Posted May 07, 2024 by s1xplus
Hello. My online name is S1x. I normally slowly work on my own game projects in my free time, and normally I prioritize fun gameplay mechanics over narrative and story, but my friend ArcanaXIX (the main writer for this game) asked me and some other online friends if we wanted to be on the team to make a mystery game. Supporting friends is one of my most powerful sources of motivation, so I said I'd take on the primary developer role and figure out how to make the team's vision real.
It came with several short moments of panic, as sometimes the difference between a request that's easily implementable in a few minutes and a request that requires big plugins / major source code edits is not very obvious.
Problem: The game we were brainstorming involved investigating scenes like a point and click adventure, while the engine I'm used to, RPG Maker MV, more commonly uses characters on maps that specifically only move tile by tile
Solution: Find and install a plugin that lets you move on smaller segments of tiles, also adding diagonal motion. Change the main actor into a cursor-like object (made on day 1, and lasted all the way through to the finished game!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F77WGgSGhHI
Problem: The game is not going to use the battle scene or any systems/stats that go along with it
Solution: Use a combination of a plugin that lets you manage menus and what does/doesn't appear on it, and finding the lines in the source code themselves that draw certain menu options and comment out those lines
Problem: If the background image was set as a picture, it would go over the actor and map events (like the back arrow). If it was set as a parallax, it would not scroll at the same speed the player scrolls
Solution: Find and install a plugin that adds its own layers system, accomplishing the perfect use case for a background that scrolls 1 to 1 with map scrolling