One of the fantastic things about RPG Maker is the plethora of games of different genres it can create.

With a little imagination from the creator, games are able to explore territory away from the titular genre, spread their wings and open up multiple avenues of creative expression.

This jam attempts to embrace that concept by challenging creators to make a non-RPG in RPG Maker.

What constitutes a non-RPG? 

My online research has yielded a controversial topic of debate of when a game is defined as an RPG or something else. The boundaries and implications of this are somewhat fuzzy and lines can easily be blurred.

When is a game an RPG; when is a game NOT an RPG? It's not easy to define, is it? Take FPS for example: Do you play in first person? Yes. Do you shoot? Yes. There you are, you have a first-person shooter game. Unfortunately, RPG is much more complex a genre to define. One could argue that you are even 'playing the role' of the shooter in any FPS. You could easily fall down a rabbit hole arguing semantics on this topic.

For the purposes of this jam and to make things simpler, I am going to exercise a very lenient stance on what you can get away with here. 

More will become apparent as you read the sections below.

Examples of non-RPGs made in RPG Maker

• A Visual Novel such as Clinical Trial or Cold Front.
• Survival horror such as Mad Father or Ao Oni.
• A side-scroller such as LISA.

Any or all of the above are examples, yet still they retain some RPG elements in their core mechanics. What I am trying to get at is I would like to see people make something that isn't a Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy clone. I hate to put it in such blunt terms as that, but I am willing to do so here for the sake of clarity.

In this, the second ever RPG Maker Not an RPG jam, I have chosen to challenge you to pick up the gauntlet and see if you can make a non RPG with a western type flavour.

Very much like the vast, unexplored and harsh wilderness early settlers faced themselves, I have personally found the Wild West to be a largely untouched theme when it comes to gaming.

Most of us are familiar with the 'spaghetti westerns'* in cinema of yesteryear, but beyond a few that dared the frontier lands of western games, the theme is rife with potential for plundering when it comes to game development.

Hopefully we can all work to put our creative efforts together to strike gold!

*Fun fact - 'spaghetti westerns' were named such because the directors of the films were Italian.

Incorporating the theme

Simple sentence - DO NOT WORRY about this. I promise NOT to disqualify any game that has at least a teeny tiny bit of wild west in there.

You could make a SINGLE TILE of sand out of your whole game, with a sheriff's star buried in there (for example). Good enough for the theme.

Ideas

• A kinetic visual novel centered on a romantic meeting between two strangers on a steam train journey. The train is mid-journey but unbeknownst to the passengers, there is a stash of gold bullion on board.
• A resources management sim where you are a miner digging for gold.
• A shooter game featuring a lone gunman wanted for an illicit affair with the sheriff's wife. Armed only with a gun and unlimited ammo, you tear through the town of the corrupt sheriff's goons in a bid to save your love.
• A side scroller where you are the new sheriff in a lawless town that has come under attack from the undead.
• An exploration game where you are a drifter who passes out from exhaustion and is rescued by a kind native American. You are taken to their home and your mind is opened to their fascinating way of life.

1. You can make any genre of game as long as it is NOT (at it's core, at least) an RPG. Again, iterations of this are vague, I know. Just choose an out of the box idea and roll with it, without stressing about this one too much.
2. You may use any of the commercial RPG Maker engines you own (2000, 2003, XP, VX, VX ACE, MV, MZ and Unite)
3. No need to wait for the start of the jam, crack on with it now if that's your preference.
4. You must incorporate the Wild West theme in SOME way.
5. You can use any DLC/Assets/Plugins you have the rights to in your project. Please remember to credit authors/artists/creators as per their usage terms somewhere in your project i.e credits roll at game end/start or in a readme.txt in the game folder.
6. Conform to the EULA of the RPG Maker engine the game is created in.
7. Abide by itch.io's Terms of Service.
8. Your submission MUST be SFW (non-adult). NSFW and 18+ adult-only projects are not allowed in this jam. Things like kissing, flirting, non nude comical spanking for example are all fine, just don't push the boundaries.
9. You CAN submit your game to other jams, but please don't bring pre-existing games or games already submitted to other jams here.

For clarity, these are just things to stay clear of if you can. Doing one or all of these will NOT get your game disqualified. It's more just a checklist of things to avoid and try stay within the spirit of the jam.

1. Random encounters - I think this is the biggest RPG trope, but you never know. I will ALLOW a degree of leniency in that forced fights now and again for plot purposes will be fine as long as they are somehow symbolized and not completely random. Just stay clear of running into random fights on the map like in Final Fantasy.
2. Excessive dialogue - This does not mean you cannot tell a good story. I urge you to find alternate means of delivering your game's narrative, like explorative note acquisition and lore unravelling evident in the Souls series, for example. I am aware that if you choose to create a VN this one might be tricky, however I am sure you will find creative ways to get around this. I believe in you.
3. NPCs everywhere - Yes - you need some support characters, but dotting the game with useless one-liner NPCs that have no bearing on the story are an RPG mainstay and a big no-no here.
4.  Any other RPG heavy trope such as having lots of party members, scaled down overworlds and town-dungeon-plot-town-dungeon-plot game loops.

Questions? Thoughts? Reach out to me here on itch and I'll endeavor to respond as quick as I can. I do not do most social media so if you want a place to chat, consider opening your own unofficial discord or something. Anyone that chooses to do so has my blessing but please note all admin and responsibility lies with the person/group instigating this and I will NOT be participating on anything that occurs in social media I do not use.

1st - Steam Key for RPG Maker DLC up to $20 of their choosing.

2nd and 3rd place - Steam Key for RPG Maker DLC up to $10 of their choosing.

I will contact the prize winners after the jam is concluded and send a Friend Request via Steam to safely and securely deliver the prizes. Feel free to unfriend me afterwards if you do so wish.

To be eligible for the prizes the winners MUST have a valid Steam account.

For future jams, depending on how this goes, I will look to expand the prize pool. The goal for now is just to get some unique ideas floating around and our creative juices flowing when we try to tread away from the beaten path.

Good luck everyone and more importantly have fun!