Go to the sign post and press the Action button (key Enter). See? Nothing happens! Why? Lets do a short test. Try to change the image of the sing post for another one. Pick a tile your character could walk through if you drew it on a map. For example, these rocks:
Playtest and try again. This time you will notice that you can trigger the dialog if the character is right over the event.
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However, this is not a correct behavior. What we want to do is trigger the dialog when the player is by the side of the sign post, not over it! Furthermore, since the sign post image we chose is a tile that wont let the character walk over it, the dialog will never be triggered. Of course, we can change this. There is a panel named Priority with a dropdown list. With this, you can configure how the character will interact with the event. If you set it to Same as characters, the event will be like a physical entity with the same rank as the main character. That is, you can talk to the sign post as if it were a person!
Other possible values are Below characters and Above characters. The first one is for events which should be rendered below the main character; the second one is for events which should be rendered above the main characters (like birds, for example). Dont forget to set the sign post image again and playtest the game. It should work now as expected.
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INNS
Creating an inn event its very easy because it can be made with the Quick Event Creation. An inn event will let the party members to restore all their life and mana points in exchange for money. Enable Event mode, choose the inns map (first floor) and right click on a tile behind the counter and select Quick Event Creation/Inn.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX In the next dialog you get to choose a graphic for the innkeeper and the price to stay one night. Set these options as you like and thats all!
Playtest your brand new inn and see how it looks. Cool, aint it?
DIALOG CHOICES
We have already created some simple dialog with the sign post. But dialogs can get more complex than that: you can assign an avatar to every dialog box and also offer the player several choices and branch the dialog from there. Lets create now some dialog with choices. It will be the start of our shop. In Event mode, right click on a shops tile and select New Event.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX Name the event accordingly and choose a graphic for the NPC (this will be the shopkeeper). Also, make sure that Priority is set to Same as Characters.
Now double click on the List of Event Commands to insert a new command. Choose Show Text to display a greeting message. Type some text and choose a face for the NPCs avatar.
To display the choices, double click again on the List of Event Commands and select Show Choices (tab 1).
You can set up to four different choices in the next dialog. The When Cancel panel lets you configure which choice will be selected if the player press the Cancel button (key Escape). Leave the defaults (Yes and No) and accept the dialog.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX If you playtest the game now, you will be able to trigger the greeting and the choices, but nothing will happen when you select one of them.
Lets fix that. Right click on the event and select Edit event. The events dialog will appear and you can continue to make changes to it. Take a look to the List of Event Commands: You can see a bifurcation with two branches: When Yes and When No. These are our options. Inside the Yes branch you can insert the commands that will be executed when the player selects Yes in the dialog. Double click inside this branch, select a Show Text command and create some test message.
Now you should have something like this:
Playtest it and check everything is working fine.
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SHOPS
Lets now finish the shop. Edit the shopkeeper event and delete the test message we created to test the Yes branch. You can do this by right clicking on the command and selecting Delete.
Fortunately for us, a shop is just another command. So double click inside the Yes branch and choose Shop Processing in tab 3.
In the new dialog that will appear you can set up all the items that will be sold in this shop. If you check the Purchase only checkbox, the player wont be allowed to sell items from the inventory. Double click on the panel to pick an item. Insert Potion, Magic Water, Antidote and Stimulant. This shop will only sell items, neither weapons nor armors.
Your list of event commands should be like this one:
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Play the game to see the shop in action. If you want to buy something, you can get some money in the treasure chest that is located at the inns second floor.
CUSTOMIZING TEXTS
The text you type in dialog boxes can be customized to display the characters name or to appear written with a different color, for example. The way to do this is via some markup tags (like those you use in some forums to put text in bold, for example). Some of these tags are:
\. stops for 0.25 seconds \| stops for 1 second \c[x] changes the color, where x is the number of the color we want to use. Default is
0 (white) \G opens an additional text box displaying the money the party has got. \N[x] displays the actors (a member of the party) name, where x is the number of that actor.
Lets try this with an example. Edit your sign post event and add a new command to the List of Command Events. Choose Show Text and type the following message:
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Hello, \N[1]. \. Welcome to \c[2]Evergreen\c[0] \| How long you and \N[2] are you gonna stay?
Playtest the game and trigger the sign post event. You should see something like this (pay attention to pauses made with \. and \|).
From this example you can learn that, in order to write text with a different color, you have to use \c[x] and \c[0] to write in white color again. Also, you will notice that characters (actors) number 1 and 2 are called Ralph and Ulrika. How do we know which character corresponds to which number? Easy, just click on the Database button in the toolbar.
In the Actors tab you will see the characters that RPG Maker VX creates by default. They can be changed, of course (and you dont have to use exactly 8 characters), but we will do it later. Character number 1 is always the main character, so its pretty safe to use that number.
Now you can delete this last command, for it makes no sense in a sign post.
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WALKING NPCS
NPCs (and events in general) dont have to be static in a tile: they can move across the map. There are different types of movement; all of them correspond to options in the Autonomous Movement panel.
Fixed: no movement at all (default) Random: movement in random directions Approach: makes the event chase the main character Custom: lets you customize the movement
Also, you can set the Speed (how fast the event moves) and the frequency (how often the event moves). As an example, lets create a kid who lives in the town and just plays around. Create a new event in the villages map (or maybe hes the son of the innkeeper, thats up to you), set a graphic for it and select the type of movement Random.
In addition, make her to say some words when the main character talks to her.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX Playtest the game to see this new NPC in action. Experiment with different values for both Speed and Frequency and see what happens.
Lets create another walking NPC: this time it will be Lime, our sorceress. Create a new event, assign a name and a graphic to it and set her movement to Custom. Then click on the Move Route button.
From this new dialog you can change the characters route step by step. There are a lot of options: you can make the NPC move towards any direction and also turn. You can also make him/her jump, approach the main character, run away from him, etc. For now, give her some simple route which she can follow (this depends on how you built your map and where the event is placed). In my example, I made her move four tiles down and then return to her original position.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX If you check the Repeat Action checkbox, the NPC will repeat this same route forever. Playtest his now and experiment with the different movement commands you can assign to the NPCs route.
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GAME ELEMENTS
We are going to make a break here to customize our game elements: items, weapons, jobs, and such. This configuration is vital for your game it will really make a difference! So in your own games you have to think all this stuff very carefully. You can customize your game elements in the Database Manager. To open this window, click on the Database button in the toolbar.
GETTING RID OF JUNK

Items are objects that the party members can use. Some items can be used always, but some of them can only be used under some circumstances (for example, while in battle). You can view all the items in your game in the Items tab. You will see a bunch of them, since RPG Maker VX creates some items by default. We are not having all of these in our mini-RPG, so lets delete all items we dont need. The same very steps apply to weapons, armors, jobs, etc. To delete an item, right click on its name in the list and select Delete. You can also left click on it and press Supr key.
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Proceed to delete all items but Potion, Magic Water, Stimulant and Antidote. Notice that deleting an item only deletes its data, but its slot still remains on the list.
You have to fill the slots which cause gaps on the list. In our case, we have a two-slot gap caused by slots number 2 and 3, so we have to put Stimulant and Antidote in that gap. To do that, right click on Stimulant and select Multicopy. In the new window, type 2 as a number of items to copy and click OK.
Now right click on the slot number 2 and select Paste.
And here is how our items list looks now:
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To get rid of the duplicates, click on the Change Maximum button at the bottom of the dialog window.
Now type the numbers of items you want to keep (4 in our case):
And voil!
ITEMS
Now that we know how to delete all the junk we dont want, we will learn how to create our own junk. We will start by creating a custom item for our game: a Colirium to cure Darkness state2. To do so, go to Items tab and click the Change Maximum button. Increase by 1 the number that will appear in the window (in our case, type 5). This will create a new empty slot for our own item. Left click on the new slot to customize its behavior.
Darkness state cause a character to miss most of his/her physical attacks. In some games is called Blindess.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX Start by given the new Item a name and a description. The Scope configures who can use the item. In our case, only members of the party can use this item, so set it to One Ally. Ocassion sets when the item will be able to be used. Since Darkness is a state that occurs only in battle and is healed afterwards, select Only in Battle. Choose also an icon for your item.
Now set its price (30 money units, like the Antidote) and the animation that will be displayed when used.
The other panels in the window are used to customize the items effects. This item will only cure Darkness, so go to the State Changes panel, and click on the Darkness checkbox until a minus sign appears:
This will remove the Darkness state from the items target. If you are curious about what does some option, click on the interrogation icon in the title bar and then click on an element:
To finish this item, click on the Apply or OK buttons.
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STATES
States are conditions which affect a character (being a party member or an enemy). States can change temporally the amount of damage that a character does per attack, drain his life, paralyze him, increase his defense, etc. Some states only take effect when in battle (and are cancelled afterwards) and some of them still take effect when the character is moving around a map. In our small RPG, we will be having these states:
Incapacitated: a character is knock out (dead) and cannot participate in the fight. Darkness: a character misses 75% of his physical attacks. This state is healed after battle. Poison: a character loses life in every action he does. Berserker: a character does more damage than usual, but he attacks physically (and automatically) the enemies. This state is healed after battle.
The Berserker state will be induced thanks to Gladius, so only the main character will be able to go on berserk. All of these states are already created by default in RPG Maker VX, except Berserker. So, first of all, delete all the other states and create a new slot for the Berserker. You can access to the different states in the game from the States tab in the Database.
And here is the configuration for this state.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX It has a custom icon and Always attack enemies as a restriction. This emulates the blood thirst of this state, so the player wont be able to select actions for this character when in berserker: the character will always attack the enemy. In the Parameter Changes, a bonus has been set for Attack: the character will cause 50% more damage than usual. Furthermore, with the Nonresistance checkbox enabled in Options, changes to the berserker state will always be successful (some states can be cancelled by a characters resistance or luck). Release conditions specify how the state will be healed. We have set it to End of Battle and also after 4 turns with 15% chance. Now we just have to fill the information messages that will be displayed in battle regarding this state. Since we only will inform the player when a character has gone berserk or not, we only have to fill two message boxes (enemies wont be able to go berserk).
The only thing left is configuring the priorities for the icons display. In RPG Maker VX only one icon can be displayed to indicate the characters status, so you have to choose which states are more important, so their icons will be displayed instead of others. You can set priorities in the Priority control of each state (the higher the number, the more priority)
Our states priority is: Incapacitated -) Poison -) Berserker -) Darkness.
WEAPONS AND ARMORS

In our game, the party will not be allowed to upgrade their equipment, except to equip the sword Gladius. We will have then a reduced set of weapons and armors.
Salazar: long sword, leather shield, leather breastplate.
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Zach: two daggers, leather breastplate. Lime: robe, rod
In the Weapons tab you can configure all the weapons in the game. Delete all the default weapons, unless Long Sword, and change the maximum amount of weapons to 4. First, we will create the Dagger for the rogue in the party. If you look at the Long Sword attributes, you will see that has an attack of 5. We want the dagger to be less powerful, so we will set it to 4. Other parameters are very similar. In the animation list we get to choose how this attack will be displayed while in battle. You can browse the different animation sin the Animations tab. The Hit Ratio is the percentage of success when hitting. 95% is the standard, but you might want to lower it for weapons such as great axes, for example.
Indicate also which kind of damage does your brand new weapon. In our case, it will be Slashing.
Regarding the Price, set it to 0 to avoid this weapon being sold in shops. Dont forget to set to 0 the price for the Long Sword! Lets create now the Rod for the sorceress. It will be a weak weapon, since the real power of the sorceress is in her spells. It will be a two-handed weapon.
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And this is Gladius, the legendary sword. Notice how this sword does Fire damage and this gets reflected on its animation.
Now that all weapons have been created, lets go for the armors. In order to save time, we are using some armors that come by default: Robe, Leather Shield and Leather Breastplate. Remove all armors but those from Armors tab. Dont forget to set their price to 0 to forbid the player to sell them in shops.
The Armors tab is really similar to the Weapons tab, so we are not digging in it. Use the Help button when in doubt!
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SKILLS
Skills are powers or abilities that a character can use, such as fireballs, healing, a special attack, etc. Skills can be used in battle and/or in maps. In our game there will be these skills (keep in mind that enemies can use skills too):
Darkness attack: adds Darkness state to a common attack Poison attack: adds Poison state to a common attack Berserk: goes on Berserker state Bash: single, powerful attack Poison breath: adds Poison state to all enemies Double attack: attacks two random different enemies Ice: causes ice damage to one enemy Blizzard: causes ice damage to all enemies
Some of those skills are already created by default, so go to Skills tab and delete all skills but these ones:
Lets create the remaining skills! We will start with Bash, which will be a special ability for the final boss: the Ogre. This skill will be a powerful attack (200% damage) that will affect all enemies. Here you can see that this skill requires no magic points to be casted, and that can be used only while in battle. The rest of the parameters are pretty self-explanatory.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX The Use Message is just an informative text that will be displayed in the fight to tell the player whats going on. The Damage Effect specifies the power of the attack: with 200 of Base Damage, the damage will be the double as usual. If you ever want to create a healing skill, enter a negative value here (for example, -100). Last, with the Physical Attack checkbox enabled, we are telling RPG Maker to treat this as a physical attack and not a spell.
The other skill, Berserk, is pretty simple. It just changes the users state:
CLASSES
Classes are the jobs available for the characters. Each class different skills and equippable weapons and armors. We are gonna have three different jobs in our game, and we will be creating these from zero, so delete all classes and get only three cleared slots. Name these slots as Warrior, Rogue and Sorceress.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX We will begin by creating the Warrior class. Set its name and also its equippable weapons and armors. The Position list is for setting the relative position in the battlefield. Characters at the front line will be more likely to be selected as enemy targets. Jobs such as warriors, paladins and the like should be in the front line.
In the Elements Efficiency and States Efficiency panels you get to configure the job weak and strong points regarding element damage and state changes. You can tweak it, but in my own project I left the default values for everyone.
In the Skills to Learn panel we can set which skills the character with this job will learn at a given level.
The only skill that our main character will learn is Berserker, and he will get it when he gets the sword Gladius, so we will leave this panel blank. Its time for the Rogue. Set the Position and Equippable items this way:
As for skills, the rogue will learn how to perform a double attack when he reaches level 3. To do that, double click in the Skills to Learn panel and a new window will appear:
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX As for the Sorceress, the configuration would be this one:
And the sorceress will have these skills to learn at levels 1 and 3:
PARTY MEMBERS
You get access to the party members at the Actors tab in the Database. There you can find some actors created by default. Delete them all and create three empty slots. Inside this tab you can configure the appearance of your characters, their stats, initial equipment and other details. Lets start with our main character, Salazar. Give him a name and set his Class to Warrior. You can also select his avatar and his sprite to be displayed on maps.
At the right, there are his Parameter Curves, which configure the evolution of his stats (agility, attack, etc) depending on the earned experience. If you click of one of those curves, the following window will appear. With the Quick Setting buttons you can automatically generate different curves. If you click several times on one button, you will see variations of that curve.
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Another quick method of generating curves is to click on the Generate Curve button. In the new window you can set the initial and end values of that stat and how fast/slow is the transition.
For example, the configuration displayed above generates this curve.
You can also hand-draw your own curve, although is much easier to generate it using the methods weve just described. Since Salazar is a warrior, create some parameter curves which make sense to his job (i.e. lots of attack and life points, but less spirit, for example). Here there are mine:
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At the bottom of the screen you can configure the initial equipment of that character. Give Salazar the long sword and the leather shield and breastplate.
Now well create Zach, our Rogue companion. Set his name, class and graphics this way:
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX Now, create some parameters according with his job. For example:
And about his equipment, check the Two Swords Style checkbox in the Options panel so he can use two weapons in combat instead of one weapon and a shield. Give him two daggers and the leather breastplate.
Lime is the only character left. As always, start by giving her a name and a job. Notice how her initial level is set to 3. This is because she will join the party later, not at the beginning of the game.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX Set her parameters to something similar to this:
And dont forget to equip her!
Since Lime wont be in the party since the beginning, we have to remove her from the initial party. To do that, go to System tab and remove Lime from the Initial Party list.
We are done with some of our game elements configuration. In this category would also fall enemies and troops, but I think they deserve a whole chapter in their own. So keep reading!
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ENEMIES AND BATTLES

MONSTERS!
In the Database manager you can create all the monsters and enemies that will populate your world. They are located inside Enemies tab. Balancing the game its a hard task, so we will build up our work from some pre-set enemies. Delete all enemies in the list but Slime, Bat, Hornet, Spider, Rat and Ogre.
We are going to customize these enemies. Lets start with the Slime. The part of the window displayed below configures the enemys main parameters.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX You can see the stats for the slime and also how much experience and gold will be rewarded to the player when he defeats this enemy. Notice that you can also configure which items the enemy might drop when defeated. We are going to leave those stats just like they are, but well change the image for the Slime a little bit. Double click on the picture area. With the Hue slider you can tint the image for that enemy. Choose a color you like.
At the Elements and States Efficiency panels you can configure the weak and strong points for this enemy. The Slime is especially vulnerable to Ice, since it has an A for that element. In our game, the Slime wont have such vulnerability, so click on it until you choose C.
In the Action Patterns panel you can set the enemys behavior. Each action has a rating associated to it. The highest rating will be the standard action and every action with the same rating will have exactly the same odds to be executed. Ratings two points below the highest one will get its action executed too, but with much less probability.
The default Slime would always attack the party. But if the Party Level is 5 or above, the Slime will have a 50% chance of fleeing in its turn. With that in mind, lets customize our other enemies. Select the Bat. If you look at its Element Efficiency panel youll see that the Bat is vulnerable to Wind and Holy elements. Since these elements are rated with a B, any spell or weapon causing Wind or Holy elemental damage will get a 50% bonus. Now click on Drop Item 1. We are going to make it drop one Potion with 20% of probability. The configuration would be this:
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In the Action Patterns list there is an Ice action. It makes no sense, but it is there because we messed with the default skills. Change that action (double click on it) for a Darkness Attack and give it a 4 rating. That way it will have less chance to be chosen than the common attack.
Leave the Hornet and the Spider as they are by default and go for the Rat. Change its second (and empty) action for a Double Attack with a rating of 3.
As for the dropped items, set them as you like. Later, when you test your game, you can adjust the loot to balance the game.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX The Ogre is our final boss. It has pretty high stats, so we will have to adjust them to give a chance to the player for win. However, until we dont play through the game we wont know certainly which level will reach the players when they get to the Ogres lair. Thats why well leave his stats they way they are for now, and focus on the Action Patterns.
You will also see that the Ogre, by default, is vulnerable to Fire and can perform critical hits (like the party members). That sounds pretty reasonable for a final boss, but you can change it if you dont like it.
TROOPS
The Enemies tab is some kind of bestiary. In order to make combats with the Party Members, you have to organize your enemies in troops. Troops are groups of enemies (though a single enemy can appear on his own). You can set up the troops in your game in the Troops tab. Delete all troops but Slime*2, Bat*2, Hornet*2, Spider*3 and Rat*3. Create also a new empty slot for the Ogre.
The Spider*3 and Rat*3 seem quite hard troops for the party, so lets change them. Select the Spider*3 troop. Click on a spider and then on the Remove button to delete that monster from the troop.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX Now select a Bat from the list and click on the Add button.
You can drag the Bat picture to put in wherever you want in the battle screen. Click on the Autoname button to rename this troop.
Repeat the steps with the Rat*3 troop to change it for two Rats and one Hornet.
The Ogre troop is quite simple. Just select the empty troop slot and add the ogre at it. Dont forget to autoname this troop too!
At the bottom of this screen you will see some kind of Event editor. Thats right; you can have events in battle! This way, you can add dialogs or make a magician summon monsters, etc. For example, lets make the Ogre say some lines when the battle has just begun. Double click on the list of event commands and insert a Show Text command. As Condition, set it to Turn number 0 (thats the beginning of the battle) and choose Battle as Span. The Span controls how often the event checks for the condition. With Battle, the event will only be triggered once per battle.
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To test if it works, click on the Battle Test button at the top of the screen. You will get to configure the party members and equipment. You can leave the defaults and click on OK.
A battle simulation will begin! If you have set up properly the event, you will see something like this when the battle starts.
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ENCOUNTERS
Once that you have enemies and troops you can create encounters which will lead to battles. These encounters can be either random or triggered by an event. For example, lets create an encounter with the Ogre when the player goes over the tower in ruins (the Ogres lair). In the world map, create a new event at the lair.
Insert a new command called Battle Processing (in tab 3) and configure it to fight the Ogre. If you want to prevent the party from fleeing, uncheck the Can Escape checkbox. Change the events Trigger to Player Touch so the player wont have to press the Action button to fight the Ogre.
Playtest the game to see if it works as it should. Random encounters are very popular in RPGs. Lets create some random battles with weak enemies at the world map. Right click on the world map at maps list and select Map Properties. If you double click in the Encounters panel you will be able to choose a troop to battle to. Create encounters with Bats and Slimes.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX Also, change the Average Steps to trigger one encounter, since our world map is very tiny.
If you ever want a troop to appear more frequently than the others, you will have to repeat the encounter twice or several times. Go and play the game now to make sure it works.
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STORY
In this chapter we will learn some techniques to tell a story to the player and making the game advance through quests.
CUT-SCENES
Cut-scenes are the key to tell a story. In them, the player acts like a TV spectator and watches some scene with action and/or dialogs. In RPG Maker VX, cut-scenes are created with events. For example, lets assume that our game begins with the party entering the village of Evergreen. We could arrange things so when the game starts the two characters on the party have a conversation. This cut-scene should be only played once in the whole game, so we will introduce an important concept in RPG Maker VX: switches. Set the starting position for the player somewhere in the villages entrance. Now create a new event two tiles north from it.
First things first: put the Trigger on Autorun. This way, the event will be triggered automatically and the player wont be allowed to do anything until it ends.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX Be aware that if you dont end the event somehow, the player will be stuck in an infinite loop! Now, change the events graphic for the picture of our Rogue.
In order to establish a proper conversation, the characters should be looking at each other. Well have to change then the direction the main character is facing. Create a new event command Set Move Route.
You will see a lot of options now. Note that you can set the move route not only for this event, but for the players character and every other event. For now, make the player look at North by selecting Turn Up.
Its time to add some dialog with Show Text. If you want to make your dialog more expressive, you can insert some balloon icons in it. To do that, choose the command Show Balloon Icon.
You get to choose then the character will display the balloon and what kind of expression will be inside it.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX Once your dialog is finished, you want the secondary character to disappear. Instead of making him vanish, lets make him join our main character by walking towards him (like in Final Fantasy VII). Since the Rogue is placed two tiles North from our main character, just insert a Set Move Route command and make the event move down twice.
Now the cut-scene is finished. How do we make now the Rogue to disappear? How do we cancel the playing of this cut-scene every time the player enters the village? This is what switches are for. A switch holds the ON or OFF status. There are switches local to events (self switches), but there are also switches which can be accessed from anywhere (control switches). Most of the times we will be using self switches and this is one of those occasions. The trick is that some events can condition its execution to the status of some switch. So, if we create a new page for the event and make this page execute when a switch is ON, we will stop the cut-scene. But first, lets insert a command that turns ON a self-switch at the end of the cut-scene. This command is called Control Self Switch.
There are a few self switches for each event, called by a letter. In this command, turn ON the switch A.
Now create a new page clicking on the New Event Page button and condition the execution of this page to the ON status of self switch A.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX Dont put any image for this events page and that will make the character disappear. And thats all! Well, if you actually execute the game now you will detect a nasty bug. The cut-scene never ends because the Rogue cant join the main character by walking over him. To do so, set his priority (remember, this priority belongs to the event page number 1!) to either Above Characters or Below Characters.
With that fix it should work now. By the way, this is how my cut-scene turned out:
And ta-dah!
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FORBIDDEN PLACES
Often, we will have to restrict the access to certain areas of our game until the player has completed a quest, or possess some item or has talked to some NPC. There are several ways to achieve this; one of them is using control switches. For example, lets prevent the player to enter the Forbidden Forest until he has talked to Lime in the village. To do that, create a new map and name it Forbidden Forest. You dont have to draw this map yet, so fill it with grass for now. Now, create a new transfer event to that new map from the world map.
Once created, right click on it and select Edit Event. Now you have to condition the execution of the transfer to the value of a control switch. Either create a new conditional branch or a new event page. This time, we will use the conditional branch.
Click on the ellipsis to manage switches. Right now you have empty slots. Its better to give them proper names because in a non-trivial project like this, you will be using a LOT.
Now you can fill the condition for the branching. Set it to check if the Talked to Lime new switch is ON.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX Your branching will look like this:
Now cut the transfer event and paste it the true branch (the one before the Else). Now it should look like this:
To tell the player whats going on, insert some dialogue lines in the Else branch, like the main character saying It seems too dangerous and I have no reason to go in!
Since all switches are OFF by default, if you play the game and try to enter the forest, you will get the main character complaining. Go and check it.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX Now we have to turn that switch ON once the player has talked to Lime. Go to Limes event in the village (remember that NPC following a fixed path?) and edit it. Add some dialogue lines first and insert a Control Switch ON command at the end of it.
Now, we are going to avoid repeating the same dialog again and again. Create a new branch like this one:
And paste the entire dialog in the Else branch. Like this:
In the true branch, insert some dummy dialog for now. We will work on it later. Go and try to enter the forest once you have talked to Lime. It should work properly!
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FOREWORD
PART II
I guess I should introduce myself. I lurk around a lot on the rpgmakervx.net boards, Im known as Kelsper on there. I learned from BenKos brilliant guide how to originally work
with RPG Maker VX. Unfortunately, BenKo does not have enough spare time to continue work on this but they have done a fantastic job already with this. Great applause to BenKo for this.
I hope to continue in the same sort of vein, but you will probably notice a change in writing style and the like. Hopefully you can follow the guide as easily as BenKos first part of this guide. So, while I am talking about writing style
Bold text indicates that whatever it is bolded is the name of a variable, switch, skill, or just generally the name of something that is important. (i.e Berserk skill, TalkedToLime switch)
Italic text indicates something that is related to the story or an ingame object, like an area or characters names. It is also sometimes used for technical things. (i.e Forgotten Forest, Lime)
Highlighted Text indicates something that is a command or event that should be followed
in order to achieve things (i.e Resource Manager, Change Party Members) Send any queries or any suggestions my way if you want my email is kelsper@hotmail.co.uk
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IMPORTING TILE SETS

Sometimes the normal tile sets provided with RPG Maker VX are just not enough to create what you really want to with them. Luckily there is a (relatively) painless way to import custom or premade tile sets. The reason why I bring this up now, is because that I will be using this tile set to create the Forbidden Forest map. Luckily there already is a blank tile set provided by RPG Maker VX, in tab E. Its completely blank, perfect for importing our tile set. I should have included the specific tile set (the main reason being the trees are, in my opinion, much better than the standard ones for building a forest.) It is known as Macks mapchips and it is an especially popular tile set collection. However, to overwrite the E tab, the name of the image must be TileE.png, so make sure it is named that. You can just download it from here: http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/3294/tilee.png Now what you want to do is go into your Resource Manager (F10) and navigate to the Graphics/System tab. The blue dots mean that the files are already included in the RTP, and do not needed to be downloaded by the person running your game unless they lack the RTP.
Afterwards, click the Import button and find the tile set that you downloaded. (Make sure it is called TileE. Importing it should cause the blue dotted TileE file to disappear and at the top a red dotted TileE file will appear. This means that the file has successfully been imported and this is an extra file associated with your project.
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Now back out of the Resource Manager and check the E tab. You should get this:
You have successfully imported a tile set into RPG Maker VX. Congratulations. If you want to overwrite the Tile E set at a later time, you will need to rename the file you want to replace it with TileE and import it in the same way you did with this through the Resource Manager. There is a problem, though Passage Settings. What this means is that generally anything you put down from this tile set can be walked over by the player. This is a bad thing, since many of the things you do not walk to be able to walk over, such as the trees or statues, so we are going to fix this.
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PASSAGE SETTINGS
You can find the Passage Settings button on the toolbar. Afterwards it highlights everything in the tile set as an X, an O or a star. Clicking on the object will cause it to change its tile setting.
An X causes an object to be completely impassable, meaning that the character will not be able to move over it at all, or go behind it. Consider it as having a square block where the object occupies. A O means that the object can be walked over. You should use this for things such as small stones or flowers, but not big objects as it is illogical. A star is a special case that means that the character can walk behind the object on this tile. It is mainly used for taller trees where the stump of the tree is impassable, but the top of the tree can be walked around behind it. I did not do every tile, but make sure you at least make the trees, logs and rocks impassable, because we are going to have to use them to make the Forbidden Forest map. Otherwise, you can leave the other tiles unless you feel obligated to use them later. If while testing you can walk over anything that you really shouldnt be able to, come back to this setting and fix that.
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CREATING THE FORBIDDEN FOREST

We want our first real dungeon area to be fairly big and lead players through a mostly linear pathway. Create a New Map and think of an appropriate size. It does not have to be that elaborate, I settled on a size of 25x25. The area where we are going to get Gladius is going to be a separate small area so do not worry about squeezing it in. Make sure you are especially comfortable with the multiple trees tile, as it does get some getting used to before you can make the trees look more like an actual forest rather than randomly thrown together. Following this example of the area, you cant go much wrong. It might be a good idea to add different treasure chests on different paths if you want to.
The trees can be rather complicated to put down, so we are going to look at them.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX It is rather simple to put down cluster of trees just find the multiple trees tile (a 2x2 one at the bottom of the tile set, along with the single tree tile) and go crazy with it.
To finish off the cluster take the single tree tile and go around the edges with whatever side you need to use:
This is kind of unnatural for a forest though. You want to make it so that some of the trees stick out randomly. Use the multiple trees tile to achieve this. This presents a problem, though.
These tiles are jutting out you need to use the other section of the tile from the cluster of trees to make it look natural. (In this case, the bottom right tile of the 2x2)
There you go! It takes a little fiddling around with, but youll get it eventually. Leave this area after you have made it and put a Transfer back to the world map inside it. We will come back to it later.
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TITLE SCREEN
Lets take a break in order to customize our project a little more. Everyone new to RPG Maker always wants to find out to change the title screen it seems, so here we go. First of all, you want to either get your image that you want to have as your title screen. Make sure it is of an appropriate size (the picture must at least be 544x416 to fill the whole screen) and that it is named Title much like how the tile set worked.
After you have your image, you want to go back into the Resource Manager again, in the Graphic/System sub tab again. Once again simply Import your title file.
You will get a screen asking if you want Transparent or Semi-transparent colors in your title screen. I have not really experimented with this, so I just clicked okay as this was exactly how I wanted it.
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It should turn into a red dotted Title file now. This means that it was successfully imported. After that, Playtest your project to make sure it works properly. This is what it will look like:
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CONTINUING ON
GLADIUS RUINS
The Gladius ruins is the area that will have most importantly the Gladius sword. When we collect the sword, it will set the second global switch we are going to use, Get Gladius to ON, so that when the player goes back to Lime she will respond accordingly to the fact that Salazar has found the Gladius. To save time we are also going to make the Gladius auto-equip when Salazar picks it up, and makes him learn the Berserk skill for as long as he has it equipped. First of all we have to Create a New Map. I kept it relatively small at a 17x15 map.
Do not worry about the events right now, just create the map.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX Since the sword is going to do quite a few things when it is picked up, we want to right click and use Quick Event Creation to create a treasure chest. Pick the sword graphic from the sub-tab !Other3 so it is like this.
There are a few errors with using this though. One is that it uses the chest sound effect, which of course doesnt fit. Another is that it does not have the glowing sword animation, and the last is that it does not equip automatically like we want it to. Lets fix that. We want to edit several of the events and while we are it, lets make it so that it automatically leaves the area afterwards via a Fadeout Screen and a Fadein Screen.
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Here is a breakdown of what has changed here: The Stepping Animation checkbox has been ticked. This means that the sword will run its normal animation. A Battle Processing was added at the start of the event commands. This means that as soon as the player goes to take the sword, it will engage them in a battle. (In this case with 2 slimes. They are just placeholders at the moment.) The sound effect Sword3 has been edited in instead of the chest sound effect, which sounds like a sword unsheathing, which is perfect for us here. There is some speech after picking it up remember that \n[1] refers to Salazar, or whoever is your first party member. Salazar equips the Gladius automatically through the Change Equipment event. The Got Gladius global switch has been switched ON. This is important for initiating the last part of the quest. The Fadeout Screen happens after some dialogue, and then a Transfer event occurs to the World map, followed afterwards by a Fadein Screen.
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MINI BOSS
We want a mini boss to be created for the purpose of guarding the Gladius well, 2 slimes arent exactly the best choice for an exciting fight at the end of a major dungeon, so lets fix that. First all we need to think out two of the skills that this boss will have. I decided on: Heightened Defenses, a skill that raises defense by 50%. He will cast this on turn three, and only on turn three. The effect will drop off after 5 turns or at the end of the battle. Fury, an attack that does three attacks in one attack to three random enemies. He will use this move on turn 2 and every 5 turns after that. (i.e turn 2, turn 7, turn 13.)
First of all we need to create the Defense Up state which will raise the mini bosses defenses, so to start off go to your Database (F9) and after going to the states tab, changing the maximum amount so you can fit it in. Call this state Defense Up because that is what it does!
Just copy the settings as seen here for your Defense Up state.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX Next, go to your skill tab and create the Heightened Defenses skill which causes this state.
The only thing the Heightened Defenses skill will do is cause the Defense Up state. This is exactly what we want.
This is a very easy way to have war shout like abilities that cause attack % or the like to go up. Simply tweak the numbers or stat increase and you can get your traditional, war cry that gives 150% attack for a short amount of time in battle. Notice that you can also use this state later on for actor skills or even different skills altogether. Moving on, our fury skill is rather simple.
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As you can see the Scope of this attack is 3 Random Enemies which means of your current two party members at this time, one might get attacked 3 times and the other no attacks, or one might get attacked twice and the other once. Since this can be rather devastating, the base damage is a little meek at 75. The Physical Attack checkbox means that this attack takes into consideration normal hit formulas, meaning that any of the attack CAN miss. This is about all we want for this mini boss, so go to the Enemies tab and well finally make this guy.
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As we can see, this mini boss has a specific graphic (pick any one you want really, I just felt this one fitted nicely.) At the bottom we can see the two skills if you go into the action pattern editor we can see that Turn No. is the option selected. (using the Fury skill as an example) The first option selects turn no. 2 as the original usage, and the second box (+5*X) is how every five turns after this it does the same move. Rating 10 ensures the skill will go off. For Heightened Defenses it is the same, just with no extra +number*X modifier, so that it only activates on turn 3. I called this mini-boss Defender.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX Change the battle processing on the Gladius to this guy and you are done.
COMMON EVENTS
We still have a problem, however. While we have the Berserker state and the Berserk skill, there is nothing that is saying that Salazar has ever learned the skill Berserk. (as we decided to make the Gladius teach him the skill) A way to get around this is to use a common event.
Common Events are events that you may either want to link to multiple events to save time, or
link to skills to generate effects, one example may be a stealing skill may randomly roll the chance to steal something, which has to be done through a common event. We want Salazar to learn Berserk as long as the Gladius is equipped and forget it when he unequips it. First of all, open up your Database (F9) and go to Common Events.
As you can see the common event has been given the Berserk name. It is a Parallel trigger, meaning that it will always be checking for the event. The condition switch is when Got Gladius is on, since there is no point checking for it before you get the Gladius anyway. The event itself is very simple: it checks if Salazar has the Gladius equipped. If he does, it changes his skills:
As you can see, he learns Berserk. The else statement says how if he doesnt have it equipped, he forgets the skill, by just ticking the Forget box.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX Testing it out, we find that it works.
This is with the Gladius equipped.
After unequipping the Gladius.
VERY BASIC SCRIPTING

By very basic, I mean very very basic. We are going to do the easiest script ever, just two lines long. All it is going to do is change the games default font and with no default bold. If you decide you dont like the font, just go back and change it later. First of all, we want to go to the Script Editor (F11) Heres what you should see:
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX Great, now what you want to do is scroll down until you see the Materials heading. There should also be an (Insert Here) page that you could give a quick read. Basically, this is where you will put most of your scripts under unless it is changing the scripts already used by the game.
To keep organized, you probably want to delete that (Insert here) page. You click on the lines to get a new page ready for you to write script into. If you need another space, right click and click on Insert or just hit the Insert key. Call your page Font and prepare to write a few lines. Font.default_name = [Arial] Font.default_bold = false What does the first line do? In essence, it simply changes the font that RPG Maker will use when you are running it to whatever you put in the quotes. I used Arial as an example, but others popular ones will work too, though the less popular ones will not be recognized and will need to be imported. If the game does not recognize what you put in the quotes, it will simply not display any text. The second line means that font will not ever be bold, which is the default anyway. There are a few other lines you can use for this script, but that is about it: Font.default_size = 18 (the default size is 20) Font.default_italic = false (default = false) Font.default_shadow = true (default = true)
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WRAPPING UP LIMES DIALOGUE

Since we have basically done most of the stuff needed for the rest of Limes dialogue, we should go back and finish it off and let her finally join our party.
This is the new part of Limes dialogue. You should have the conditional branch for TalkedToLime already done, but the rest you will need to add. It is more or less just another conditional branch within this one checking if Got Gladius is ON. If it is ON, it gives the player a choice, yes/no. Yes lets Lime join your party, no will leave her there, and if Got Gladius is OFF, it automatically responds with Sorry, we dont have it yet. The only real new part of this is the Change Party Member event. Here it is:
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The Initialize option means that it uses the database information. This is what we want. The next part is creating a new page to make her join the party by physically bumping into Salazar. Set the conditions to Self Switch A is on, which will occur after you answer Yes to the previous Yes/No choice. After that make the trigger an Autorun, set the priority to Below Characters (or above, technically) and make sure the Move Route is Move toward Player because you are not sure what direction they will approach Lime from, then put Transparent ON, meaning that the event will seem to disappear, though it is still live. As this is an Autorun trigger, the game will freeze after this, so be sure to use the event Erase Event. We could have used another Self Switch to make the graphic disappear, but I showed you how this could also be used to achieve the same effect. After that is done, you have completed all of the necessary dialogue for Lime. Now we can move on to creating and making the final dungeon, the Ogres tower!
We have got our basic level progression down for the Forbidden Forest now. We can talk to Lime, get the Gladius, and talk to Lime again to make her join our party. That means the first part of our quest in our project is finished!
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MUSIC & SOUND EFFECTS

Importing music is done in the exact same way as importing the title screen or tile sets through the Resource Manager again. It will actually probably be harder finding the music compared to importing it. The file can be a .mid, .ogg, .wma, .mp3 or a .wav giving you a lot of choices. I assume that you will have your music files already prepared. I am going to import both a battle theme and a title screen theme. There is a way to switch music through events, too, which is very handy for boss battles, but we can worry about that later. As long as you have a clearly labeled name for your music file that allow you to organize it and know exactly what it is, then there is no naming restrictions on music, because you arent replacing any RTP things, you are adding a music file. First of all we go into the Resource Manager. This time we will be navigating to the Audio/BGM tab. While you are there, unfortunately you cant listen to any of the music there, so just Import your music the same way as before.
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After you have imported your files exit out of the resource manager and instead go into the Database. We want to go into the System tab this time.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX Heres what you should see:
As you can see, these are all the music or sound effects that are used in the project. I have the
Battle music selected. If you click the next to all the names of the sound files, a window like
this pops up:
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX This will allow you to simply pick some background music to use for the Battle Theme. And thats all there is to it! Youve pretty much discovered how to change the music for the main battle theme and the title screen music. Sound Effects work in the same way:
Sound Effects work in much the same way, simply click the and it will open up pretty much
the same window, only difference is that it opens the Audio/SE section instead of BGM.
Simply Import your custom sound effects into the Audio/SE section and you can change them in-game exactly the same way as background music.
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OGRES TOWER
We are now going to design our final main area; the Ogres Tower as a smaller dungeon, not as big as the Forbidden Forest, but still some random encounters with rats and insects to fight before your party confronts the final boss, the ogre. Create a New Map as a 25x21 area. It does not have to be complex, and should have a linear path. Heres what I came up with:
This should do fine. It does not need to be that elaborate, just enough to make sure the party will gain a few levels before fighting the final boss.
Create an Event with the Ogre as the graphic talking to him will initiate the final fight and
also change the music.
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Simple event commands here the only one you might have trouble finding is the Change Battle BGM event. Its found in the third page of the event commands menu, under the Systems Settings sub-tab. Afterwards, set up the Battle Processing event and put a self switch on.
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This event occurs when you beat the ogre the game will remove the ogre graphic, wait a total of 180 frames (around 3 seconds) before fading out to the title screen. Remember to set this to Autorun and Below Characters for Priority. First of all, you want to find the Wait event. It is on the second event page, on the top right, under Timing. You can set it to the amount of frames that you want 60 frames usually signifies approximately one second, so feel free to add more if you want to wait longer. Fadeout Screen is also under Screen Effects on the same page, while the Return to Title Screen event is on the third and final page.
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REFINEMENT AND BALANCING

PROGRESSION
Often it is necessary to go over a previous area in order to make sure that it is fit for play. For example: after we link the Ogres Tower to the World map it is possible for the player to go straight to the Ogres Tower without getting the Gladius or speaking to Lime. This is an issue because we want the players to do the areas in a linear order, since it is likely that they would be faced by enemies much higher level than them if they went to the wrong area first.
We are going to change this; go to the Quick Event Creation and create a Transfer event. Set it to the desired area in the Ogres Tower. Next we are going to change the Conditional Branches when moving into the area.
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The first Conditional Branch checks to see if the Got Gladius switch is on. If it has, it will successfully move the player to the Ogres Tower because they both have the Gladius and have therefore talked to Lime at least once. However, it does not check to see if Lime is in the party this could be used instead of the Got Gladius switch because it may be a forced decision to make sure Lime is part of the party before going into this area of the dungeon. I left it optional; you can decide what you want to do with it. Moving on, the second Conditional Branch will check if the TalkedToLime switch has been activated. If it has, the text displayed will mention the Ogre since we have learned from Lime that the Ogre resides here. Else the dialogue that will appear will simply not mention the Ogre but
both options will still move the player away from the Ogres Tower since they have not yet acquired the Gladius.
Another possible choice is that it is possible to revisit the Forbidden Forest after you have acquired the Gladius. This can be a good thing if you think that the player may wish to grind in an area, but if you want to keep it linear you have to somehow prevent the area from being transferred into again. Decide whether you want to allow old areas to be revisited or not, as it is a key part in the progression of a game. Once again we use a simple Conditional Branch to check that the Got Gladius switch is on.
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The change is that there is a second Conditional Branch inside the first one. The first option if both the TalkedToLime and Got Gladius switches are both on, is that Salazar will say Theres no reason to go back in there, and move the player away from the Transfer event. The second part of the branch (the Else) is if the TalkedToLime is on, but the switch Got Gladius is off. This will move the player successfully into the area. The last part is the other branches Else statement that we had before: if the player tried to enter the Forbidden Forest before talking to Lime, it will not allow you to enter. We had done this back in the Forbidden Places section of the guide. Now it is possible to play the game from start to finish: the player can only enter the Forbidden Forest once they have spoken with Lime, after they get the Gladius they cannot enter the forest again and can enter the Ogres Tower. After they beat the Ogre, there isnt a specific cutscene implemented yet but it will go back to the title screen.
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With the area progression fixed, there is a couple other things we need to take care of. The fact that we do not have any random encounters in the last two areas yet is a problem. After testing out the areas to make sure they work as intended, then you can activate the random encounters. Lets take the Forbidden Forest first. Remember to set encounters you go into the Map Properties to change them.
We have the troops that appear as Slime*2, Spider*2 + Bat, Bat*2 and Hornet *2. This should do for our Forest area, but unlike the World Map, we should set the Steps Average to something higher since this isnt a straight corridor to walk down, 25 or 30 steps seems about right. As a rule of thumb, for your areas that are 20x20 or more, 25 steps is a pretty good amount, while areas that are 30x30 or more should be upwards of 35. People will get frustrated with a game that has random encounters every two steps, so make sure you keep the annoyances down.
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Set your Ogre Tower area to have the troops of Rat*2, Hornet*2 and Spider *2 + Bat. You want the same sort of Steps Average as the Forbidden Forest keep it at 25.
WEATHER EFFECTS
Our Forbidden Forest is lacking life. It would be a good idea to add some rain weather effects and sounds to it. We can do this by using a Parallel Process event so that it will trigger when the player enters the area. The problem with this is that if the player then leaves the area then the weather effects will continue which is fine if our player enters the Gladius Ruins area, but we want it to stop when the player exits to the world map. We use another Parallel Process event to achieve this.
Start by creating an event in the Forbidden Forest.
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There are a couple new events here. First of all the Set Weather Effects event can be found on the second event page under Picture And Weather and its options are displayed here:
Since we want a heavy rain effect, we set the weather type to Storm and the Power of the weather to 8. We want it to instantly happen, so have the Time set to 0.
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The next thing we want to happen is for the event to Play Background Sound of the storm. This is found on the second event page under Music And Sounds and once again its options are displayed here:
Since we want the Storm background sound and the volume should be relatively loud lets say 70% Volume and that should do us. The next thing we want to insert is a Loop. It is on the first page under Flow Control and its use is to repeat a thing for an indefinite time or until a Break Loop event occurs. For our weather effects, we want thunder to strike indefinitely every 10 seconds and play a thunder sound. After you have set the Loop, the first thing you want to put in it is a Wait event for 600 frames this is 10 seconds since 60 frames is one second. Next we want a Flash Screen event, found under Screen Effects on the second event page.
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This is a simple enough event, just set everything to 255 and make sure the time is 60 frames, so that the flash lasts for one second. Next in the Loop is the Play SE event. Its found under Music and Sounds.
Our desired sound effect would be Thunder9 and the Volume should be 80%. That is our event finished now we just have to put a kill weather event on the map so that we can bring this section to a close.
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Start by creating a Parallel Process event on the World Map:
The first command that should be called is the Set Weather Effects command. Just set weather effects to none and have the time be instant. (0 frames) The next command is Fadeout Background Sound and you want to simply set it to 1 second. Youll find it under the Sounds And Music section on the second event commands page.
With these two events created, you now know how to set weather effects up when you enter an area. Try messing around with various effects such as snow and tinting the screen if you want to be creative.
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BALANCING
One of the most difficult parts of game development is the balancing of a game. It is a very design heavy process and not easy to accomplish. If you want people to be impressed by your game, you should make sure the game is challenge, instead of being a cakewalk on one hand, or nightmarishly difficult on the other. Sadly, there is not a real formula for how you should balance your game. There is a guide in particular that I recommend checking out if you are having trouble it is called Making a Balanced Level Progression originally written by mithos and continued by ZeroManArmy, it is a really good read, so I will link the tutorial here: http://www.rpgmakervx.net/index.php?showtopic=38049 Note: you will have to sign up to the RPG Maker VX.net boards to view this tutorial. This is not necessarily a bad thing. You probably will have already signed up there if you are reading this, however. While it is up to you to decide how difficult you want standard enemies to be, remember that while you are the developer, will the standard player have enough knowledge to get through the areas without repeatedly dying and getting frustrated? Take this into consideration. Bosses are a special case, as they should have the ability to overpower the standard party by the time they reach it. Designing bosses so that a specific strategy or tactic is necessary to beat them is not a bad idea, but make sure it does not consist of something asinine like defending for twenty minutes before being able to get one hit in or a boss with 100 million HP. Also you have to take into consideration the mechanics of your game. Does it make sense that you expect a player to clear an entire area out without having to run back to get healed halfway through it or chugging down multitudes of potions? I will show you how to make a save system that replenishes your health next, but if you decide that you dont want to use it, then that is fine.
SAVE POINTS
Save points are traditionally used in games to save your game. It may not be possible to save freely in the game so you can only save at these specific points. Many of them they will replenish all your health and mana so that you can continue to fight. They are scattered through areas so that it is guaranteed that the player can return to this area if they die or to simply heal their parties. We are going to use one of the crystals from the !Crystal set to signify our save points and make them instantly recognizable.
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Make sure the Stepping Animation box is checked and the Priority is the Same as Characters. The first thing we want the save point to do is heal the entire party. Use the Recover All event which is found under the Actor section on the first event command page. Play an appropriate sound effect, for example Recovery afterwards and then display some dialogue saying that your party has been fully healed and if you would like to save your progress. Then Show Choices so that when Yes it will Open Save Screen and when no it will Exit Event Processing. That is our save point finished, if you want copies then you can simply copy and paste the event as you see fit. There is one problem though, you can still save whenever you want. Well fix this by adding a Disable Save Access event to the World Maps weather event. (Okay, technically not a weather effect, but it saves creating another Parallel Process event.)
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So when you first start out at the World Map, your save access will be disabled and it will never be enabled again, the only way you can save is through the save points. It might also be a good idea to ensure that you can save at inns otherwise what is the point of having them in towns? Whether or not you decide to disable save access and just have these as heal points or just omit them completely is entirely up to you. Here is the proof that saves are being disabled in the menu:
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ADVANCED SKILLS
We are going to make an advanced skill that does something outside the norm using common events. When might this be useful? In this example we are going to make a steal skill that will allow Zach to randomly have a chance to steal an item or currency. So lets get started. Go into the Database Manager (F9) then in the Skills section make another space for this new skill.
Now we need to create the common event required for this attack to do anything, as it does no damage as you can see. Go to the Common Events tab and we will begin to create this skill.
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This common event uses variables, which are essentially like switches that can hold numbers. They are extremely useful for things like this where a number is specifically needed. While we have not used variables a lot, they can be extremely powerful for things like multiple-step quest progression or in-game variables like how much gold the party currently has; but I digress. Now this looks like a complicated logic system, but this is basically how it works. A variable, called Steal in this case, is set to 0 to begin. Then it will roll a random number between 1 and 100. In this case a Conditional Branch will check if it rolls above or equal to 70, which triggers a failure to steal dialogue. This means that the steal skill has a 30% chance of missing. Feel free to change this by changing the branches equal to or above value. If it succeeds, it goes onto another Conditional Branch that checks if the variable that was first rolled was fewer than 25. If it is, it will take another variable, StealItem and roll a random number between one and ten in this case. Another Conditional Branch checks whether or not StealItem was under or equal to 5, which in that case will steal a potion, and in the else section will steal a magic water. With that branch ended, another variable is rolled if the first variable, Steal, was above 25 but equal to/fewer than 70, StealGold between 5 and 25. This is the range of the possible amount of gold that can be stolen from a foe. It will then display that \n[2] (which is Zach) stole \v[3] (the amount of gold, i.e variable number 3s value (StealGold)) It will then add the variable of StealGold to the total party gold. That will conclude the skills logic. A rather primitive system and not that advanced, but it is functional for what it is.Changing it so that it checks the enemy level to give better rewards or more gold is definitely something you would want to look into if you plan to have this type of skill in your game.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX The last thing to do is to apply the common event to the skill and give the skill to Zach at level one. Done simply enough. Just drag the common event bar down and find your common event in the Skills tab.
And then added to Zachs skill list:
Now Zach will start off with this move and be able to use it straight away. Success!
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BATTLE BACKGROUNDS
Unfortunately, the battle background that comes with RPG Maker VX isnt terribly interesting, but there is a way to counter this by using a battle background script. The one that I will be using, Battle Backgrounds Based on Area by diakonas, will allow for greater customization of the backgrounds so you can set them to specific areas of the same map using Areas. You can find the script here: http://www.rpgmakervx.net/index.php?showtopic=4491&st=0&p=48517&#entry48517 First of all, go into your Script Manager (F11). Copy and paste the script into a new script section under Materials.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX Next, we have to import the actual battle backgrounds. I have supplied a number of them in the Battle Backgrounds folder. Or here: http://www.multiupload.com/UX7BSQB2GV Import them using the Resource Manager (F10) into the Graphics/Pictures section.
Now we need to configure the script so that it will recognize our area names go back to the Script Manager (F11) and after selecting the Battle Backgrounds script, scroll down to view this part of the script:
Essentially this part of the script is taking the name of the area, and linking it to a battle background file name. For the first line (61), when the name of the area is Grassland, it will use the battle background called Grassland from the Graphics/Pictures folder.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX To add our own one, add a line that follows the same syntax as the above example.
Here I added the Mine line (62), so now Mine is a recognized area name that will change the battle background. Do remember that the last line must not have a comma on the end of it. So what will happen if we have no designated areas?
These lines a little further up show that the default battle background is now Grassland. Good enough. Now lets go create some areas, for example, Its strange that a grassland background would be displayed in the tower, isnt it? Go to the Ogres Tower. Then right click on the Map and click New Area.
Call this area Tower as this corresponds to the Tower02 background, and then click on the area position.
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Since we want it to cover the whole area, do so, make sure you highlight everything. Then click Ok, and then Ok again to create the area.
And then the area will be created. It is worth noting that areas can have special encounters that can be configured in their properties and these encounters will only occur if you are in their vicinity. Its handy if you want scorpions to appear on the desert section of the world map etc.
Now lets test the default background and the Tower02 background.
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The first one is displayed when the character is not in an area, the second if the character is in the Tower area, which covers the entire Ogres Tower map. Now you should do the same with at least the Forbidden Forest map. You should call this area Forest, and the script will take care of the work for you. Heres what it looks like:
This script is very useful as it gets you accustomed to using areas, and it gives you much nicer backgrounds to use. You can experiment with it to give different battle backgrounds in different areas of the map.
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FINISHING UP
FINAL CUTSCENE
Lets say we want to finish up with a final cutscene to wrap our story up. Our cutscene is going to be very short but is going to cover one of the biggest problems new users of RPG Maker VX have a cutscene that changes area. First of all we change the Ogres second event page instead of the placeholder we had before. (wait 180 frames, fadeout, title screen)
So there has been a new Control Switch added I called this OgreDead. Then a Fadeout Screen occurs, and then the Wait 180 frames we had before, then a Transfer event, and finally a Fadein Screen. Check that this event pages trigger is Autorun.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX The Transfer event destination is here, where the cursor is.
Now we create another Autorun event in the Village.
Create an event with Limes graphic here on the map.
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The most important part of the event is that you make sure there is a switch condition for OgreDead so this will not appear until the final cutscene. The rest is simple eventing weve already done remember to call your event name something appropriate like LimeFinal and the trigger should be Autorun. The Change Speed modifier in the Set Move Route event may be new, but it isnt anything complicated.
And with that, your cutscene is complete. After the fight with the ogre, the screen will fade out, transfer the player to the village, and fade in. A small conversation will ensue and finish with Salazar moving to the exit of the village where the screen will fade out again and will finally return to the title screen. The only step left is to test to make sure it works. I have included a few extra sections at the end here for things that I have not went into detail on because they were not necessary in our small campaign like vehicles and parallax backgrounds. In essence, however, your Mini RPG is finished unless you want to add anything you see fit. If you want to compress the game data down into an extracting file that you can publically release/privately send, then scroll down a few sections to Distributing.
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KILL X MONSTERS QUEST

This is one that is often comes up and it is actually harder to do then it seems! The problem is that you have to use variables to track the amount of monsters killed. Weve already talked about variables briefly in the Common Events section for the Steal skill, but here we are going to use them more efficiently instead of just in one skill. However, first I want to talk to you about the Game_Interpreter fix.
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There is a problem with a part of a script that comes with RPG Maker VX that can cause variables to sometimes not work, or so Ive heard. Ive never had a problem with the variables I use, but I would follow these steps and fix your Game_Interpreter file just in case. Heres the tutorial to go and do it: http://www.rpgmakervx.com/variables-fix After youve done that, we need to see to this actual quest. Will it be of epic proportions? Will it involve the slaying of six dragons, spread across the vast world map of the island? Not quite. For now, let us stick with a glorious quest to kill three slimes. Lets think about what we will need to do here: 1. Place NPC that gives quest. 2. Give NPC Conditional Branch that when no reminds player of quest and when yes gives player reward if variable is above or equal to 3. 3. Change it so when a slime is killed, one is added to the variable that tracks slime kill counts. The one problem with this is that you could kill three slimes before talking to the NPC and completely defeat the purpose of having to go kill three slimes. Which means we should set the variable to 0 after receiving the quest. Lets get started. We should place an NPC in town. Ive put him over by the rock on the right side of the village.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX First of all we should put down his dialogue that gives the quest:
Pretty simple stuff here some text from the NPC, a choice to accept or decline the quest, and if the quest is accepted it will set the SlimeCount variable to 0, and put Self Switch A on. Control Variables works in the same way as Control Switch but for variables there is obviously a lot more options like Set to a desired number, add a number, divide by a number and so on. I created the variable called SlimeCount already here.
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Obviously I have left the Conditional Branch rather empty. A good idea would be to give the players a reward on the completion of the quest and then put another Self Switch so it would be impossible to keep getting that reward. (Since the SlimeCount would still be over 3 every time you talk to him again after the completion of the quest) Here the Conditional Branch is when variable SlimeCount is greater than or equal to (thus the >= symbol) 3. Its fairly easy to set up in the Conditional Branch settings.
So with that figured out, we need to now increase the variable by one every time a slime dies. How do we do this? Go into the Database Manager (F9) and navigate to Troops, and find the Slime * 2 troop.
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Here we can see that the condition for this Battle Event is the Enemy Slime (the first one, indicated by the 1. Slime) HP is 0% or below. Essentially, dead. It will add one to SlimeCount and then it will change the slimes state to Incapacitated so it will actually die. This will just do it for the first enemy slime, so remember to create a New Event Page and do the same for 2. Slime.
There is still one problem, however. The slimes will die before they can add one to the SlimeCount variable. How to get around this? Well, this is a slightly hack-y solution, but we can employ the Immortal state to these slime. You can do this by right clicking the enemy on the troop and clicking Immortal. Do this for both slimes. Now it will work correctly, and thats why we needed the change enemy state to incapacitated, as they wouldnt die otherwise.
Now you can test it and it should work! There are other ways you could have done this, such as scripts that will help you do this easily, but I wanted to show you this way of doing it.
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VEHICLES
Vehicles are a way to get around and progress your game. If you have an area only reachable by airship or boat, you can make it an obstacle that allows your game to flow. There are three vehicles the boat, the ship and the airship. You can find the Vehicle Graphics section in the Database (F9) under the System tab.
You can change these by double clicking the graphic. It will bring up a normal graphic choice page.
You can set the starting position of the vehicles by right clicking and picking Set as Starting Position and then either Boat, Ship, or Airship.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX The three vehicles have different properties:
The boat cannot travel over deep water and is restricted to shallow water tiles.
The ship, however, can travel on deep water tiles.
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The airship can fly over both land and water. Keep in mind that unlike the other two, this one cannot be accessed when its landed on water (you have to actually be able to walk into the tile it is on) You can also change the music that plays while you are in a vehicle (under System in Database):
And lastly, the event that allows you to Set Vehicle Location, can be found in the second event page under Movement.
There is also a Change Vehicle Graphic event on the third event page.
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Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX Now lets say that you want to move the vehicles location after a certain event. If you want to have a quest or event that moves the boat to the world map, you will want to set up the event like so:
It is really as simple as that. You do not even have to set down the boats starting placement. Another thing that could be done on vehicles is that could be useful is the ability to have battles on vehicles. To set it up, its a simple script by BulletXt, Enable Battles on Vehicles. http://www.rpgmakervx.net/index.php?s=&showtopic=12384&view=findpost&p=109648 It is a simple plug and play script, so just paste it into your Script Manager (F11), and that is all you need to do. Really. Note that if you havent set up the water as an area, it will keep the default battle background and will look very out of place.
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PARALLAX BACKGROUNDS
Parallax backgrounds are a way to replace the blank with an image that will cover the background and make it more interesting. For example, in this area I would like to put outer space as the background, instead of just having black (since this is in the editor, blank spaces are represented by blue and dark blue checkers.)
Go into the Map Properties and look at the Parallax Background settings.
You should tick Show in the Editor so we can see it without play testing. The two of the options to Loop Horizontally or Loop Vertically means that the parallax background will loop. The Auto Scroll option means that the image will move constantly horizontally, vertically, or both. This can be handy to create affects, and you can set the Auto Scroll speed accordingly. After you are done, hit the beside Graphic.
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There are some default parallax images, but you can import your custom ones by using the Resource Manager (F10) and importing to the Graphics/Parallaxes folder. And ta-da! Your desired effect will be created (note that if you have used an Auto Scroll effect, you will need to playtest to see it.)
You can use parallaxes to map as well, but this is rather more difficult. I suggest you read C-7s guide here: http://www.rpgmakervx.net/index.php?showtopic=7498
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DISTRIBUTION
Once youve got to a point where you feel like you want to share your project or make it available, you have to go through some steps to make your project download file. How do we do this? First of all, go the File menu and select Compress Game Data.
This will show a menu with options:
The output folder is where the file will be stored. Now, the Create Encrypted Archive and Include RTP Data are both important.
Create Encrypted Archive will lock your project file so that others cannot open your project
in RPG Maker VX to see how your events are working or change anything, etc. If you want to give this to someone so they can look over it on the technical side, you do not want to click this option, but if you are publically releasing your project, then it would be a wise idea to tick the box.
Include RTP Data means that the extractor file that you will create will also include the
standard RTP data such as characters, battlers, etc. This means that someone that already has the RTP installed does not have to download extra files they already have. However, if a person does not have the RTP installed, they will not be able to run the game. It may be worth the extra size the RTP takes up. This will add around 35MB or more to your file size. After you are finished, click okay. It will compress. Afterwards, find your output file.
This is your project extractor file. This is the file you want to upload and give to people so they can play your project.
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Lastly, here is the difference between encrypted and unencrypted project files:
This is an unencrypted file. Anyone can click into this and open your project in RPG Maker VX.
This is an encrypted file. This will not allow access to anyone who wants to open your project in RPG Maker VX. As such the file size is a lot bigger (though not substantially.)
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EPILOGUE
SUMMARY
Im going to leave you to your own devices to either choose to finish this simple RPG, or dive straight into your own adventures with RPG Maker VX. Either way, this guide has given you a basic overview about how to create maps, events, and custom resources in order to create your very own project. I hope it has been informative. I may add additional sections in the future. But this is just for beginner stuff. There is a lot more customization and possibilities available in RPG Maker VX. With scripting, especially, the only limit is your imagination. So where should I direct you to next? Well, that depends. If you want to find specific tutorials for mapping, graphics, events etc, then a good source of information would be the rpgmakervx.net tutorial forum, found here: http://www.rpgmakervx.net/index.php?showforum=30 If you would like to learn the Ruby scripting language, then try this forum, it has a lot of information about the usage of scripts, but be aware that it will take time and effort to be able to master scripting. I never said it was going to be easy: http://www.rpgmakervx.net/index.php?showforum=39 Lastly, if you would like to check out other users completed projects in order to get some ideas on what exactly can be achieved in RPG Maker VX, check this forum out: http://www.rpgmakervx.net/index.php?showforum=25 And as a last word, I would like to say thank you for reading this on behalf of BenKo and myself. If you would like to contact me to suggest changes or if you have a problem, then you can contact me at kelsper@hotmail.co.uk Good luck!
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GLOSSARY
Agility The stat that affects battle order. ATB Stands for Active Timed Battle. It is a different take on traditional turn-based systems where instead it plays with slightly more action-orientated gameplay. Generally, a bar will fill up showing you when a character or enemy can attack. When the bar is full, you can use an action. There are generally two modes of Active Timed Battle systems Active, and Wait. In Active mode, time flows regardless of what is going on in game. In Wait mode, time stops when the player is navigating menus. Attack The stat that determines the amount of damage that is done to an enemy. BGM Stands for Background Music. This is where the longer music files will go and any custom battle, boss, scene or town music that you want should go in this category. BGS Stands for Background Sound. This is generally for weather effects such as rain or storm sounds. Defense The stat that reduces the amount of damage taken from enemies. HP Hit points. The maximum amount of damage a character is able to withstand before they are incapacitated. ME Stands for Music Effect. For small music files like the victory fanfare or the inn sleep sound. MP Mana points. The maximum amount of spells a character can cast (depending on spell cost) before they will have to recharge their mana supply in some way. Plug & Play A script that can be copy pasted and requires little or no customization for it to run. RGSS2 Stands for Ruby Game Scripting System, the method used in RPG Maker VX for scripting purposes. SBS Stands for Sideview Battle System. This is a special type of battle system as the characters are positioned to be viewed from the side instead of a straight-on battle style. This is one of the more popular systems, but it does require some knowledge of how the battle system script is set up. A very popular one is Tankentai Sideview Battle System. SE Stands for Sound Effect. This is for things such as attack sounds or novelty sounds. Spirit The stat that affects the magical strength of a character or enemy. It also functions as the stat for magical defense, reducing the damage taken from enemy spells.
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CREDITS
First of all I have got to give a huge thanks to BenKo for starting this guide and writing the first 66 pages for purely altruistically reasons. Otherwise I would have in no way had any motivation to write a guide like this. Please, send an email of appreciation to ladybenko@gmail.com if you can. I cannot emphasize enough the amount of work that must have gone into designing this. Credit to diakonas for his script of Battle Backgrounds Based on Area. This was very helpful in the creation of this guide as I had no clue on how to do battle backgrounds before his script. Also thanks to Synthesize for his original battle backgrounds script which inspired diakonas. Making a Balanced Level Progression originally written by mithos and continued by ZeroManArmy, is also a very impressive method used to balancing games that I had to give credit and a link to in this guide. Parallax Guide Mapping 1 & 2 by C-7 is very good for people who want to use parallaxes effectively. Thanks to all the users at rpgmakervx.net for having a really great community with a huge amount of help available in the form of support forums or tutorials. I love using the site and it was where I first went to get help for RPG Maker VX, and there are many things that helped me with events, such as Gordeloxs steal system. And thanks to you all for reading this.
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BEGINNERS GUIDE TO RPGMAKERVX

H ow t o ea sil y g et st a rt ed wit h R P G M aker V X

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

Legend of Gladius .................................................................................. 11

Creating maps ....................................................................................... 13

Basic events .......................................................................................... 19

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

Basic NPCs and dialogs ......................................................................... 25

Game elements ..................................................................................... 37

Enemies and battles .............................................................................. 53

Foreword, Part Two ............................................................................... 68

Refinement and Balancing......................................................... 95

Finishing Up..................................................... 115

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

PROGRAMMERS VERSUS DESIGNERS

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

ITEMS AND WEAPONS

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

Playtest your game and watch our wonderful fountain!

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

NPCS AND DIALOGS

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

Now you should have something like this:

Playtest it and check everything is working fine.

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

Your list of event commands should be like this one:

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

GETTING RID OF JUNK

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

Now right click on the slot number 2 and select Paste.

And here is how our items list looks now:

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

To finish this item, click on the Apply or OK buttons.

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

And here is the configuration for this state.

Our states priority is: Incapacitated -) Poison -) Berserker -) Darkness.

WEAPONS AND ARMORS

Salazar: long sword, leather shield, leather breastplate.

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

Zach: two daggers, leather breastplate. Lime: robe, rod

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

For example, the configuration displayed above generates this curve.

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

And dont forget to equip her!

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

ENEMIES AND BATTLES

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX

Beginners Guide to RPG Maker VX