O============================================================================O
| Table of Contents |
O============================================================================O
** In order to navigate this guide I have implemented a Ctrl+f system, which
means you press ctrl+f in your browser or word processor to bring up the
search menu, then enter the letters in brackets on the right of the section
that you're looking for.
1. Introduction........................................................(0000!)
2. Starting Your Adventure.............................................(00000)
3. Game Settings.......................................................(00010)
4. Party Members.......................................................(00020)
5. General Settings....................................................(00030)
6. Classes.............................................................(00040)
7. Traits..............................................................(00050)
8. Items...............................................................(00060)
9. Abilities...........................................................(00070)
10. Direct Effects.....................................................(00080)
11. Indirect Effects...................................................(00090)
12. Enemy Actions......................................................(000C0)
13. Enemies............................................................(000D0)
14. Units..............................................................(000E0)
15. Unit Placement.....................................................(000F0)
16. Scripts............................................................(000I0)
i - Party.........................................................(000J0)
ii - Members......................................................(000K0)
iii - Events......................................................(000L0)
iv - Input Creation...............................................(000M0)
v - Screen Display................................................(000N0)
vi - Sound........................................................(000O0)
vii - Data........................................................(000P0)
viii - Script Branch..............................................(000Q0)
ix - Script.......................................................(000R0)
x - Battle........................................................(000S0)
xi - Other........................................................(000T0)
17. Events.............................................................(000U0)
18. Event Placement....................................................(000V0)
19. Character Models...................................................(000W0)
20. Object Models......................................................(000X0)
21. Enemy Models.......................................................(000Y0)
22. Building Editor....................................................(000Z0)
23. Dungeon Editor.....................................................(000A1)
24. Map Editor.........................................................(000A2)
25. Object Placement...................................................(000A!)
26. World Organization.................................................(000A3)
27. Visual Effects.....................................................(000A4)
28. Image..............................................................(000A5)
29. Sound Test.........................................................(000A6)
30. Trash..............................................................(000A7)
31. Test Play..........................................................(000A8)
32. File...............................................................(000A9)
33. Fu-Ma..............................................................(000B0)
34. What Game Should I Make?...........................................(000A0)
35. Beyond the Limitations.............................................(000AH)
36. Main Menu Navigation...............................................(000G0)
37. Script Menu Navigation.............................................(000H0)
38. Visual Effects Navigation..........................................(000AA)
39. Character Database.................................................(000AB)
40. Object Database....................................................(000AC)
41. BGM Database.......................................................(000AD)
42. SFX Database.......................................................(000AE)
43. World Sounds Database..............................................(000AF)
44. Enemy Database.....................................................(000AG)
45. Version History....................................................(X0000)
46. Legal..............................................................(Y0000)
47. Credits............................................................(Z0000)
RPG Maker 2, for the Playstation 2 entertainment console, is a game which
allows you to make and design your own RPG. This game is part of Agetec's
"Designer series" which basically includes the two other PS2 titles Fighter
Maker 2 and Magic Pengel: The Quest for Color (I recommend both of them).
Included in this game is everything you need to make your own RPG. While it
doesn't go as far as allowing you to design your own character models, write
your own battle systems (for the most part) or anything that deep, it does
allow you to create all the events you want, design towns, buildings, maps.
Create your own characters with unique names, classes, colours, skins and even
genders. Virtually everything can be edited right down to the most basic text
command and sound effect. The game even goes so far as to let you design your
own magic spells and animations, which is quite good for a game of its type.
While someone who is perhaps an experienced programmer working with graphics
libraries might not be satisfied, those who have an idea in their heads and
lack the tools to put it into play will certainly get something out of this
game. Hell, I'm something of a programmer myself, but I still enjoy this
game. There's something to be said for simplicity, and a game like this is
technically quite simple, but you shouldn't underestimate the power of the
tools it provides. You can accomplish quite a lot with RPG Maker 2.
O============================================================================O
| Starting Your Adventure (00000) |
O============================================================================O
When you first load up the game you've got the option to either play or edit
your game. Since this is called "RPG Maker" you'll probably want to go with
the edit option for now. Before you get started you should know that a game
save for this will take up a good portion of your memory card, more than
2000KB to be exact which is 1/4 of one of the basic 8MB cards, so make sure
you know that before you go and do a lot of work without being able to save
it. Anyway, select Edit Game to bring up the edit menu. Your only option to
start is the File option so choose that. Select "New" and then choose your
difficulty, the setting you choose here will determine the difficulty. Given
that the beginner mode only allows you to edit pre-existing samples, for the
sake of the guide and yourself we're going to proceed on the normal setting.
Let's get everything ready before we proceed shall we. Select the menu button
then go to file and preferences. Here you can change the difficulty setting
whenever you want. Below that is the BGM option, you're going to be spending
quite a lot of time in the menu so you might as well start by finding some
nice music to play in the background, I happen to like Mellow 4. It's quite
nice. Don't choose something extreme that will totally distract you while
you're trying to work. Once you've got your settings in place tap circle to
exit the menu. You must choose "update data and exit," this applies for
everything you do otherwise the changes you made will not stay.
With all that in place you're ready to start with your adventure. The guide
will proceed as I personally would do everything in order as so to cover all
the topics, there is nothing that says you need to design your characters
before your enemies or anything like that and you're free to pop up, down and
all around the guide just using it as a reference or however you see fit,
that's what it's here for. For now, it's time for us to get started.
O============================================================================O
| Game Settings (00010) |
O============================================================================O
We'll start off with the most basic things and work our way up here. Your
game is going to need a name, perhaps you might want to design the game before
coming up with a name but either way you should know where to go. Choose Game
and then Game Settings in the menu. Select Basic and then Game Name to enter
the name of the game you wish to design. Below that is the name of the
designer which is obviously going to be your name. Beside the Basic tab we
have the Custom tab which allows you to edit the basic aspects of your game.
Windows - Here you can change what the general message windows in your game
look like from the border to the colour of the window and the colour of the
text. Even the window transparency can be edited here.
Camera - There are three types of camera angles you can use. A high 60 degree
angle that gives more of an overhead view, the default 45 degrees direct
diagonal angle or the wide 30 degree angle that gives a better view of the
surroundings. This is of course largely based on your personal preference.
SFX - Most sound effects for the specific events of the game are edited by you
manually when you make them but there are still many generic effects like
collision, confirm and cancel that will come up often, here is where you can
change these effects to whatever sounds you might find in the database.
Password - An important feature for those who might have friends or siblings
interested in checking out the inner workings of your game. Not very likely
of course but still, having a password protected game makes it more badass.
Menu Text - Allows you to change the basic text of the game in the menus and
stuff. Of course when you open the menu there's going to be an option for
"Item" but if ytou wanted to change it to "Things" or "Junk" or "Shit" then
it's totally up to you. Just remember the player has to have some idea.
Sex - I'm not kidding when I tell you this option allows you to add genders
that may or may not exist in the real world. Of course male and female are
the defaults, but if you want transsexuals, un-sexuals or whatever, go for it.
Prop W - The property of attacks from weapons, there are quite a few different
types of weapon hits in the game by default but you're free to add your own.
For example by default you can "hit" your enemy with a club, but if you wanted
to change it so you could "incinerate" your enemy with a club, then you can.
Prop M - Similar to the weapon stats this is for magic, allows you to
customize magic elements in your game by name so that you aren't just limited
to fire and ice, but perhaps some "Table" type damage might be interesting.
Flags - Here's where it gets a little more complicated, I haven't gotten into
this kind of thing yet since you haven't started to design your game, but
basically flags keep track of things, like when something has occurred or has
not occurred and in order for you to better organize these things for yourself
you will want to name your flags. This can be done when you actually make
them so this menu really just srves to show you all of them at once.
Variable - Similar to flags it's a type of object that can vary in state, you
won't see these names in your actually game or anything like that it's just
for you to help organize your work and keep track of things easier.
Input - The name and such of an event that requires player input, once again
far too complicated to be worrying about before you've actually started the
game so make a note that it's here, but leave it unchanged for the time being.
O============================================================================O
| Party Members (00020) |
O============================================================================O
We're going to skip over General Settings for now since it partly involves
forming your party, and you can't form a party without actually having
characters to form it with. This is where you will create those characters.
Let's leave the default character alone for now and select the "Create New
Data" option at the bottom of the screen. When you choose this a number of
options will come up, here's a general description of how they work:
Name - Obviously self explanatory, this will allow you to set a name for your
character. Remember characters are universal so you don't need to make your
main character first or anything like that, just whatever comes to mind.
Note - Allows you to add a little note for your own personal use later,
perhaps a couple of words describing what this character is used for or
something like that. You won't see this note anywhere in your game so you're
free to make it whatever you want, preferably something that will help you.
Model - This is where you select the model of your character, basically what
model means is the image or sprite or whatever, it's what your character looks
like in he game. There are one hundred and fifteen models to choose from so
chances are you'll find at least one you want to use for your character.
Now once we have this click on the Custom tab, this is where we get to change
all the small details about the character that will set them apart.
Detail - In the detail menu you can choose the character's gender and also
choose their class. Class is equivalent to a job or something like that in
another RPG perhaps, you can create your own classes too of course. Below
that we have the character's origin, perhaps a city of birth and a short bio
about that character. Lastly you can choose the type of damage they do with
their attack, whether it's hit type or slash type is up to you.
Stats - At the top you can choose fro ma number of predefined stat types that
are set up for you but of course you can also edit it manually. The reason
that those class type templates even exist is because it's a hell of a
difficult chore to try and balance out the exact stat numbers yourself, often
even when you're trying to control the most detailed aspects of your game it's
best to go with the default stat values just because once you start to change
them you're going to start running into problems with unbalanced characters.
Start Lvl - Quite simply this will let you choose the level at which the
character begins the game, anywhere from level one to level ninety-nine.
Exp Curve - Things are getting a little more detailed at this point, the Exp
Curve will let you set the rate at which the character gains levels. With the
faster option they will gain levels faster as they progress higher but with
the slower option it will get harder and harder as they go.
Ability - This will let you choose which abilities the character learns as
they continue to level up. At the default they will not learn the abilities
at all. You can choose a specific level for each ability and remember you can
create your own abilities so you might want to come back to this again.
Items - Simply choose which items your character will start with when you
begin the game, choose a slot and then select an item to place with them.
Equip - Your character's basic equipment, let's you start them off with a
sword or maybe some cloth armour or something like that. If you've created
your own armour perhaps you want them to wear a poncho who knows.
Title - Lets you set individual titles to the character's classes.
Resist W - You can change the character's individual resistances to the
different types of attacks. For example if you chose your character to attack
with the "hit" type and then changed hit resistance to 50% here, they would
only take half the damage if they chose to attack themselves.
Resist M - Similar to the previous one except for magic. Changes your
elemental resistance to the different types of magic spells that use those
elements. Remember this is your character's basic defenses and does not
include modifiers like armour and other such things.
O============================================================================O
| General Settings (00030) |
O============================================================================O
Now it's time to take a look here, this still includes most of the basic
settings you will need to change in order to actually begin your game. What
we start with is the initial party. The character you choose for the first
slot will be your main character. If there are any other party members you
wish to start the game with (party members can be added or removed during the
game of course) then choose them now. At the bottom we have the money option
which is nice, allows you to set how much money the party will start off with
when the game begins. Now take a look at the "Location" box on the right. If
you've created any maps by now that you want to use as the start point then
select them here, if not then just use the basic Preset Town so you can at
least see how it works. Once you've chosen where your character will start
the game choose the little blue button beside it. This will take you to a map
of the starting area. Where the large yellow marker is, that is where your
character will start the game. You can move it around with the D-pad and
change the elevation using the L1 and L2 buttons. If you want to start your
character on the roof of a house then that's fine, though I don't know how he
will get down. Below I'll just outline some of the basic commands:
Here are just some of the basic things you should know about when navigating
the map screen. The X and Y coordinates obviously keep track of where you are
in terms of left, right, up and down. The Z keeps track of cursor altitude
(top and bottom). You've got a little minimap of the area at the bottom
right. The L1 and L2 buttons will change the cursor altitude. There's a ton
of stuff you can do while holding R1. Hold R1 and press left or right on the
D-pad to spin the camera, press up or down to tilt it as well. While still
holding R1 press L1 or L2 to centre the camera. Spin the left analog stick to
zoom in and out, or tap the L3 button while still holding R1 to do the same
thing. Spinning the right analog stick will change the size of the map as
will tapping it. While holding R2 and moving the D-pad you can quckly jump
around the area and move faster. That's basically what you need to know.
Press the select button to return to the General Settings menu. Choose the
Custom tab next. For the Bag option it will allow you to access your items at
the very start. Items tab shows which items you will start with in your bag,
and the exact quantity of each item. Lastly as more of a general setting you
can change the battle effects. There are two basic random encounter effects,
either the screen melts or shatters. You can change the battle music below
that (this is just normal battle music, you can use different music when you
create boss fights and stuff like that.) Below that is the sound effect you
will hear for the battle intro. Lastly you can edit the encouter rate, the
default is 10% (there's a decimal point) but you can edit it to your liking.
Here is where you can edit the specifics of character classes, classes are
independent of levels and allow you to upgrade characters specifically based
on class. First of all your should name your new class and put a little note
below it to help keep track. On the Custom page the Detail you can input some
text yourself as a description of the class, if you wish for this description
to be hidden from being seen in the game then choose the "Conceal
Description" option. Next there is the Promote menu, in each class there can
be specific rankings of that class and you can give bonuses based on
increasing in rank if you wish. With the Evolve menu you can start to set
things up so that in order to actually change to a specific class you must
first meet some prerequisites of a different class. In the ability menu you
can choose specific abilities to learn as you rank up in a specific class,
these will like I said, remain independent of levels. Finally we have the
stats page which will allow you to have a character's stats altered when they
change to a specific class. Someone who is a strong physical fighter for
example might have their attack stat reduced if they change to a mage.
In the advanced memu as you probably guess you can set up some more advanced
settings. Here you can pretty much take events you have already designed and
assign them to different aspects of the class. For example the indirect
effect is kind of like a passive event that occurs always for someone in a
particular class. The class start event will automatically trigger when
someone changes into that particular class, so if you wanted to have a special
class transformation scene occur, then you can do that. The same basic
principle applies to having a class end scene. Battle victory lets you set a
class-specific event that occurs when someone of that class wins a fight.
A trait can pretty much be thought of as an effect, something that affects
your character basically. A character who is poisoned would have the
"Poison" trait, but it also applies to positive effects as well, thus traits.
You can name your type of character trait and give it a note, then on the
Custom page write a description and run an event that will occur when a
particular character is affected by that trait. You apply them elsewhere.
Almost self explanatory, unlike previous commands where you've pretty much
just been selecting which items your party starts with, this is where you
create the items themselves. Select "Create New Data" then here you can start
customizing the item or piece of equipment you wish to create. You'll notice
that the type box cannot be touched, but don't worry you'll be able to change
that in a moment. Select the Custom page next and you have some options:
Detail - Here you can write the description for your item, for example you
might want a healing potion to say "A potion that heals 25 HP" or something
like that. If you make an item like "The key to the underworld" but you want
that to be a note to yourself, you don't want the player to know then check
the conceal description box. You can set the purchase price and selling price
of the item. You don't have to set the sell price manually, you can just
change the ratio and it will do it for you. There are two more options that
include not being able to sell or discard the item, in case it's something
important your character needs to be able to proceed with the game.
Type - This is where you can actually change the type of the weapon, for a
basic item most of the categories are blocked off, and for everything but a
weapon the attack tab is blocked off. Obviously you don't need to know the
attack effect of a healing potion, it doesn't quite work like that.
Used - This is where the direct and indirect effects come into play which are
detailed in the section right below this. Basically if you want the item to
heal 25 HP you're going to have to make a direct effect that does that.
Equipped - For equipment, obviously when you equip a new sword you're going to
want it to increase your attack power, assuming it isn't the biggest piece of
shit sword in the world, in which case perhaps it would lower your attack.
You can also set an indirect attack to occur with the equipping of the item.
Members - In many games, when you've got a huge piece of armour or something
like that, your wimpy little mage isn't going to be able to equip it. That's
the idea behind this menu which allows you to choose which members of your
party are able to equip or remove this particular piece of equipment.
Classes - The same idea as the above thing, possibly better describing this
one. You don't want a knight's equipment on a wizard, a thief's equipment on
a samurai, or a merchant's equipment on a monk... or perhaps you do.
Attack - This applies specifically to weapons only, when you attack often
times the weapon has a direct effect attached to it. Say you already created
a direct effect for something like "Poison Powder" which is designed to poison
the enemy, well the "Sword of Poisoning" might just use the same effect.
Advanced - The next horizontal tag on the list there are three options here
for you to attach events to. When you equip this particular item, sell it, or
throw it away perhaps you want a text message to come up saying "Hey, that's
an important item, don't discard it" or maybe "Good riddance to that."
Abilities are well... abilities. Your characters can perform them and you can
create them. Come up with a name and a note for your new ability. It shows
what type of ability and where it can be used below the name. On the Custom
screen you can change the ability type, it's either going to be a magic spell
(in the case of a wizard) or a skill (in the case of a thief for example.)
Select whether the skill can be used on the map, in battle or maybe both (a
healing spell would be an example of a "both" situation.) Choose the ability
property, this is pretty much the same as choosing the element. A person
might have a resistance or weakness to a particular property of this ability
so you're going to have to note exactly what that property is. Below that we
have the casting cost of the ability and then the direct and indirect effects
that occur when you use the ability, once again direct and indirect effects
are outlined right below this. Next we have of course a description of the
ability you are creating and an option to choose whether or not that
description can be viewed in-game. On the advanced page there are a number of
somewhat confusing options. Basically what these are is deciding that one of
three things. The first is that this ability can be called on randomly by the
random ability call along with it the probability that it will be called. Net
is the actual random ability call that you can attach to this particular
ability. Lastly we have the option that just chooses to cancel it entirely.
O============================================================================O
| Direct Effects (00080) |
O============================================================================O
All right, these are what you're going to need to call upon when pretty much
anything... DOES anything. Like an item or something along those lines.
Start by giving your effect a name and a note then click on the Custom tab.
You can choose one of three possible effect types, offense, defense or other.
Rate will change how much of an effect the item has while success determines
the chance at which it actually succeeds in working. The next tab down,
Target. The first option, Disable target Menu, means that this effect doesn't
actually target anyone it just happens. Next we have target select that
allows you to choose whether this effect can occur on an enemy only, party
only or both. The person playing will be able to select the target. Below
that you can choose whether it hits single, party or random and various
different choices for that. The last of course is used if this is a teleport
effect. First we have group that calls an event when the effect targets a
group, next when it targets successfully and after that if it is a critical
hit. Custom is used for the advanced tab and fail calls an event when the
effect is not successful. There are many options on the advanced tab.
Turn start and end are for effects that occur at the very beginning or very
end of a turn not surprisingly. Check start calls a script if the
requirements for using the effect are met whilefail calls a script if they
happen to fail. Effect start will use a script is the effect starts not
surprisingly while the counterattack field allows you to call a script if the
effect triggers any kind of counterattack. Finally consume has to do with the
consumption of something like MP when casting a spell, you'll certainly want
to do a death check if the effect kills you, dead people don't consume MP.
First effect and after effect have to do with the power of the effect on
primary targets ad secondary targets respectively and the success check allows
you to finally check whether the effect was successful or not. On the result
page we have the success script for the effect, then after that the generic
custom effect or the critical hit script. Finally you can choose what happens
when the effect fails and what happens if it succeeds but happens to miss. If
all this sounds confusing then it's because it is, I have a basic grasp of how
the advanced page works here but mostly it's just play-by-ear.
The primary difference between direct and indirect effects is that direct
effects occur and then are just gone, while indirect effects have a tendency
to linger on and on. An example of each would be a healing effect "gain 25
HP" and a status ailment "blind status" respectively. Once you're healed
you're healed, but with blind you're stuck with it for awhile. Set a namefor
your indirect effect and then select the custom tab. Here you've got your
text that will be seen in the menu for the person under this particular status
as well as a little symbol you can use to show it as well. Priority will make
it so one particular ailment takes priority over another with a lower priority
number when a character is under the influence of multiple indirect effects.
Rate just determines how effective this particular indirect effect is. Next
we have the length tab which is primarily concerned with when a particular
indirect effect will end. You can set it to end after a certain number of
steps, or set a percentage for it to end randomly on any step, or both. If
it's a battle effect you can have it end based on a number or turns or how
often that character is targeted, below is the total number of times either of
those must occur or a ratio that shows when it will end randomly. Lastly in
the custom area we have both magic and weapon resistance modifiers. If
perhaps you cast the magic spell "Thunder Def" and it's supposed to make your
character more resistant to thunder damage then this is where you would bng
that into play, same applies for weapon specific type damage.
It gets a lot more complicated in the advanced tab. There are five basic
status types, action, condition, magic, skill and custom. Each status ailment
will belong to one of these types, stop for example would be action type since
the character is not able to do any actions while blind would be a condition
given it has an effect on what happens to the character normally. Silence
would be part of magic as it prevents the character from using it. Priority
is just needlessly complicated, you can have it so new status overwrites old
status or even if you want to have it increase the effect of other status so a
poisoned character gets SUPER poisoned or something like that. Same applies
to the amount of time it is in effect which isn't so useless if you want to
make it so that it re-starts the duration time of the poison. On Flow 1 you
can add scripts to the different times at which an effect occurs or ends. New
refers to the first time someone is affected while combined means when they
are affected more than once and fail is when it fails to affect them at all.
Forced end means you used an item to heal yourself etc, while natural end
means enough turns passed and it wore off. I'm not quite sure how something
can fail to end, perhaps if one of those random end things does not occur.
Lastly we decide whether it can be used on the world or in battle or both.
Each result will call a specific event whenever you move around on the world
map while for battle ones they're pretty self explanatory. Events that occur
at the beginning of the turn, end of the turn, if the effect is reflected,
before the effect is checked for prerequisites and after it happens.
This is where you will be responsible for coming up with your own enemy
movements and such like that. Before doing this you will have to have an
enemy ready, once you do give your action a name and select an enemy to apply
it to. Choose the type of action you want this to be, some of the defaults
include it being a wait animation, take damage animation, for when the enemies
dies or when the enemy attacks etc. There's all sorts of stuff you can do.
First of all start by choosing what type of attack you want this to be at the
top. Now see all those things at the lower left, with Motion at the top and
then they just go down? Well select the motion one and choose the "New"
option. Select any of the motions available here and set the frame at which
you want the motion to start then exit and update, now from here there's:
Motion Speed - Allows you to change the speed at which the motion occurs, the
higher you put this number the faster it will resolve and vice versa.
Flash - This is for making the enemy flash and appear temporarily invisible,
you can choose the specific frame for the enemy to disappear and the frame for
it to once again reappear. Good for teleportation attacks.
Color - If it just so happens that your monster changes from a sky blue to a
dark red as he's charging up his energy blast attack then this is the option
where you would make that happen. Select the frame where you want the colour
change to occur and then choose the individual colours.
Trans - Sets the enemy transparency at different frames if for whatever reason
you want the enemy to use an attack that makes them partially see-through.
Size - This is a great one because we all know that increasing enemy size by
999% just before they use their ultimate attack makes it that much more
badass. Not only can you increase enemy size but you can increase it on all
the X, Y and Z axis independently, fat or skinny, bigger of smaller.
Rotate - Like it sounds, the ability to make your enemy spin around as it is
doing the attack, good for spinning uppercuts and the like. You can set a
direct rotation or have them rotate a certain amount per frame.
Move - Using this you can have it so the enemy moves around in the battle
screen when performing its action, good if you want it to approach you.
Effect - You can take an effect animation, use a few modifiers on it and have
it appear when the enemy does his attack. if you thought it would be cool to
have your enemy perform a fiery uppercut, you could probably do it.
SFX - No fiery uppercut is complete without a big "FWASWOOOOOSHHHHHH" sound to
accompany it, or something equally as provocative. Take any of the game's
many sound effects and attach it to whatever animation frame you wish.
Screen Effect: Blur - As the attack progresses you can change the strength of
the blurriness on the screen. If there's quite a bit of fire in the attack
then this can kind of give off the impression of heat distortion, but I can't
quite think of anything useful beyond that, use your imagination.
Screen Effect: Colour - Similar to the previous one with maybe a couple more
applications. You might want to have it so your ultra-evil enemy has the
power to create darkness and totally blacken the screen, who knows.
Camera: Zoom - Gives you a variable you can change to go higher or lower
depending on the zoom you want. The higher you go the more you will zoom out
and the lower you go the more you will zoom in on the enemy.
Camera: Move - The last option we have is a panning camera in case your enemy
is doing a lot of moving around during his attack and you need the camera to
follow to the best of your ability, try not to use this too much.
Now it's time to actually make your own enemies, this is where you design and
name each one of them individually. Start off by giving your enemy a name, a
note and selecting which enemy model you wish to work with:
Weapon - Quite simply this is where you choose the enemy attack property
whether they attack with slash type or pierce type is up to you.
Stats - Set up the enemy stats here, like I mentioned before don't go nuts
with all the stat editing, the defaults are there for a reason and they really
help to keep the game as balanced as it possibly can be.
Resistance W - Here is where you change the kind fo resistance an enemy has to
each type of weapon attack like slash and pierce.
Resistance M - The elemental resistances and weaknesses of an enemy. If you
are making a monster called ice slime then it's a good bet you're going to
want to decrease fire resistance and increase ice resistance.
Behavior - This is an interesting one because it kind of gives you some
control over the monster AI. You can apply all the attacks you have created
for the monster here and choose the ratio of how often they use a particular
attack. When you change the ratio of one attack to another the probability
will automatically be updated to reflect the changes you made.
Reward - Of course this is an RPG so defeating monsters is going to net
rewards for your characters. Here is where you can change the amount of
experience a monster gives you or how much money it drops when defeated. The
wording is kind of odd on "Chest Ratio" but basically what it means is the
probability the enemy will drop an item and you choose the item. Rare chest
just means the probability for a rare item which you also choose.
O============================================================================O
| Units (000E0) |
O============================================================================O
You might be confused as to what units means, basically it is the various
parties of enemies you might encounter. For example if you get into a battle
with two Slime and a Werewolf, it's not three random enemies but rather that
is a specific enemy party that was predesigned. For this reason you'll
probably end up making quite a few units. Let's start with the name of the
unit and make a note for it. You can choose whether this unit will appear on
land, in the sea or in the air only, on combined. You can have up to four
enemies in a party and you are given restrictions on the size of the enemies
toward how many you can fit. You could probably fit four slimes no problem
but not four giant winged demons. Also note you can up the quantity of each
specific enemy so it might be possible to fit more than four slimes, just
don't go over your "size left" indicator. Once your enemy party is created
you're free to test out a battle with them against your main party.
Select the test tab and then form a party if one isn't there already by
default. Next choose the map on which you wish to test the battle. Feel free
to select any of the party member tabs and set your character levels to 99
(it's just a test after all) then enter the battle by selecting the battle
button on the right. At any time you wish to leave the battle simply press
the start and select buttons at the same time to get out of the screen.
O============================================================================O
| Unit Placement (000F0) |
O============================================================================O
Here is where you set up the locations for all those enemy units you just
created to appear on the map. You create them in sets rather than
individually. Select the Units vertical tab and load up all the enemy units
you wish to group together and then set a name for your enemy group. At this
point you can select whether you wish to place them on the map or in a
dungeon. For map placement choose the map you wish to put them on then select
the Edit button at the upper right, from here you can designate an exact area.
For dungeon you can simply select the dungeon option and then load this enemy
set into any dungeon when you create it. The Ratio tab allows you to set the
probability of fighting each enemy unit, for example you can set it so that
you'll fight a two slime party more often than a three slime party.
Scripts are the gears and cogs that fit everything together in RPG Maker 2,
graphics make up the shell but the scripts really control how the graphics
move and work. The following section will detail every last script you can
possibly use in this game, no matter whether I fully understand it or not
(don't worry, there's not that many truly mind-bending ones once you get your
head around them). Scripts are basically events that control virtually
anything that "happens" as I mentioned before, a character moving, battle
sequence, flash of lightning, teleportation, even simple messages, all of
those are scripts. Scripts aren't just a single action however, if you want
someone to have a conversation with you, you aren't going to have to make
dozens of scripts over and over again, you'll just put all the messages in the
same script. First of all we need to start out with a name for your script.
Next choose the type, 90% of scripts will be content type but if you need
something that is a prerequisite for an event (Page Condition), movement
pattern (Action), or start condition (Star Condition) then those options are
available to you. Once you've got that then you're ready to start your
script. Place your cursor in the large white box below and press X to bring
up the list of scripts. Once you choose one you can place another one after
it, before it or select the script you put in place to edit or delete it.
Scripts will execute in the order you place them in this white box.
o----------------------------------------------------------------------------o
| Party (000J0) |
o----------------------------------------------------------------------------o
Money - This allows you to do one of three things to the party's current
amount of money, add a certain amount, subtract a certain amount, or set a
definite amount. Below this you can choose what that particular amount is.
Item - Here you can choose an item and then whether you wish to add that item
to the party's inventory, subtract it, or set a specific amount of them
Empty Bag - The purpose of this command is simply to remove all items from the
party's inventory. Why would you do such a thing to them, poor items...
Use Bag - If you had it so the game starts out with the item bag disabled then
this is the command that you would use to set it to be enabled again.
o-- Members -----------------------------------------------------------------o
Formation - Set a specific party formation using this command.
Change - This is more of a relative command rather than a specific, rather
than saying exactly what the [arty is you can choose to either add a character
to the current party or remove a character from the current party.
Leader - Allows you to change who the leader of the party is.
o-- Movement ----------------------------------------------------------------o
Direction Move - Have the party automatically move in a specific direction.
First choose the direction then how many steps you want them to take. If you
select movement facing they will look right when they move right but if you
select fixed they will keep looking in whatever direction they were looking
before and still move right. You can also change the movement speed.
Location Move - Rather than having it so they move a specific number of steps
automatically, you might not know where the party is positioned so in that
case you would just tell them exactly where to move to yourself. Choose the
location map and then hit the button beside it to select an exact spot.
Direction Change - First choose whether you want the leader to change
direction or perhaps the entire party. After that choose which direction, or
whether you want them to face the leader and how many animation frames you
want it to take for the full rotation to occur (30 Frames = 1 second.)
Rotate - Here rather than having the party face a specific direction you can
have them rotate at any angle you wish. Select the angle and whether you want
it to be clockwise or counterclockwise then how long it should take in frames.
Vertical Move - Select whether you want the leader or the entire party to be
moved vertically, which means up in the air of course. Choose the height you
wish to move them and whether to move them up by that amount or change their
exact height to a specific amount that you choose, and the time it takes.
Landing - If your party currently happens to be in an airship or something
like that then this command will land them back onto the ground.
Gather - Using this command you can gather all your party members into the
same position as your leader to make it appear as one person.
Bypass Objects - When this is in effect your party can move through objects
without being hindered. This command is used to turn it on and off.
Warp - The basic teleportation command used for all things such as going
inside or outside pretty much any building or dungeon. When the party goes
through a door you'll want to execute this command and teleport them to the
entrance of a house using the location and coordinates set with this.
Warp to Saved - Basically this is the event you will execute when you want to
warp the party to the most recent save position in case they fail to do
something on time or anything else that requires backing them up.
Teleport - This is used to execute the command made using Set Teleport.
Set Teleport - Here you can select a point on the map or wherever to have it
so that when you use the teleport command this is where they will warp to.
With the Auto command it sets the teleport for you automatically at the event.
Delete Teleport - Speaks for itself, used after the Set Teleport command ends.
Escape - Similar to the teleport, used with the Set Escape command.
Set Escape - This is where you choose the location as an escape point so that
you can execute the escape command and have the party escape there... fun.
Delete Escape - Once your set escape no longer has a use, delete it!
o----------------------------------------------------------------------------o
| Members (000K0) |
o----------------------------------------------------------------------------o
Equipment Settings - Here is where you select a member of the party and then
choose whether it becomes possible for them to remove their weapon, head
piece, body piece, shield or accessory depending on what's checked.
Equip - Forces a certain member to equip a specific item of your choice.
Remove Equipment - Automatically takes off a piece of equipment from someone.
Ability - Select a party member and an ability, then either get it or lose it.
o-- Status ------------------------------------------------------------------o
Action Status - Allows you to inflict a specific action status on a character
or remove it if you so desire. The confirm option means that you can check
whether a specific status is in effect then do something if it is.
Condition Status - Allows you to inflict a specific condition status on a
character or remove it if you so desire. The confirm option means that you
can check whether a specific status is in effect then do something if it is.
Magic Status - Allows you to inflict a specific magic status on a character or
remove it if you so desire. The confirm option means that you can check
whether a specific status is in effect then do something if it is.
Skill Status - Allows you to inflict a specific skill status on a character or
remove it if you so desire. The confirm option means that you can check
whether a specific status is in effect then do something if it is.
o-- Movement ----------------------------------------------------------------o
Direction Move - Have a member automatically move in a specific direction.
First choose the direction then how many steps you want them to take. If you
select movement facing they will look right when they move right but if you
select fixed they will keep looking in whatever direction they were looking
before and still move right. You can also change the movement speed.
Location Move - Rather than having it so they move a specific number of steps
automatically, you might not know where the party is positioned so in that
case you would just tell them exactly where to move to yourself. Choose the
location map and then hit the button beside it to select an exact spot.
Direction Change - Choose which direction, or whether you want them to face
the leader and how many animation frames you want it to take to occur.
Rotate - Here rather than having them face a specific direction you can have a
member rotate at any angle. Select the angle and whether you want it to be
clockwise or counterclockwise then how long it should take in frames.
Vertical Move - Select the party member that you wish to have moved
vertically, which means up in the air of course. Choose the height you wish
to move them and whether to move them up by that amount or change their exact
height to a specific amount that you choose, and the time it takes.
Bypass Objects - When this is in effect the member you choose can move through
objects without being hindered. This command is used to turn it on and off.
Bypass Members - With this in effect the person you choose can bypass members.
Lay Down - An interesting command that will make it so the party member of
your choice lays down an whatever angle, height and time you want.
Display - With this you can change it so that the party member you choose is
either displayed and can be seen, or not displayed and appears invisible.
Model - Select a party member and another character model to change to.
Transparency - Unlike the display, with this you can set different levels
of transparency so the party member can still be seen, but not entirely.
Color - Basically just lets you change the colour of a party member.
Size - Select a party member and use the different points on the axis to
increase that member's size by a certain percentage in a certain time frame.
Flash - With this you can set it so the party member appears to be flashing,
set the amount of time for the person to be seen and not be seen.
Motion Change - If you want to change the party member's actions from standing
around looking bored to doing a happy dance, use this command. Choose the
member and then the action followed by how fast to perform the action.
Single Action - This will allow you to make the character just do one
revolution of an action, for example the ninja does a backflip but you might
just want him to do one, not over and over and over and over and...
Look - Not which way the member is facing but rather the look or expression
they have on their face, make them happy or sad or whatever.
Shadow - If for whatever reason the party member in question no longer blocks
the sun's rays, then this would be your script-of-choice.
Default - This will fix all the commands you fucked around with in the display
category, if you made a half transparent invisible character who is constantly
flashing red, black and blue while simultaneously growing and shrinking for no
apparent reason then you can gradually change them back over time with this.
o-- Control -----------------------------------------------------------------o
Start - As you probably guessed, this will allow you to start the event.
Temporary Removal - Once again, removes the event temporarily.
Duplicate - Select an event and then choose to duplicate it somewhere else.
Change - This one is a complicated one, you're basically choosing to change to
another event temporarily if you want something to occur but still continue
with this particular event after the other one has resolved.
Event Info Load - Acquire information for a specific event from the variables
and such it was saved into for use in the current event.
Event Info Save - Save information from the current event into the specific
variables for this map so they can be accessed elsewhere.
* These are only usable with an Action type script set above
Random - The character with this script in place with the given parameters you
choose in the menu based on facing a fixed direction or facing the direction
of the movement, also set how much time it takes per step.
East/West - This character will only move East and West, nowhere else!
North/South - This charater will only move North and South, nowhere else!
To Leader - Use this command to have the event character approach the leader.
To Party - Use this command to have the event character approach the party.
Act as Member - A simple command to have a character who is not technically in
your party follow you around as if they were, good for escorting.
Leave Leader - Whichever event character has this in place wants to get the
hell away from the leader, perhaps in a big damn hurray if you say so.
Up & Down - Perhaps useful if you want to five the impression of hovering.
o-- Movement ----------------------------------------------------------------o
Direction Move - Have an event automatically move in a specific direction.
First choose the direction then how many steps you want them to take. If you
select movement facing they will look right when they move right but if you
select fixed they will keep looking in whatever direction they were looking
before and still move right. You can also change the movement speed.
Location Move - Rather than having it so they move a specific number of steps
automatically, you might not know where the event is positioned so in that
case you would just tell them exactly where to move to yourself. Choose the
location map and then hit the button beside it to select an exact spot.
Direction Change - Choose which direction, or whether you want them to face
the leader and how many animation frames you want it to take to occur.
Rotate - Here rather than having them face a specific direction you can have
an event rotate at any angle. Select the angle and whether you want it to be
clockwise or counterclockwise then how long it should take in frames.
Vertical Move - Select the event that you wish to have moved vertically, which
means up in the air of course. Choose the height you wish to move them and
whether to move them up by that amount or change their exact height to a
specific amount that you choose, and the time it takes.
Bypass Objects - When this is in effect the event you choose can move through
objects without being hindered. This command is used to turn it on and off.
Bypass Members - With this in effect the event you choose can bypass members.
Lay Down - An interesting command that will make it so the event character of
your choice lays down an whatever angle, height and time you want.
Display - With this you can change it so that the event character you choose
is either displayed and can be seen, or not displayed and appears invisible.
Model - Select an event character and another character model to change to.
Transparency - Unlike the display, with this you can set different levels
of transparency so the event character can still be seen, but not entirely.
Color - Basically just lets you change the colour of an event character.
Size - Select an event character and use the different points on the axis to
increase that member's size by a certain percentage in a certain time frame.
Flash - With this you can set it so the event character appears to be
flashing, set the amount of time for the person to be seen and not be seen.
Motion Change - If you want to change the event character's actions from
standing around looking bored to doing a happy dance, use this command.
Choose the member and then the action followed by how fast to perform it.
Single Action - This will allow you to make the event character just do one
revolution of an action, for example the ninja does a backflip but you might
just want him to do one, not over and over and over and over and...
Look - Not which way the event character is facing but rather the look or
expression they have on their face, make them happy or sad or whatever.
Shadow - If for whatever reason the event character in question no longer
blocks the sun's rays, then this would be your script-of-choice.
Default - Once again this sets everything you changed back to default status.
Multiple Choice - A very important option for characters to have that
basically dictates all the choices you will have in the game. Select "Enable
Auto Conditions" so it will set the branches up for you in the script window,
then however many choices you want and finally the actual choices themselves.
You don't need to worry about a question or anything, just use a normal
message window before the multiple choice and they will see their question.
Numbers - If you want to make it so the player has to input a specific number
of something, then here is where you will get the actual input. Maximum and
minimum force the player to choose something in your range.
Text - If you wish to have it so the player has to input some kind of textual
password or something like that, here's where you would do it.
Buttons - Basically just a "Press any button to continue" type of thing.
Display Member List - Here is where you display a list of current party
members on the screen and the played gets to select any one of them.
Merchant List - Setup kind of an item shop thing will all sorts of items and a
percentage of buying and selling prices. You can load your own script too.
Display Buy List - Displays the merchant list to let you buy stuff.
Display Who List - Here is where you set it so that when an item is bought,
you an choose which party member will receive the specific item.
Display Sell List - As you probably figured, bring up a menu to sell stuff.
Display Class' Info - For those who want to see info on the classes, use it!
Class Change List - If you have it set up so in your game, a character can
choose which calls he or she wants to change to, do it here.
Inn - When it comes time to rest, there is but no better command to be found.
o-- Text --------------------------------------------------------------------o
Message - Well, get used to using this command a hell of a lot. You're making
an RPG, people are bound to start talking. Select this command and begin to
write your message in here. If I'm not mistaken RPG Maker 2 has support for a
USB keyboard, so if you didn't know that you might want to give it a try.
Honestly, it's perfectly viable to use a controller to type it all in, but
just imagine the amount of time you would save with a keyboard!
Close Message Window - If there's a message window open, close that shit.
Screen - When a text box seems too confining then this is the option for you.
Write a bunch of text that will still appear but not in a text box. You can
even have it scroll for an opening sequence or something like that.
Text Box - Rather than using the default message window you might want to
enter text into a message box of dimensions determined by you.
Close Text Box - If there's a text box open, close that expletive.
Display Money - With this command you can choose to show the amount of money
the party has at the upper right corner of the screen or turn it off.
Clear Message - This is basically a wipe-out of whatever you did with Message.
Font - You can customize the game's default text font to something fun!
Color and Size - Similar to font, small white or black text can get quite
boring sometimes and every once in awhile you're definitely going to find
something that just needs to be said in purple 50 point font.
Variable - Take the content of a variable and use it as input as if it was
directly input by the player. Used in between two message and directly places
it in the message for you automatically after the first before the second.
Input - Take the content of an Input Variable and use it as input as if it was
directly input by the player. Used in between two message and directly places
it in the message for you automatically after the first before the second.
Menu - Used for when you have your own custom words for something in the menu
and you want to include it as part of your conversation in game.
Description - When asked for by the user or when specified by your this can
show the description of a specific class, trait, item or ability.
Mask - Also known as a border really, set up the positioning of it and the
colour, then the time it takes to be set into place and you're ready to roll.
This can easily be used to create a widescreen effect if you want it.
Color - Select a colour for the whole screen or specific parts of the screen,
along with that are transparency options and the time frame.
Shake - Oh no! The main bad guy used his sinister Earthquake machine to
destroy the town, this is the script you want to use for that. You can set it
to shake as strong as you like and how long to do it for as well.
Linger - A weird effect used to kind of overlap an old screen with a new
screen, amount tells you how much to maintain and for how long.
Weather - A nice effect to have, there are four types of weather in the game:
Rain, snow, fog and clouds. Of course the default is nice and sunny so you
don't have to worry that it's missing. Choose the strength of each weather
effect and for how long to maintain the effect. If you're looking for a more
permanent effect like always raining you do it specifically with the map.
Time - Now that you've got the weather in place you might want to have it
gradually change from dawn to noon to dusk to night and such.
Default - Sets everything back to a nice mid-day non-earthquake sunny day.
o-- Camera ------------------------------------------------------------------o
Rotate - You can have it so the camera starts rotating around and basically
whatever speed you want it to and in whatever direction as well.
Custom Rotate - Here is where you set it so the camera cannot move past your
specified bounds, good for keeping a player from screwing around too much.
Distance - Pretty much the zoom, set how far away or close the camera is.
Viewpoint Angle - Change the vertical angle of the camera.
Horizontal Angle - Change the horizontal angle of the camera.
Height - Set how high the camera sits from the ground level.
Viewpoint Height - Rather than referring to the camera itself, this lets you
change the height at which the camera view is pointing.
Viewpoint Target - Changes your viewpoint to your attacking target in battle.
Default - Fixes everything you messed up with the above options.
Location - Take an effect you have already set up and apply it at a
specific location, also choose how many times to repeat it.
Party - Choose your preexisting effect and whether to target it at the leader
of the party or possibly the party members. How many repetitions as well.
Member - Choose your effect and which party member to target it at.
Event - Choose your effect and which event to target it at.
Target - Choose the effect to target your target enemy in a battle.
Viewpoint - Choose the effect to occur at the camera viewpoint in battle.
Set Wipe - Here is where you change from either a melt wipe or a shatter wipe,
this applies to the screen effect when a battle begins.
Apply Wipe - Use this to actually apply the wipe that you already set above.
Image - Has to do with displaying a picture on the screen, if you loaded an
image in from your camera then use this to display it.
Clear All Effects - Just like it says, everything you did using the above
effects will be cleared when you select this particular script.
Display Map - Oh how convenient, a simple script to automatically display the
map so that your party will have some idea where to go!
Remove Map - How dare you! Now how will your party know where to go? There
is no longer any map showing on their screen, it's a guessing game to try and
figure out where the nearest building, dungeon or bathroom is located.
Lastly we have the effect that lets you change what the default sea level is,
you are seriously playing god now, rising and lowering the sea with the touch
of a button. If you wish to have a town appear flooded (well not just appear
flooded, BE flooded) then you'll want to set a high sea level for when that
town is being displayed. Be sure to change it back when going anywhere else.
BGM - Start playing a nice tune, whatever song you wish (included in the game
library of course) Set the volume, pitch and tempo to your liking.
World Sounds - Play some sounds you might hear out in the world like wind, or
rain or thunder or anything else kind of ambient-like that.
SFX - Quite simple, play a single sound effect included in the game's library.
You can change the volume, pitch, tempo and the pan of the effect.
Sound Control - Edit an already preexisting sound to either fade out or fade
back in. Just in case something important is going on you want to hear.
Stop - Stops all sounds going on at the time this script is called.
Temporary Save - Saves the current state of a sound or music piece being
played so that when it continues after you won't have missed a beat.
Replay Saved - Again, if you saved something above you can start it again.
Battle Music - A simple command to automatically play the battle music.
Map Music - A simple command to automatically play the map music.
o----------------------------------------------------------------------------o
| Data (000P0) |
o----------------------------------------------------------------------------o
Flags - Flags, identical to the "switches" you might find in other games allow
you to turn a single flag or multiple flags on and off. Like the message box
you're going to be seeing a lot of this script. Anytime you do anything that
requires more than one event to be run on the same character it's going to
need a flag to tell you which event to do. I believe an example would be the
best way to explain it. Someone in a village tells you to go to the tower and
get the magic screwdriver. You go to the tower and get the screwdriver, when
you do you turn on the screwdriver flag. Upon returning and speaking to that
villager again, the villager script recognizes the screwdriver flag is on and
the villager responds with "Oh you found the screwdriver!" That's the idea.
Variable - Set a value for a specific variable, any programmer knows the
purpose of a variable but for all those other people a variable is meant to
store data that can "vary." For example you might have the number of party
members in a ground as six, but if they recruit another member the new
variable value would be seven. Scripts can check the value of this variable
and encorporate it into their conditional actions... that's the idea.
Input - Similar to the variables this is the input variables that are input by
the player, if you want to you can set them to something specific.
Game Info - This has nothing to do with loading and saving of the game in your
RPG but rather you can load all the game data into the appropriate variables
for checking later and save it as well. The difference between the two is...
confusing, but the idea is that you'll want to load all data from your
character's current state before actually trying to read any of it.
Member Info - All of this has to do with loading your party's information into
the appropriate variables. Use Member Order will let you acquire a member's
database number and load and save allow you to store the info... or something.
Target - Relates to those being targeted by a direct effect, whatever they may
be. Allows you to change all sorts of attributes, basic into, abilities and
stuff like that. Requires a bit of experimentation to figure out.
Load Item Info - Takes all the information from the item and loads it into the
appropriate variables, stores the item number and stuff like that.
Load Direct Effect Info - Takes all the information from the Direct Effect and
loads it into the appropriate variables, stores the number and stuff.
Load Indirect Effect Info - Takes all the information from the Indirect Effect
and loads it into the appropriate variables, stores the number and stuff.
Load Ability Info - Takes all the information from the Ability loads it into
the appropriate variables, stores the Ability number and stuff like that.
o-- System ------------------------------------------------------------------o
Substitute Attribute for Variable - What this does basically is take the value
stored in a variable and use it to replace a character attribute.
Substitute Variable for Attribute - What this does basically is take the value
stored in a character attribute and use it to replace a variable.
Item Action - Basically runs the buy and sell commands and stuff without the
menus, choose whether the character is buying the item, selling the item or
using the item and it just goes ahead and happens... without your approval!
Get Member Name - Allows you to obtain a member name from the variable.
Get Enemy Name - This allows you to obtain an enemy name from the variable.
Get Class Name - Go figure, allows you to get a class name from the variable.
Get Class Title Name - Guess what? Obtain a class title name from variable.
Get Trait Name - This allows you to obtain a trait name from the variable.
Get Item Name - This allows you to get an item name from the variable.
Get Ability Name - This allows you to get an ability name from the variable.
Confirm Party Item - Confirms whether or not the party actually has the item
stored in the item number variable from the Load Item Info script.
Confirm Member Item - Checks to see if the member stored in the member number
variable actually has the item stored in the item number variable.
Confirm Member Ability - Checks to make sure the member stored in the member
number variable has the ability stored in the ability number variable.
Database Number for Variable - I don't have a fucking clue. I'm sorry, even
after trying to use it and reading the start button description. Basically it
has something to do with specifying a databse number and then having it remain
in place even after using the sort database command... I figure either I'm
totally off or the description I just gave is exactly 100% right.
Battle Action - Set up a designated action in the action variable.
Condition - Choose which condition must be met for a script branch and then if
such a condition is met, you will perform all the other scripts found inside
the branch you just created, if not then they aren't executed at all.
Repeat - If you know the difference between an if statement and a loop
statement then you already know the difference between condition and repeat
but for those that don't, condition will run through the script once while the
condition is met and repeat will run through it until it isn't.
Sort - I'm not too sure about this one, it seemingly allows you to sort
conditions to execute them all possibly like an else if, I've never needed it.
Apply If - Used along with the sort script for multiple conditions.
No Application - Going back to programming once again this seems to be the
else statement given that despite everything, no conditions are met.
To End - Quite simply goes to the end of your condition.
To Top - Quite simply goes to the top of your condition.
Call Script - Now this is definitely taken directly from a programming
perspective. What do you do when you've got a bunch of code (Scripts) that do
the same thing in different events. Well you make ONE script (function) that
has those repeated scripts then you just make it so all the other scripts that
need to use it call it in a single line to save space and time.
Wait for Script End - Will not continue with the current script until all
called scripts come to an end, only works with Apply Together.
Apply in Order - Sets it to all called scripts must be applied one after
another while waiting to finish. Only works with Apply Together.
Apply Together - Sets it so all the scripts execute at once rather than
executing one after another. Apply in Order sets it back to normal.
Force Script End - Just like it says, the script is done... PERIOD.
Call Same Enemy - This command allows you to have the same enemy as a
participant enter the battle and treated as part of the same group.
Enable Call Same Enemy must have succeeded before this works.
Call Other Enemy - Allows you to call a different enemy into battle, one which
is not currently present and that you set right here.
Enable Call Other Enemy must have succeeded before this works.
Enable Call Same Enemy - Checks to see if it is possible to call the same
enemy into battle, if it is then turns out the correct flag.
Enable Call Other Enemy - Checks to see if it is possible to call another
enemy into battle, if it is then turns out the correct flag.
Enemy Action - Automatically lets you force the enemy to do a particular
action like attack automatically when the script is called.
Default Enemy Action - Returns the enemy's action back to normal.
Enemy Action Still - Either pauses or resumes the enemy action.
o-- System ------------------------------------------------------------------o
Check Who Goes First - Checks to see who will get the first turn.
Check Who Goes Next - Checks to see who will get the next turn.
Change Back Active Character - Switch back to active character that was the
active character before the direct effect came into play.
Substitute Attribute for Variable - What this does basically is take the value
stored in a variable and use it to replace a character attribute.
Substitute Variable for Attribute - What this does basically is take the value
stored in a character attribute and use it to replace a variable.
Make Active Caracter - This command lets you to switch instigator and target.
Give Exp - Gives you the amount of experience you would get from the battle.
Give Money - Gives the amount of money you would get from the battle.
Give Items - Gives whatever items you would get from the battle.
Check Level Up - Lets you level someone up if they got enough experience.
Check Level & Ability - If they level up let them learn an ability.
Check Class Level Up - Lets you level someone if they got enough experience.
Check Class Level & Ability - If they level up let them learn an ability.
o----------------------------------------------------------------------------o
| Other (000T0) |
o----------------------------------------------------------------------------o
Event Battle - Automatically lets you begin a specified battle against an
enemy, also set the battle start and end defaults if you wish.
Events are what actually run all the scripts you created, at least for the
most part. If for example you had a villager who says "Hello there" then you
would make a script with the message "Hello there" and the villager himself
would be an event that calls that script when the talk condition is applied,
but we will get to that. Let's take a look at each field individually:
Start by giving a name to this event and set a note for yourself. The
condition type is going to be normal most of the time as long as you event is
a character or object or something along those lines.
There are ten fields that can be used, so as you can see one villager can have
up to ten different conditions that must be met before they say something.
When you select one you'll get a list of all the possible conditions. Of
course there may be no condition, you might need a certain member in your
party, a certain number of members, more than a certain amount of money, have
a specific item, have a flasg either on or off or lastly a value in a variable
must be greater than a number that you specify here in the field.
Display type lets you select whether the event is a character, object or even
building. Select the direction you wish for them to face and then choose the
character or object model. After that you can set up an action script that
includes movement commands in the motion section. Start lets you choose one
of five conditions that will trigger the event script.
Touch - When you character moves beside the event.
Equal - When your character moves on top of the event.
Talk - When your character talks to the event character.
Examine - When your character examines the event object.
Auto - Automatically occurs while on the same map as the event.
Beside all those conditions you can choose a start script you've written
yourself. Finally at the bottom is the actual script the event will activate.
Here is where you take the events you have already made and set them into the
correct places in dungeons and towns and stuff like that. Let's say you made
a normal villager guy and want to place him in town. Give a name to the event
set for that town. I'm not quite sure what B Data is for, I think it lets you
load a previous event set temporarily or something like that, it's not too
important. Choose whether your area is a dungeon or a map, select the object
set as well which you created in the graphic editor so that things like
tables, chairs, etc will chow up and then select the edit button at the top
right of the screen. You'll be brought to a screen with your map. Hit X
where you want to place your event and then use the left and right buttons on
the D-pad to select which event you wish to set into place.
O============================================================================O
| Character Models (000W0) |
O============================================================================O
While there are 115 basic models you have in this game, those models can be
edited and saved as if they were different characters which allows you to
really increase the amount of characters so while they may be the same
"model" technically, their colour and expressions will set the, apart.
Choose a name for your character and then choose the model which you wish to
edit. There are sixteen different colours for most models, when you hover
your cursor over one of those colours it will flash on the character model so
you will know what will be changed when you edit the colour. You can change
the transparency of the character as well as the size of the character.
Change the face of the character at the bottom and perhaps give him some
emotions and some actions on the right side. You can examine the model better
using the left and right analog sticks to move it around as well as the L1 and
L2 buttons to zoom in and out. L3 returns it back to the default.
Very similar to the character model editor in most respects. Name your new
object and put a note with it. Select the model of the object you wish to
edit and then change the colours on it, however many can be edited. You can
edit the transparency and the size as well. Some items have actions you can
change, you can tell if an object has an action attached to it by just
selecting the model option and seeing which objects are moving.
Once again, quite similar. Choose the enemy you wish to edit and give it a
name and note. You can change the colours of the enemy as well as the
transparency and the size. Many enemies have their own actions as well.
O============================================================================O
| Building Editor (000Z0) |
O============================================================================O
This one is slightly different than the ones before it. What you can do is
make a building here rather than as part of a dungeon then use it in the
dungeon or town or whatever. This way you can use it more than once and
things get a lot easier. Make a name for your building and then click the
edit button to start building it. The Custom tab will allow you to edit a few
things that have to do with the look of your particular building.
This is an extremely important feature you'll be using all the time pretty
much whenever you create an indoor and many outdoor maps as well. Come up
with the name of your dungeon and choose the custom tab. You can edit the
transparency and distortion of your dungeon as well as the background colour
and more. In the Effect tab choose the type of whether you want on the map
and the strength of the shadows and stuff like that. When you're ready, edit.
The controls here are pretty similar to other edit type map stuff you have
likely done before, but we'll run through the basics. When you're ready to
set a block hit X and then move your cursor left or right to make it longer,
and up and down to make it taller. This way you can make a large flat surface
without doing it one block at a time. The D-pad moves your block around,
holding R1 and using the D-pad controls the camera. Holding R1 and spinning
the left analog stick controls the zoom. Tap L1 and L2 to move the block up
and down respectively. Now if you want to apply a texture to the block you'll
have to do it one side at a time, often the player will only see one side so
that's all you'll need. Position the camera so it's facing the side you want
to add the texture to and the game will automatically assume that's the side
you're talking about. Hold R2 to bring up the texture menu and use the D-pad
and X button to cycle between and select the texture you're looking for.
If you're wondering what the difference between the map and dungeon editors
are, the map editor is solely for creating outdoor environments and while the
dungeon editor can do that as well, the map editor allows you to edit your own
terrain and not just be limited to single blocks and such like that.
The map editor is quite confusing at first but hopefully this little summary
will help you out a little bit. Select a name for your map as usual. On the
Custom tab you can change the sky colours for each time of day, the fog level,
the level of the ground, snow and sea, the basic textures for each type of
terrain, the texture and colour of the trees, the texture and colour of the
sea at each time of day and all sorts of weather options as well, far more
than you had when simply making a dungeon, mess around with all of them.
When editing your map here are the basic controls. It's the same of the
dungeon editor for camera, control it while holding R1 and using the D-pad for
moving and left analog for zoom. Press the X button to place your terrain,
use the L1 and L2 buttons to raise or lower it before you hit X again which
sets it in place. Before hitting X the second time you can do quite a few
different things to the terrain by holding the square or triangle buttons and
move the D-pad around. Once a piece of terrain has been set you can still
eidit it in full or in partial to get different effects like sloping hills of
multiple angles, dipped ponds surrounded by land and pretty much anything you
can think of. Check the full list of controls at the top of the guide or try
pressing the start button while experimenting yourself for tutorials.
If you understand how the event placement works then this is the exact same
thing. Say you made a dungeon, and you wanted to place a candle on the wall.
Well make a name for your object set for that dungeon and place the candle on
the well, after that you can load this particular object set into the dungeon.
O============================================================================O
| World Organization (000A3) |
O============================================================================O
Everything comes together here, this is where the event placement you set up
for a dungeon, the object placement and the dungeon itself are linked so that
the game knows that all three belong together. Create a name which is often
just the name of the dungeon, then choose which dungeon or map you're
referring to. Load the event placement set and object placement set you've
already made for that dungeon. Units allows you to set up which enemy units
will appear on this map/dungeon. If you wish you can choose some music that
will always be playing in the background, as well as ambient sounds. On the
script tab you can select two events, one that will occur upon entering this
map/dungeon and another that will occur once you leave the map/dungeon.
This is a fun one a bit different from the other choices in the graphics menu,
it will allow you to for the most part design and customize your own spell or
ability effect. Star by selecting a base effect. Once you load that up
you'll have a menu which can differ depending on what you loaded, but
basically it will give you a number of graphics options that will let you
customize the effect you chose in various ways like colour, size etc.
Once the effect is loaded in (you can load more than one if you like) then
give the whole attack a name at the top and choose how many frames you want
for it to take place. Now, I think this is best explained by an example.
Let's suppose you chose the comet and want to to fly in from off screen and
hit the enemy. Move the marker to frame 30 and then select the comet. Choose
new. There are a number of options here but we'll start with the simplest,
hold X on the move button and then use the D-pad to move it where you want it
to be at 30 frames (after one second). The game will take care of the rest,
assuming it starts off screen at the beginning and you moved it on top of the
enemies at frame 30 then a comet will fly in from off screen directly toward
the enemies on the path you made and hit them in exactly one second. You can
load up an explosion effect and have that come in when the comet hits, or you
can go to other frames and move the comet multiple times so it has a winding
path. That's the idea of how it works, there are other options to play with
of course, you'll just need to mess around with them to come up with something
that looks good to you. One more note, that SFX bar can be used to play
sounds effects like explosions at a single frame of your choosing.
What this is used for is loading an image fro ma digital camera into the game
which can be displayed on screen to the player and even used as a texture I
believe. It's loaded in through USB as far as I know. My HP camera does not
work with it and my PSP does not work with it so I've never got it to work,
but perhaps you have a camera that does, then you can have images!
O============================================================================O
| Sound Test (000A6) |
O============================================================================O
Like it says, here is where you can sample quickly all the music, ambient
noise and sound effects from the game. Edit pitch, volume and tempo too.
If you deleted any events or objects or characters or pretty much anything
they will appear here before being deleted forever. Once you remove them from
the trash bin then they will indeed be gone forever. Works pretty much the
same as the recycle bin on your desktop... assuming you're a windows user.
O============================================================================O
| Test Play (000A8) |
O============================================================================O
Try out your RPG at the designated start point using the start command or
wherever you last exited using the resume command. The load command can be
used to load a saved game at a specific point in your RPG.
New - Eliminate everything you've done and start a brand new RPG.
Load - Load an RPG you have already been working on previously.
Save - Save the RPG you are currently working on now.
Delete All - Eliminate all your work without but don't start a new one.
Title Screen - Returns you back to the RPG Maker 2 title screen automatically.
Preferences - Here you can change the difficulty level as well as the music
that plays in the background while you work. Edit the screen colours, set a
screen saver, change the default font, sounds and the wait for the help men.
Sort Database - Here is where you can change the order of all the stuff you've
been bust creating in your game in case it gets a little messy.
You might be wondering what Fu-Ma is, well Fu-Ma is a game included with RPG
Maker 2 that was designed entirely using the RPG Maker 2 software from the
people who designed the very popular Dragon Quest games. You won't find a
walkthrough for the game here (it isn't exactly the pinnacle of difficulty
anyway) but you should be aware it can be played and loaded right off the game
disc whenever you want. In fact, just to get some ideas you might be
interested in editing the game yourself. Fu-Ma is password protected when you
try and load it up for editing, the password for getting through is:
O============================================================================O
| What Game Should I Make? (000A0) |
O============================================================================O
This section is totally unnofficial in terms of the game and serves mostly to
help those people who end up buying a game like this because they have so many
different ideas for games, then sitting down with it and not having a clue
what to do. I certainly can't tell you what you should do, but I can perhaps
make some suggestions that will help you come to a decision.
Let's start right at the beginning, you're just starting out and you have no
idea how the game works, perhaps that's why you're looking at this guide in
the first place. Many people will be inclined to pick this game up because
they thought of "the greatest game" ever and of course they'll delve right
into that. There is one problem with that of course, your game is going to be
a big piece of shit. At least at the start. The FAQ serves as a helping
tool, but there's no substitute for practice and you are GOING to get a lot
better with the software the more you use it. The question is, who wants to
play a game that starts out bad and gets progressively better as you go?
Maybe some of your friends perhaps, but few others. If you want to make a
game with more appeal you want something that grabs you right from the start
and hooks you the whole time, something like that is only going to come from
someone who is experienced and knows what he/she is doing from the start.
Where is this going you ask? Well I don't want to hold you back from creating
this ultimate game in your head, but I strongly suggest working with a smaller
project that you don't have big plans for to start. There's a couple reasons
for this, a smaller less important project can be finished and
scrapped/archived easily without too much loss, and also since you don't have
any expectations for it you're free to experiment all you want with the
software, trying crazy things, and not give a damn if it all goes to hell.
From all this experimentation you're bound to come up with things that really
do work, then when you move on to your big project you can leave behind all
the crap and come up with something great, that's the way I see it.
To be perfectly direct, make your first project a joke. You might be inclined
to say "Fine Alex, I'll do some small save the princess quest" or something
like that. Sure that's good too, but I find it's a lot more fun to work with
an initial project that doesn't take itself seriously at all. If your "save
the princess" game accidentally programs the princess to walk into a wall
instead of toward your character, your game will certainly appeal more if you
explain it with the queen's substance abuse during pregnancy, than just
leaving it there to make your game look weird. I think you should try to have
as much fun as you can with your first project, after that you can go on to
make anything you want and you'll be glad you chose to learn everything first.
Remember that I'm not talking about clicking once through all the menus and
trying to learn by observation. Ideally the initial project would probably
take a couple of weeks so you have adequate time to actually try everything
out for yourself, and not just once, but numerous times. Sure you can make a
spell effect that flashes on the screen and say you've learned it all, but
someone else who has been making spell effects for awhile could still come up
with something a million times more impressive than your crappy little flash.
Work hard at it, and in the long run, hopefully that game you had in your mind
when you saw RPG Maker 2 in the game store will be all the better for it.
O============================================================================O
| Beyond the Limitations (000AH) |
O============================================================================O
As a final note before going into the appendix I wanted to dedicate this last
section to not just giving you ideas of what kind of game to make, but giving
you ideas beyond the "story" or scope of your RPG to really get you to extend
the technical boundaries of this game and to do so I'll be focusing on one
main example, take what you can from this but don't be limited by this one
single idea. Keep it in mind as just one way that perhaps this game can be
used for more than the traditional style RPG purpose.
The example I would like to site is as follows. Note that the battle system
in this game is of course fairly set in stone as a first person perspective
tun based battle. Now imagine if you wanted to change this... I'm not saying
there is a script out there with a "Battle System" check box where you can
select different types, if you're looking to do this you're going to have to
program it yourself. We'll start with the basics of what I mean.
You have a dungeon with two characters on it, your character and a supposed
"enemy character." You do note have control of your character, nor is the
enemy moving. Instead you have a pop-up input box and a number of options
about steps you wish to take and in which direction. Once you choose this
your character moves and suddenly, the end of that input script generated
enemy movement in the "Approach leader" script for a certain number of steps.
Back to you again, let's say the enemy is close and along with this move menu
there is an attack command. You choose it and select a nearby panel where the
enemy is, you're script pops up a message window showing a number of damage
based on the enemy's predetermined health variable.
You see where I'm going here? Setting up the situation I just described is
fuck-tacularaly difficult but it CAN be done as can many other things with
this game. Always remember that while the battle system or other aspects of
this game might not be flexible, scripts are extremely flexible, and there's
absolutely no written role telling you how you have to use them.
O============================================================================O
| Main Menu Navigation (000G0) |
O============================================================================O
How many times have you struggled to find that one menu and just been lost in
among all the other ones. This is here to save you a bit of time, you can
just Crtl+f the phrase you're looking for in the guide, not in the game.
Game -------------------+------> Game Settings
|
+------> General Settings
|
+------> Party Members
|
+------> Classes
|
+------> Traits
|
+------> Items
|
+------> Abilities
|
+------> Direct Effects
|
+------> Indirect Effects
Enemies -------------------+------> Enemy Actions
|
+------> Enemies
|
+------> Units
|
+------> Unit Placement
Members -+--> Attributes ---------------+--> HP
| |
| +--> MP
| |
| +--> STR
| |
| +--> AGI
| |
| +--> DEF
| |
| +--> INT
| |
| +--> LUCK
| |
| +--> ATTACK
| |
| +--> ARMOR
| |
| +--> MAX HP
| |
| +--> MAX MP
|
+--> Basic Info ---------------+--> Name
| |
| +--> Origin
| |
| +--> Bio
| |
| +--> Sex
| |
| +--> Weapon Property
| |
| +--> Experience
| |
| +--> Level
| |
| +--> Class
| |
| +--> Class Rank
| |
| +--> Class Experience
| |
| +--> Battle Victor
| |
| +--> Item
|
+--> Equip & Abilities --------+--> Equipment Settings
| |
| +--> Equip
| |
| +--> Remove Equipment
| |
| +--> Ability
|
+--> Status -------------------+--> Action Status
| |
| +--> Condition Status
| |
| +--> Magic Status
| |
| +--> Skill Status
|
+--> Movement -----------------+--> Direction Move
| |
| +--> Location Move
| |
| +--> Direction Change
| |
| +--> Rotate
| |
| +--> Vertical Move
| |
| +--> Bypass Objects
| |
| +--> Bypass Members
| |
| +--> Lay Down
|
+--> Effects-------------------+--> Display
|
+--> Model
|
+--> Transparency
|
+--> Color
|
+--> Size
|
+--> Flash
|
+--> Motion Change
|
+--> Single Action
|
+--> Look
|
+--> Shadow
|
+--> Default
Events -+--> Control ------------------+--> Start
| |
| +--> Temporary Removal
| |
| +--> Duplicate
| |
| +--> Change
| |
| +--> Event Info Load
| |
| +--> Event Info Save
|
+--> Event Action -------------+--> Random
| |
| +--> East / West
| |
| +--> North / South
| |
| +--> To Leader
| |
| +--> To Party
| |
| +--> Act As Member
| |
| +--> Leave Ladder
| |
| +--> Up & Down
|
+--> Movement -----------------+--> Direction Move
| |
| +--> Location Move
| |
| +--> Direction Change
| |
| +--> Rotate
| |
| +--> Vertical Move
| |
| +--> Bypass Objects
| |
| +--> Bypass Members
| |
| +--> Lay Down
|
+--> Effects ------------------+--> Display
|
+--> Model
|
+--> Transparency
|
+--> Color
|
+--> Size
|
+--> Flash
|
+--> Motion Change
|
+--> Single Action
|
+--> Look
|
+--> Shadow
|
+--> Default
Input Creation -+--> Multiple Choice
|
+--> Numbers
|
+--> Text
|
+--> Buttons
|
+--> Display Member List
|
+--> Merchant List
|
+--> Display Buy List
|
+--> Display Who List
|
+--> Display Sell List
|
+--> Display Class' Info
|
+--> Class Change List
|
+--> Inn
Sound -+--> BGM
|
+--> World Sounds
|
+--> SFX
|
+--> Sound Control
|
+--> Stop
|
+--> Temporary Save
|
+--> Replay Saved
|
+--> Battle Music
|
+--> Map Music
Data -+--> Flags
|
+--> Variable
|
+--> Input
|
+--> Game Info ----------------+--> Load
| |
| +--> Save
|
+--> Member Info --------------+--> Use Member Order
| |
| +--> Load
| |
| +--> Save
|
+--> Target -------------------+--> Attributes
| |
| +--> Basic Info
| |
| +--> Equip & Abilities
| |
| +--> Status
|
+--> Load Item Info
|
+--> Load Direct Effect Info
|
+--> Load Indirect Info
|
+--> Load Ability Info
|
+--> System -------------------+--> Substitute Attribute
|
+--> Substitute Variable
|
+--> Item Action
|
+--> Get Member Name
|
+--> Get Enemy Name
|
+--> Get Class Name
|
+--> Get Class Title Name
|
+--> Get Trait Name
|
+--> Get Item Name
|
+--> Get Ability Name
|
+--> Confirm Party Item
|
+--> Confirm Member Item
|
+--> Confirm Member Ability
|
+--> Database Number for Var
|
+--> Battle Action
Script Branch -+--> Condition
|
+--> Repeat
|
+--> Sort
|
+--> Apply If
|
+--> No Application
|
+--> To End
|
+--> To Top
Script -+--> Call Script
|
+--> Wait For Script End
|
+--> Apply In Order
|
+--> Apply Together
|
+--> Force Script End
Battle -+--> Enemy --------------------+--> Call Same Enemy
| |
| +--> Call Other Enemy
| |
| +--> Enable Call Same Enemy
| |
| +--> Enable Call Other Enemy
| |
| +--> Enemy Action
| |
| +--> Default Enemy Action
| |
| +--> Enemy Action Still
|
+--> System -------------------+--> Check Who Goes First
|
+--> Check Who Goes Next
|
+--> Change Back Active Char
|
+--> Substitute Target Attr
|
+--> Substitute Variable
|
+--> Make Active Character
|
+--> Give Exp
|
+--> Give Money
|
+--> Give Items
|
+--> Check Level Up
|
+--> Check Level Up & Ability
|
+--> Check Class Level Up
|
+--> Check Class LvUp & Ablty
Other -+--> Event Battle
|
+--> Vehicle +--> Set As Vehicle
| |
| +--> Ride Vehicle
| |
| +--> Deploy Vehicle
| |
| +--> Control Vehicle
| |
| +--> Exit Vehicle
| |
| +--> Call Vehicle
|
+--> Controller Vibration
|
+--> Show Save Window
|
+--> Start New GameFile
|
+--> Wait
|
+--> None
|
+--> Finish Game
|
+--> Note
O============================================================================O
| Version History (X0000) |
O============================================================================O
Version 0.00 - (June 8th, 2005) - Began the walkthrough
Version 1.00 - (June 10th, 2005) - Completed the walkthrough
I am no longer active writing guides for video games, and thus I will no
longer any questions or update with any corrections sent through email. It
is likely that after this point this guide will never be updated again. I am
aware that there are errors occasionally and I apologize for those. Please
do not email me any corrections, or ask me for any help with this particular
game, as I will not respond.
It is also not necessary to send any email to thank me for the work, I will
say right now that you are very welcome.
Furthermore, please do not contact me about hosting this guide on your website,
I will not grant permisson. I am still willing to take action if I find this
guide being hosted anywhere other than GameFAQs.com, IGN.com, or a very small
number of other select sites.
Finally, if you need to contact me for some reason that is not covered above,
then you can reach me at StarOceanDC(a.t)gmail(d.o.t)com.
Thanks to CJayC for continuing to keep GameFAQs running smoothly, and the same
to Sailor Bacon. Thanks to Sean, Mark and Jeremy here at the University of
Guelph, thanks to everyone in the GameFAQs FAQ contributor community for being
great people, and thanks to everyone who takes the time to send feedback.
Thank you very much finally, to anyone and everyone reading this walkthrough.
