RPG Tutorial: Part 1

CONTENTS

Introduction

Starting off

Planning

Story writing

The World

Moving in

Giving it all a name

The Main Character

Important Characters

Visual Representations

NPC’s and enemies

Planning NPC’s

Planning Enemies

Battles – Real Time vs. Turn Based

Making Conversation

Writing the story

Cutscenes

Coming up in Part 2

Introduction

Welcome to the Complete Guide to Creating RPG’s in Game Maker 6.x. This guide will be compatible with Game Maker 6 and 6.1. This means you can use GM6.1 as well to work along with this guide. Aren’t I a nice person?

Now this guide is going to be quite long so I wouldn’t recommend working on it non-stop for hours and hours. Make sure you take breaks away from your computer for about 10-15 minutes. I wrote this guide to help users who want to make a RPG but haven’t got a clue where to start. Also it gives lots of helpful information which can be used to help you make your RPG. During this guide you will NOT create a full blown RPG, but this guide will teach you how to plan, build and polish many things.

Anything you use from this guide belongs to Rupert Hodgkins and you must give credit if you use it in your RPG. This guide will teach you the tips and tricks of creating RPG’s and also shortcuts which can be taken. This guide focuses on using GML to create the RPG so knowing GML is highly recommended. If you do not know GML, I suggest learning it soon. Check out some of the tutorials from the links below. Ok, I've talked for long enough, lets progress to the wonderful world of RPG Creation.

Starting Off

Now as many of you know, or should know, creating RPG’s isn't the easiest in the world. It is not just the case of being able to code one; you have to add in many other aspects as well. First you have to create a world in which the player can move freely around. You have to then create a story which is both interesting and will keep the player playing. You have to make the player feel that he is actually in the world and that he can almost be in the game. Every character in the game will do a certain thing and have certain things to say. Some may not be of any use at all but others will help the player to a task. I know many of you just want to double click on the Game Maker shortcut on your desktop but however you must be patient. There are many things which need to be done before we even open up Game Maker.

First we will be using Notepad or any text program which will allow you to write down ideas, storylines, cliff-hangers, character details, town names, etc. There are 4 major steps or milestones of making an RPG; Planning, Creating the basics, Making the game, Polishing and bug testing. Each one of these can be a long and tiring process but ensures that your RPG is made well. Each milestone is to be created or finished before you can move onto the next one. However you can make any changes to your story anytime during creation, just make sure you make full notes on what you have changed and what you want to happen instead. Still reading this, yes, well let’s move on then and begin our journey into designing and creating RPG’s.

Planning

Well you've made it this far without falling asleep, but you still have far to go. RPG's aren't created overnight so it may take you a while to work through this guide, let alone a full blown RPG. Your imagination and your coding skills will decide how quickly you can make one, all I can do is show you tips, tricks and shortcuts to make things quicker and easier.

Now is the time to open up Notepad or your other similar program. We'll start by writing a simple design document which we will keep coming back to during this milestone and even other milestones. You can change anything in your design document as you progress through the game so nothing is set in stone which you write down now. Any text which is in brackets is where you are meant to place your own information. For example Game Name: is what you must write but you must replace [Temp or final name for your RPG] with the name. Remember to also remove the brackets. Now copy this simple template into your blank text document and then fill it in:

Game Name: [Temp or final name for your RPG]

Game Developer: [Company name or your name]

Age: [3+, 12+, 15+, use appropriately if you know your RPG will have some swearing or sex references in it]

Genre: [Well duh! If you don't know this then why are you here?]

With this jotted down, save the document as RPG Design Document. This will probably be one of the most used files apart from the actual .gm6 file of the game. Remember to always save your design document regularly as you could lose an idea which you have thought of and wrote down but forgotten it. Right now you have this all in mind, its time to take off your coding hat and put on your imagination hat to start planning the story.

Story Writing

RPG's are heavily story driven which means the game depends on the story otherwise it wouldn't be a RPG. Many people give up on making their RPG as you have to be able to write a story which can last for a couple of hours. Most RPG's these days are very long and last for hours and hours. Though most GM games are not that long and RPG's can just be a couple of hours long. Even though the time which the game last for is made smaller, it is still hard work as you have to write everything that happens in those couple of hours. You also have to make sure the player is kept well informed and interested while playing. It sometimes takes some people a few hours or days to come up with a plot where it sometimes only takes some people a couple of minutes to come up with one. When creating RPG's it helps if you have a good imagination especially in fantasy or future RPG's as you have to come up with an entire world or imagine what it will be like.

A RPG based on a past event isn't too original as it has already happened and you can't change much which is why most RPG's are fantasy or future ones. During this guide we will be creating the basics of a fantasy RPG. So let’s get started again, open up your design document again. Add in this to it where you last finished:

Plot: [This is the basic thing that you will be doing e.g. saving someone, retrieving an item, stopping someone from taking over the world. These are very often used examples but there are however some original ones out there. Try and make yours as original as possible.]

Now you have your plot written down and you have a few ideas in your mind, let’s start creating the virtual world which will contain your RPG.

The World

One of the most important parts of an RPG is the world which all the characters, enemies, items, tasks, and anything else you can think of are either placed in or take part in the world. You need to plan everything in your world from the colour of the sky to the tiny speck of sand which lies on the ground (that’s if you have sand in your RPG). The more detail put into your world, the more realistic it becomes. It is possible to either not take this part seriously or rush past it quickly, but the overall outcome will not be as good as if you had planned it properly.

For this part I’d recommend creating a basic visual representation of your planned world by drawing a world map in Paint or a similar paint program. Open up your drawing software and set the canvas size to 640x480. This may seem very big but compared to an RPG, this is really small. Now use your imagination and draw a map. It doesn’t matter if it looks terrible and only uses basic colours, it doesn’t have to be a work of art, it’s just so you can look at your world without picturing it in your mind. Make sure you can understand it though as you will be coming back to this. You'll be using this as a base when we come to making the proper pixel perfect world map later on. Make sure you add in all of these points into the map:

Finished? Good, save that as RPG World Map in the PNG format as it won't be a massive file size. So far you should have a RPG Design Document and RPG World Map located somewhere on your computer. Now let’s create a folder for two reasons.

I recommend making the folder on your desktop as it can be easily accessed quickly. If you don't like making folders on your desktop then make it where-ever you want. Call this folder RPG Game. Now place both the design document and world map into this folder. Done? Good lets move on.

Moving In

Now I don’t actually mean you’re going anywhere just now is the time to start filling in more details about the world. Now you have a visual representation of your world, it's time to start looking at each part of the map closer. First you need to name your towns and decide on a starting place. Put the location next to the B or S (Big or Small) of where it is located on your world map. Open up your RPG Design Document and copy and fill in this:

Towns:

Starting town = [Give it a name, try to be as imaginative as possible]

List = [Fill in all the names of your towns in list format. Put B or S next to it if it is a big or small town.]

Got your list of towns down, good, now lets move onto naming other things. You should make sure you have lots of names down. Even if you write down more than you need it makes sure you have loads as you might think you want to rename a town as you don’t like the sound of it during the production of the game.

Giving It All A Name

Well now you have given all your towns names it is time to name everything else. Now this may take you even longer than the town naming it just depends how many of each you have. You've got to name the mountains, forests, areas, rivers, hills, and anything else that needs naming. Also the biggest thing you'll have to name as well is the actual world. It's time to start working again, get out your Design Document and write down all the names for the different mountains, rivers, forests, etc. Next to every mountain, river, etc name, put the location of where it is located in your world. Copy this and fill it in.

World Name: [What do you think goes here]

River Names: [List of river names + Locations]

Mountain Names: [Names + Locations]

Hill Names: [Names + Locations]

Roads (This is voluntary, you do not have to name roads, also depends whether you have roads.)

Forests: [Names + Locations]

TOP TIP: If you are having trouble coming up with names, then try using the random letters method. Just press a couple of letters and see what word you get. This is a good method which can be used for the names of anything. Do NOT just close your eyes and press the letters because you may end up with something like Fdjkryh which nobody can pronounce. Try making sure you have a vowel after the first letter and that it is pronounceable. Also saying it out loud helps you decide whether it sounds good.

Ok so let’s recap what we have done so far. Doing this makes you think how far you have come and also encourages you to keep going. Also writing things down that you have done also encourages you as it makes you feel that you have accomplished something. So what have we done together, well we've started a Game Design Document which currently holds the game name (temp), age limit, plot, developer name, town names, mountain names, all other names, locations, etc. Also you have created a basic world map which is used to give you a visual idea of the world. We will be moving onto creating characters and a story for our RPG. We briefly touched on the subject of story writing earlier in this guide. Later on we will construct a story which the RPG will run on. The characters will be each given names, personalities, strengths, weaknesses and also visual representations. Then finally we'll move onto enemies and NPC’s (Non-Playable Characters). Expanding from NPC’s and enemies, we will plan battles and conversations and how to make them part of the story. Then right at the very end of Part 1, we'll plan cut-scenes as no RPG is complete without cut-scenes. Right I've talked for long enough, let’s move onto more planning.

The Main Character

Welcome to the world of character creation, probably one of the hardest things you will do. During this you have to create characters that have their own personalities. Now first of all we are going to create the main character which will be controlled throughout the whole game, which will be in the final fight (if you are going to have a final fight). Anyway open up your Design Document which I’m sure is getting bigger now. Copy and fill in this to create your description for the main character:

MAIN CHARACTER

Character Name: [Main character name here]

Character Age: [Age, normally 16+]

Character Likes: [Put what the character likes here. Do not put stuff like food and drink, put hobbies and favourite activities.]

Character Dislikes: [Put what the character dislikes. This can be stuff like wars, global warming, etc. Or it can be something he/she doesn’t enjoy.]

Character Sex: [Male or Female. Only choices you can have. No you cannot have both]

Character Species: [Human, Alien, Ghost, etc]

Character Skills: [Special skills the character has like running or fighting]

This should be enough for now. We can always come back and add anything else as we progress through the guide. Now open up Paint or your alternative graphics software. Set the canvas size to 128x128 and set the background colour to white. Now draw a simple face and shoulder for your character. Take a look back at your Design Document at the main character part if you need help. It doesn’t have to be a work of art. Nothing in the planning milestone needs the graphics to be works of art but it does require that you can see and understand how you want your character to look. Save this into your folder as main_character in .PNG format when you have finished.

Well done you've managed to create your first character. But now you still have to do all other characters. This is probably the longest section in Part 1 and the most complicated so don’t try and rush it. Take a 10 minute break if you need one. Try not to overwork yourself. Also working late at night for a long time is not recommended as you can work yourself into sleep. Just work through this at your own pace. There are no time limits or deadlines to do this in. Now let’s move onto more character creation.

Important Characters

In an RPG the main character isn't the only important character. There are normally a few other characters that you don't control but aren't classed as NPC's (Non-Playable Characters). One of the most important characters in an RPG is an evil character which causes mayhem stopping you reaching your destination quicker. Also in some RPG's there is a girl which the main character falls for. Now finally there is sometimes a comical character but often there isn't.

Now it is up to you what important characters you add but these 3 are the most common ones to be added. I highly recommend that you add in some evil character or evil team that you keep seeing on your journey and which slows you down. An example of this is in Final Fantasy VII with the Shinra. Now enough of me, let's start planning these important characters. Now I recommend that you don't have more than 6 important characters. You don't have to have a girl which the main character falls in love with; you don't even have to make the main character fall in love with anyone. These are just common RPG clichés but many people these days are looking for originality in RPG's. Now let's start the planning. Here is the template you will be using for your important characters:

Important Char #1:

Character Name: [Character name here]

Character Age: [Age]

Character Likes: [Put what the character likes here. Do not put stuff like food and drink, put hobbies and favourite activities.]

Character Dislikes: [Put what the character dislikes. This can be stuff like wars, global warming, etc. Or it can be something he/she doesn’t enjoy.]

Character Sex: [Male or Female. Only choices you can have. No you cannot have both]

Character Species: [Human, Alien, Ghost, etc]

Character Skills: [Special skills the character has like running or fighting]

Character Type: [Comical, romantic, evil, etc. Choose only one for each of the 3 characters.]

Why they are so important: [Reason]

With this copied down however many times for each character fill it in like you did for the main character. Make sure you also change the number at the top. When you have finished continue onto the next section.

Visual Representations

Remember how you made a visual representation for the main character; well you are going to have to make one of all the important characters. Do the same as you did to create the main character one. When you have finished save them into your game folder. Well done for making it this far. I recommend you now take a 10 minute rest before continuing with this guide. We still have a final section to go before we have character creation out of the way. Also don’t think that all the planning will be done in the Planning part of this guide. Some parts will be planned later once we have got the basic engine programmed. Let's continue after you've rested.

NPC’s and enemies

All refreshed? Good, let’s continue. Let me start by giving you a quick overview of NPC’s and enemies and their roles in an RPG. An NPC is a Non-Playable Character. What this means is it is a character that is just there for you to talk to or for some other reason. Some NPC’s play a more important role than others during the game like they provide clues which help you out later in the game. Sometimes they are just there for no apparent reason. I case you have suddenly started worrying we won’t start planning each individual NPC and giving each of them individual personalities. Ok so now onto the enemies. The enemies are there well to attack you and to block your path. One of the most important reasons why they are there is to raise your skill and experience. As an RPG progresses battles get harder and more experience means better attacks. Remember to add in bosses as well as they come under the enemy category. Now I hope I have explained them well enough, let’s start the planning.

Planning NPC's

Now in this section you will plan your own NPC’s. Like I've said we won’t be planning each individual one but we will be looking at them in general. Now here are some things which an NPC must have:

By now you are probably thinking, how am I going to plan this for each NPC as I plan to have around 100 NPC’s? Well luckily you don’t have to sit down for a few months and plan each one. We will be developing a system which will work on randomising looks, actions and conversations. This will be done once we get to Part 2 and we start making our RPG and then it will be continued in Part 3. But for now we have to sit down and think. I hope you’ve still got your thinking hat on. Right so let’s think about how many NPC’s we want. Well you'll want NPC’s in all your towns; it'll be pretty boring if you didn’t. Also you'll want NPC’s dotted around on the map. Also if there is an event like a festival you'll need NPC’s there too. So work out a rough estimate using my special NPC calculation formula below:

//N = Number of NPC’s, T = Number of towns, L = Number of other locations

N = 10 * T + (12 * L) / 2 – 2 + (T * L)

Right now you are probably thinking what the hell. Well let me show you how this works. First we do 10 times the number of towns which in my case for this example is 12. So that is 120 so far. Now we do 120 + (12 times number of other locations). I have chosen 4 locations which I would like NPC's to be at. Mountains, blocked places, forests and paths. So it is 120 + (12 times 4) which is 168. Next we do 168 divided by 2 which equals 84. Then we minus 2 from 84 which then equals 82. Finally we do 82 + (12 times 4 + 100) which equals 130. This means that in total my RPG should have around 130 NPC’s. If you get a decimal number which has a decimals in it then round it up. If you are still thinking I don’t get it, then don’t worry just decide an estimated value for how many NPC's you want. Get out your RPG Design Document and write this:

NPC’s:

Estimated value: [Enter value which you just got]

Save and close. Now let’s move onto enemies.

Planning Enemies

Now before you ask yes it is possible to create an RPG without enemies, but what’s the fun of that. Yes people have started talking about whether an RPG without enemies would work. Well in my opinion of course it will work it just won’t be the same as swinging your sword and kicking some mutated alien butt. Anyway we are now on the section of planning enemies. Now to me enemy is a big topic and it can be broken down into several sub topics which are:

As you can see here there are different types of enemies. Bosses are normally shown every now and again in the story. Monsters normally appear whenever you go into a battle. This is the most common enemy that will appear. Finally rivals are probably connected to the Boss sub topic but I have given them a separate sub topic of their own for the following reason. You only see each individual boss once in the game whereas you keep seeing these rivals and you may fight against them more than once. Now like in the previous section I mentioned that we would be making a system that will help us make individual NPC’s without much work. Well unfortunately we can use a system similar to that for the enemies except we need to do a lot more planning with enemies than we did with NPC’s. In this section we will need to plan different types of enemies, how many we expect to have in the whole game (estimated) and also determine who the rivals are. Open your RPG Design Document and get ready to start planning. Copy down this first and fill it in:

Enemies:

Am I going to have bosses? [Yes/No]

Am I going to have monsters? [Yes/No]

Am I going to have characters that are against you? [Yes/No]

If you answered yes to all of them then copy out this completely and fill it in. If you didn't choose yes to all of them, still copy out this but remove the parts which relate to the ones you said no to.

Bosses:

Water: [Make up some water bosses]

Land: [Make up some land bosses]

Electric: [Make up some electric bosses]

Fire: [Make up some fire bosses]

Dark: [Make up some dark bosses]

Monsters:

[Fill out some monsters which you want to have]

Rivals:

[Enter the rivals’ names which are against you and also write why they are against you]

Now you have this all down you are nearly finished planning enemies (for this Part).

Now let’s estimate how many enemies we expect to have in our RPG. This will be based on how many towns you have again but not for every town. If you ever get a number with decimal places then just round it up.

//A = Total number of enemies, B = Total number of bosses, M = Total number of monsters, R = Total number of rivals, T = Number of towns, Number of events planned (just make an estimate here) = E, N = Estimated Number of NPC’s

B = E * 3 + (4 * T) + 4 + N / 10

M = T * 2 + (12 * 4 / 8 + 5) + 2 * 18 * (T * B) / 500

R = M / B – 4 + E

A = B + M + R

If you thought the previous formula was confusing, then try and get your head round this one. Luckily for you I will explain how to use this to get your total number of enemies. I’ll explain it line by line.

Line 1:

This first line will work out how many bosses you will have. First number of events is times by 3 which equals 18. The 18 plus 4 times number of towns which equals 66. 66 plus 4 plus number of estimated NPC’s equals 200. Finally 200 divided by 10 is equal to 20. This means I'll have 20 bosses.

Line 2:

This line will work out how many monsters you will have. First the number of towns is times by 2 which equals 24. Then 24 plus (12 times 4 divided by 8 plus 5) which equals 35. Then 35 plus 2 times 18 times (number of towns times number of bosses) which equals 26140. Finally 26140 divided by 500 is equal to 52.28 which rounded down is 52. This means I'll have 52 individual monsters.

Line 3:

This line will work out how many rivals you will have. First number of monsters divided by number of bosses which equals 2.6. 2.6 – 4 + number of events is equal to 4.6 which rounded up is 5. This means I'll have 5 rivals.

Line 4:

This line is to find out the complete total. This is the easiest line in the whole formula. Just do 20 plus 52 plus 5 which equals 77.

Now open up your RPG Design Document again and copy this then fill it in:

Estimated Number of Bosses: [Insert number here]

Estimated Number of Monsters: [Insert number here]

Estimated Number of Rivals: [Insert number here]

Now finally we have done NPC’s and enemies. All we have to do now is look at battles, conversations and then cutscenes. You are on your way to finishing Part 1. Well done. But before I congratulate you properly, let’s get this Part finished.

Battles – Real Time vs. Turn Based

Well now you have a decision to make. You have to decide whether you are going for a real time battle system or a turn based battle system. If you are unsure about one of these then let me take the time to briefly describe each one to you. Real time battles don’t involve any waiting. All enemies are on the screen already and you have keys which you press to attack. You don’t have to wait for a time bar to count up until you can attack. On the other hand a turn based battle makes you take it in turns to attack. Most times you have a time bar which counts up until it is full and then you can attack. An example of this is Final Fantasy VII. Now you must decide which one you want to go for. In this guide we will cover how to do both of these so you don’t have to worry about only following the guide’s choice. Copy this and then fill it in:

Battles:

Chosen battle system: [Real time or turn based]

That’s about all you can do for the battle system planning for now but don’t worry as I’m sure to you this looks pretty empty but we will be returning to battles later on in future parts.

Making Conversation

Now an RPG without conversation would just be boring. You wouldn’t be able to understand what was going on. This is why conversation is so important in an RPG. Now we won’t be planning what everybody is going to say yet as we'll have a system which will do this for us. For now we are going to plan what the textboxes will look like and also plan a few pieces of conversation. Now let’s get out that famous RPG Design Document that we have been using throughout this guide. Now copy this down and fill it in:

Conversation:

Textbox Avatars: [Yes/No. Textbox avatars are pictures that appear beside the text which show which person is speaking.]

Scrolling Text: [Yes/No]

Where the textbox will appear: [Above the talking person’s head, bottom of the screen, top of the screen. Just put where you would like it to appear.

Now you have got this down you are nearly finished planning your conversations for this Part. Let’s move onto brainstorming some commonly used pieces of conversation. Here is my list of commonly used pieces of conversation which are used everyday:

Commonly used conversation:

"How are you?"

"The weather is good today."

"What are you doing later?"

"Have you seen this person?"

"What are you interested in?"

"Why are you here?"

"Go away!"

"Leave me alone."

"I’m hungry."

This is just a quick list I made up of commonly used pieces of conversation. You can either use my list or compose your own one. Just put it in your RPG Design Document and save it. Now it’s time to move onto the final section of Part 1.

Writing The Story

You may remember that we briefly touched on the subject of story writing earlier in the Part. Now it has come to the part where you must write your own story. In this section I hope to provide as many tips as possible but after that it is up to you. I cannot tell you what to write as it wouldn’t be your RPG then. Ok here are some of my tips to writing RPG stories:

As it is your RPG there are only some things which I can tell you as you need to think of things on your own. Now it’s time to get out that RPG Design Document and start writing your story. Take your time on it and don’t rush it. Remember that anything you write can be changed later on in the guide. Now copy this down and fill it in:

Story:

[Write out your story here. Separate it with paragraphs and make sure that you can understand it when you come back to reading it again. Include all events which you plan to happen and also about bad things that happen and things that the player finds out. Basically use this time to get all your ideas about what you want in your RPG down into words.]

With that all wrote out I suggest taking a 10 minute break. Writing stories sometimes take a long time so don’t rush; take as much time as you need. When you have finished then save and prepare to move onto the final section.

Cutscenes:

Well you've made it this far but you still have this section and the rest of the guide to go. You’ve nearly completed your first milestone and you should be proud. I hope you haven’t rushed through this Part because it was a planning part. As the old saying goes; planning makes perfect. Well that applies here too. Anyway let me explain about cutscenes. When you think of cutscenes you think of high quality 3D movies. But cutscenes don’t have to be 3D they can still have a good effect in 2D. Cutscenes can easily be made in Game Maker by using Timelines. Now you do not need cutscenes at the end of every important event. They can be used to take the player away from the game for a few minutes and let him watch something bad or good happen instead of playing it. Now let’s decide which events you would like as cutscenes. Open up your RPG Design Document and copy this down:

Cutscenes:

Cutscene size: [How big you want the cutscene to be]

Cutscene #1:

What happens in this cutscene: [Write what happens]

Which characters are involved: [Write the characters involved]

Conversations: [Write out everything which will be said during the cutscene]

Now copy the second part as many times as you want for however many cutscenes you wish to have. Now I think for the final time in this part you can save you RPG Design Document.

Coming Up In Part 2

Well done! You finished your first milestone. Congratulations. Now if you thought that was hard then you better get yourself prepared for the upcoming sections. In part 2 you will finally be entering the world of programming the RPG. You will construct all the basics of your RPG from the character movement system to the NPC’s. Then after that you will move onto Part 3 which will take you deep into more designing, showing you more advanced planning features and also taking your engine and turning it into the start of a proper RPG. Also when you are ever on the move, take a look around you and think of more ideas to go in your RPG.

Part 2 will follow shortly. . .

Rupert Hodgkins - Revision #1