Game Making Software of Choice
- Thread starter Akamarak
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Akamarak
MGF Member
This is partly a migration of a conversation with Fallen Heart, but anyone can feel free to join!
I love Unreal Engine, but it also has a pretty steep learning curve compared to something like RPG-Maker. So whether or not its right for you depends on why you want to make games and what you'll be focusing on. I want to be able to have control over pretty much all aspects of the games I make, and I love Unreal Engine's visual blueprinting system, so it's a good fit for me. But it also is much more complicated and not super accessible (although there are a lot of resources online for learning it, which is what I've made use of). RPG-Maker is great if you're not so much concerned over all of the specific mechanics and systems for how the game handles dialogue and battles and just want to focus on telling a story without paying attention to all of the other little details.
Also, what's the site with rpg's and visual novels that you like?
And you mentioned not having Fire Emblem where you are. What country do you live in?
If that's too personal a question feel free to ignore it.
And I played and enjoyed the Bravely Default demo but never got around to getting the full game. There have been way too many interesting looking 3DS games to keep up with them all!
I love Unreal Engine, but it also has a pretty steep learning curve compared to something like RPG-Maker. So whether or not its right for you depends on why you want to make games and what you'll be focusing on. I want to be able to have control over pretty much all aspects of the games I make, and I love Unreal Engine's visual blueprinting system, so it's a good fit for me. But it also is much more complicated and not super accessible (although there are a lot of resources online for learning it, which is what I've made use of). RPG-Maker is great if you're not so much concerned over all of the specific mechanics and systems for how the game handles dialogue and battles and just want to focus on telling a story without paying attention to all of the other little details.
Also, what's the site with rpg's and visual novels that you like?
And you mentioned not having Fire Emblem where you are. What country do you live in?
If that's too personal a question feel free to ignore it.
And I played and enjoyed the Bravely Default demo but never got around to getting the full game. There have been way too many interesting looking 3DS games to keep up with them all!
Last edited:
Fallen Heart
MGF Member
I used to have https://001gamecreator.com/ back when it was "forever free". It was my first game making software, and it was relatively easy to use, but I only understood the basic system back then, so I didn't know how to use things like variables and switches. When it went into money mode, I eventually stopped using it.
Then, just a little while ago, I got back into game making with RPG Maker XP. It's not the most recent version, but it was on a cheap sale, and now I have it, and that's what matters! It was a confusing change in structure, compared to 001 Game Creator's OLD version, but it turned out to be rather straightforward. Also, there are hint buttons everywhere, which is good.
...I won't deny though, I wanted the battling system to be side-mode, and I don't think this version allows faces next to speech, and you can only pick from one tileset per map, but I'd say that's all the cons about it. From what I remember, 001 was just a hit-and-run type, so this is improvement. It's good for beginners and people who don't know how to code, but it's also good for people who can.
Next, there's http://visualnovelmaker.com/
Unfortunately, I only have the 30 day trial version, but the structure of it makes perfect sense. I'm not sure if it's because of the trial version or my computer, but it keeps glitching, and I don't get to see the preview screen very often, which can make editing take longer than necessary if I have to play the game from scratch every time I need to check on something. Before this, I've tried Visual Novel Engine, Quest, and Ren'Py, but the first two were rather limited, and the third was too complicated to make sense of, but I may have to migrate to Ren'Py when the trial runs out.
I see... Perfect, a potential source of improvement through torture. I'll start using it soon, when I'm less busy.
This is the site: https://itch.io/games/free If you dig deep enough, you can find some hidden jewels.
Well, it's possible that Fire Emblem is abundant somewhere in this country, but out of all the tiny game stores we visited, I only found one once, years ago. And I never bought it because I realised how expensive it was. It's okay, I live somewhere around Europe.
Bravely Default is pretty good and I recommend it. My only regret is that I was unable to access a few special parts of the game because something in my 3DS was built wrong. Bravely Second comes after it, so if you do buy it, make sure you know the order.
Then, just a little while ago, I got back into game making with RPG Maker XP. It's not the most recent version, but it was on a cheap sale, and now I have it, and that's what matters! It was a confusing change in structure, compared to 001 Game Creator's OLD version, but it turned out to be rather straightforward. Also, there are hint buttons everywhere, which is good.
...I won't deny though, I wanted the battling system to be side-mode, and I don't think this version allows faces next to speech, and you can only pick from one tileset per map, but I'd say that's all the cons about it. From what I remember, 001 was just a hit-and-run type, so this is improvement. It's good for beginners and people who don't know how to code, but it's also good for people who can.
Next, there's http://visualnovelmaker.com/
Unfortunately, I only have the 30 day trial version, but the structure of it makes perfect sense. I'm not sure if it's because of the trial version or my computer, but it keeps glitching, and I don't get to see the preview screen very often, which can make editing take longer than necessary if I have to play the game from scratch every time I need to check on something. Before this, I've tried Visual Novel Engine, Quest, and Ren'Py, but the first two were rather limited, and the third was too complicated to make sense of, but I may have to migrate to Ren'Py when the trial runs out.
I see... Perfect, a potential source of improvement through torture. I'll start using it soon, when I'm less busy.
This is the site: https://itch.io/games/free If you dig deep enough, you can find some hidden jewels.
Well, it's possible that Fire Emblem is abundant somewhere in this country, but out of all the tiny game stores we visited, I only found one once, years ago. And I never bought it because I realised how expensive it was. It's okay, I live somewhere around Europe.
Bravely Default is pretty good and I recommend it. My only regret is that I was unable to access a few special parts of the game because something in my 3DS was built wrong. Bravely Second comes after it, so if you do buy it, make sure you know the order.
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Akamarak
MGF Member
My wife and I used RPG Maker VX for a while, which was really good for quickly making simple RPG's. I haven't used XP, but I think VX was supposed to be more powerful. You could also do more complicated things with custom scripts. The problem was that we ended up wanting to do so many custom things that our larger project was getting buggy with all the different scripts we were using not working well together. I also used Game Maker, which was nice because I was able to start getting a little better understanding of programming logic.
If you ever find an affordable Fire Emblem game I recommend it! I would love to get Bravely Default at some point, but It's harder to get 3DS games since we came to Japan and the 3DS is region-locked. We can still buy them from the digital store, but for some reason it wasn't letting me actually download things last time I tried.
And I'll take a look at Itch sometime. Any games in particular you would recommend?
Fallen Heart
MGF Member
Right, VX is a more recent version, I think.
Definitely! I've especially been looking out for Fates. Oh...oh dear...
Last week, I hauled in a whole bunch of games and visual novels to try, and here's how it went so far:
Cinderella Phenomenon: This visual novel is LONG and full of story and drama and, at the end, death. I think there are ten possible endings in total, five good, five bad, but it took hours every day just to finish one or two routes.
Royal Alchemist Demo: Maaaybe I'm being bias because the main character has white hair and purple eyes and she's so cute and who cares about the others she should route herself... But I think this visual novel has potential. And it requires a lot of changes in what you choose to do, so hooray for the save button. I'm not sure if there's more than a demo, but I haven't found it. If you play, keep the number 10 in mind.
Aria's Story: This one is a RPG Maker game, and I haven't finished it yet, but I'm on the second stage right now. If you like puzzles, clowns, books, being jump-scared, chased by happy bunnies, crushed, flattened, and followed by a talkative person, this is the perfect game for you!
For a long time (cough three years cough), I've been on the lookout for AliceMare and LiEat, and I found them on that site. I haven't tried LiEat yet, but it looks nice. It also has three parts, so don't cheer when you think you finish the game.
Oh! Before I forget, Fausts Alptraum was good, too. I'm not sure if you'd find it on Itch, but it was free on Steam. Stay away from the rats.
I've got a lot more games to check out, and a lot of the ones I found weren't so great for me, but these are the good things I've compiled for the week. Cinderella Phenomenon took up...most of my free gaming time.
Definitely! I've especially been looking out for Fates. Oh...oh dear...
Last week, I hauled in a whole bunch of games and visual novels to try, and here's how it went so far:
Cinderella Phenomenon: This visual novel is LONG and full of story and drama and, at the end, death. I think there are ten possible endings in total, five good, five bad, but it took hours every day just to finish one or two routes.
Royal Alchemist Demo: Maaaybe I'm being bias because the main character has white hair and purple eyes and she's so cute and who cares about the others she should route herself... But I think this visual novel has potential. And it requires a lot of changes in what you choose to do, so hooray for the save button. I'm not sure if there's more than a demo, but I haven't found it. If you play, keep the number 10 in mind.
Aria's Story: This one is a RPG Maker game, and I haven't finished it yet, but I'm on the second stage right now. If you like puzzles, clowns, books, being jump-scared, chased by happy bunnies, crushed, flattened, and followed by a talkative person, this is the perfect game for you!
For a long time (cough three years cough), I've been on the lookout for AliceMare and LiEat, and I found them on that site. I haven't tried LiEat yet, but it looks nice. It also has three parts, so don't cheer when you think you finish the game.
Oh! Before I forget, Fausts Alptraum was good, too. I'm not sure if you'd find it on Itch, but it was free on Steam. Stay away from the rats.
I've got a lot more games to check out, and a lot of the ones I found weren't so great for me, but these are the good things I've compiled for the week. Cinderella Phenomenon took up...most of my free gaming time.
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Akamarak
MGF Member
Thanks for the recommendations, I'll look into those! Unfortunately it's been a little tricky to stick with longer story-driven games recently because I don't usually have long-stretches of uninterrupted game-playing time, but I'll see what I can do.