A short ramble about my history of Game Dev Projects and RPG Maker series

 Hello again! it's Tommy. RPG Maker Festival 2026 appeared in my Steam News feed and sparked my interest in game development again. Of course I would immediately write a short visual novel script for a completely DIFFERENT game engine entirely called RenPy. The reasons I chose to use that engine are the following. 1. I NEVER finished ANY of my past game dev projects. I got pretty close to something complete once but I long sense gave up on that one. So I decided to make a stance here. I HAVE TO FINISH A GAME before I can try harder projects.

But on the topic of my Visual Novel game it's actually going pretty well. I used ChatGPT to give me a basic concept to write about and thus I made a short story about my two OCs talking in a hospital waiting room. I won't spoil much more about it expect for the fact this isn't really a canon universe am planning on using for these characters. The game is technically more of a short story then a game, in Visual Novel terms it would be considered a kinetic Novel, aka a game without choices in the story. In all it's just a short flash fiction story of two best friends arguing in a hospital. 

It's pretty basic...but that is a must for my first game because I've spent the past 15+ years trying and failing at making games precisely because I would refuse to scale the project scope down. And I will likely keep it pretty basic for the next dozen games I plan to make after this short Visual Novel. But now am currently waiting for one more day before I go and edit the first draft of the story. turns out giving your writing some space just after you finish a draft makes self-editing much easier. I am a bit impatient so I chose to wait three days after the fact. I could in theory just edit right now but I think the advice I found on this topic proves reasonable enough.

It's still going to take awhile after the editing as I have to relearn RenPy's coding, draw the characters, possibly even make a 3D background to use as a base for the drawn version in Blender as I really hate drawing backgrounds plus figure out music. I doubt am going to go and make a my own music for this one off story am not even considering canon for my two OCs but I can simply find a song made online for game devs to use. There are sites for this after all.

Any who this project is a prefect beginner level task for a solo indie dev/hobbyist like myself.

Now that am done Rambling about my Visual Novel project I can get to what I really wanted to talk about on this post. RPG Maker. A series of Game Engines meant to recreate the 2D JRPGs of old. Think things like the Retro Final Fantasies. Admittedly I never really played much of those style of RPGs but I did play a lot of Persona 3 FES and Disgaea 3 on a PS3 back when it still worked.

I can actually play those older RPGs easily now thanks to my Linux based Gaming Handheld the G350 BatleXP I got for Christmas recently. Honestly I should make a post about this device, am not planning on becoming the next "TechDweeb" handheld reviewer (BTW that's who I watched to research this device in the first place, check him out he's pretty cool) But I can definitely talk about my experiences with this little gameboy if you guys want.

But yeah I was always a big RPG player. maybe less so now but I always wanted to make my own cool little Persona-like RPG with great characters and story. but let's talk about the RPG Maker series for a bit.

RPG Maker is a series of game engines made by some Japanese company that are designed with the motto "Simple enough for a Child, Powerful enough for a Developer" (forgive me if I got this part wrong). and as I first got into RPG Maker as a kid using a cracked copy of one of the engines before it came out on Steam some years later. I can say it definitely rings true to me.

RPG Maker is a rare game engine in that you technically don't have to know coding (at least in the traditional sense) to make a game. It obviously helps and I think I learned a bit about coding thanks to RPG Maker's logic based event system but it can easily make basic JRPGs using no extra knowledge.

Another neat thing about this series of game engines is the fact they come with pre-made art and audio assets. this of course means there are tons of default graphics RPG Maker titles on Steam with various levels of competence but it does help as placeholders and prototyping your game. Ideally I would recommend replacing the default assets before release of a game, unless your making like a simple freeware game for practice.

But there somes a huge problem for first time buyers of RPG Maker...which Version do you buy?

See RPG Maker is a pretty old series of software. the oldest one that's on steam is RPG Maker 2000, never used it because 2003 is also on steam and I would always perfer it anyways because of the Final Fantasy 7 style Active Time Battle System on there.

RPG Maker 2003 is one of my favorites in the series, the RTP (Default assets) were by far the best. maybe the music is just slightly less good then RPG Maker MV's music but there were some great tracks in there. The biggest issue is the lack of later edition's features like scripting (Aka code scripts other Devs can make for use in your game) and alot of the default stuff is hard coded in. But despite these limits the community of dev surrounding this engine can do what I thought was impossible with extreme usage of the default eventing system. I like like engine alot but I still use the more modern engines (mostly MV) because of the ease of use for customization like menus and UI. also gameplay tweaks in the form of scripts and plugins make your game easier to stand out which I consider a big deal in the RPG Maker space where dozens of shovelware games using default assets exist to compete with your game. even in a non-profit space.

The next RPG Maker I tried awhile ago but never quite stuck with for too long was RPG Maker XP. It's not steam like the rest of the major engines in the series but I didn't actually buy this engine. It was given away for free a while ago on steam to keep. I don't use it for the same reasons I use MV over 2003. But XP actually had two things going for it. one it was once the only engine with the best mapping features (Layering stuff mainly) until MZ came along and brought it back. and it was also the first RPG Maker to include Scripting functions. a mainstay for the series from then onward. Fun but not really used much by me.

The two VX engines are where the modern RPG Maker formula started taking shape. I don't remember or recommend buying VX vanilla because VX Ace is a direct upgrade to VX. they both cost around 70 dollars so there is little point in getting VX vanilla over Ace as both are pretty much the same. I don't remember much about Ace, expect that it added the TP meter which is pretty much an alternate Mana Point system. I also would just recommend getting the next RPG Maker entry if you can already get this one.

RPG Maker MV is my favorite modern RPG Maker title in the series. I planned on getting RPG Maker MZ one day but after testing that engine's Sample games with the currently going freeweekend of the software I discovered my PC lags when using it. not great. thankfully MV is pretty much the same as MZ. MV is pretty much just Ace for the 2015 era, modern features galore better Plugins using JavaScript instead of Ruby for coding. Multiple platforms and touch/mouse controls. It's definitely my most used engine once I got it. I mainly use this engine over 2003 because of gameplay settings, possible Visual Novel elements and overall more support from community Plugins.

 These engines were a big part of my childhood, because it actual felt fun to use them to make things. despite all the failed projects I attempted to make in these engines. I wouldn't change the time spent. These engines really should be taught in Schools. at least as a niche thing for computer clubs.

The reason am even getting back into making games was because of my memories of using RPG Maker to make my games, doing Pixel Art and drawing characters, designing Skills and Stats for Party Members and Monsters. and of course making a story was a part of that experience, which am now taking a bit more seriously. But before I can make my dream JRPG project I have to do simpler more manageable games.

That simpler project will hopefully be the Future Visual Novel Project in RenPy. it's only one more day before I edit the draft and make more progress on this game. There are still lots to do, like Drawing art, coding the game and of course actually finishing the project. Wish me luck. but even if I don't finish the work I can al least say I enjoy my little walk down memory lane with RPG Maker over the years. Thanks for reading!

P.S - Am going to try and make something for the background of this blog, if for nothing more then to give me something to do later on tonight. Wish me luck.