Forays Into Other RPG Construction Kits: RPG Tsukuuru 2000

This is a most famous RPG construction kit in the English-speaking world, albeit known with a different name - "RPG Maker 2000." In general, this program is rather easy to use if one is inclined to make a Japanese console RPG-type game, but requires considerable work to change what is there (combat systems, etc.). In terms of community, this program likely has the biggest one - although a lot of art is ripped from Super Famicom games.

Years ago, I used to fiddle around in this program, although I never finished a game! (Ulp!) I do have some screenshots from what I was working on back in those days - basically, I wanted to have Korean-, Chinese-, and German-themed character sets and chip sets and work on a game with various languages and nationalities from there. Some screenshots from said game:

Character sets used sprite sizes of 24 x 36, while chipset tiles were 16 x 16; basically, character set sprite sizes in generally did not fill the entire area, instead using about 16 x 24 or so. Although small, the character sets required 12 frames total, or 3 frames for each direction, so making characters was a somewhat tiresome, if rewarding, task. (In general, the right frames could be flipped and used for the left frames, so in actuality one had to make about 7 frames total.)

In the end, I decided that I preferred the old PC RPGs compared to the old Japanese console RPGs, so I went in another direction (i.e., Dungeon Craft). Still, it was a good system for what it was, with a well-made interface and nice graphics.

Incidentally, many years back I was working on quite an ambitious game with this program, with lots of art (including big, anime-style pictures), but my hard disk basically blew up and I lost it all! Needless to say, that really sucked, and I had instantly lost many hours of work. I do sort of want to "revive" that somehow, but... I would have to redraw everything and all...

Forays Into Other RPG Construction Kits: Hephaestus

Well, although I am set on making my personal home-baked CRPG using Dungeon Craft, I am not against trying other tools every so often. In the past, I did some fiddling around with the RPG Tsukuuru series (known as "RPG Maker" by the English world, it seems), but I guess that I didn't really like the boring, Dragon Quest-esque combat engine. Ah, well.

Today, I spent a few hours fiddling with a less console-like and more PC-like RPG construction kit, Hephaestus, by Mark Damon Hughes (URL: http://markdamonhughes.com/Hephaestus/index.php). This particular RPG engine requires some programming in Java, but does come with a mapping tool. Luckily for me, Hephaestus seems to use 48 x 48 icons in general, so I tried using my Dungeon Craft art and seeing what I could come up with:


Not so bad, eh? Luckily, it seemed happy with 48 x 48 icons (the sample game uses 48 x 70 for humans), although some conversion was necessary (namely, it uses separate GIF files for each frame (with a particular naming scheme), as opposed to Dungeon Craft's unified PNG files with all frames). Unfortunately, there were a few problems that bugged me:

• I was unable to make maps larger than 11 x 11. Strangely, in the Map Editor, even though you can select map sizes larger than 11 x 11, it doesn't seem to let you edit any spaces outside the minimum 11.
• I was unable to set equipment types (i.e., I wanted to have my dagger in the map be a weapon so that Irene could equip it), leaving my poor player unequipped and usually an easy target for the ice troll wandering around there...

For smarter people than me, there is the option of generating maps automatically through Java coding, but that is somewhat abstract and hard for ol' me. As it is, this RPG kit does have good potential, especially for Java-conversant folks, especially if one is into old Rogue- or Ultima-type games. I confess that my ideal is something like an overhead-view Gold Box game, or maybe Ultima VI, or something like the Baldur's Gate series; I guess I never really got into the whole Rogue-like thing.

Quick Introduction to Dungeon Craft

So, now for a quick introduction to Dungeon Craft (and my adventure module in-progress!).

Dungeon Craft emulates the old Gold Box games by SSI, such as Secret of the Silver Blades (one of the only games I beat as a child) and of course Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures, which allowed players to create their own games. Thus, it is an old-school AD&D game engine that features PC creation, 3D-esque dungeon exploring, and turn-based grid combat (a la old wargaming with miniatures) for cool strategy.

Unlike the aforementioned classic SSI games, Dungeon Craft has the benefit of being able to display any amount of colors and much higher resolutions (you can pick from 640 x 480, 800 x 600, 1024 x 768, and 1280 x 1024, but I have chosen 640 x 480, if only because it is hard enough to create art for this resolution as it is!), allowing you to create beautiful, colorful graphics if you only put in the time and effort! (I still remember my first SSI game, Champions of Krynn, which I played on my first computer, which was equipped with a CGA card (a whopping 4 colors, including black). (Another problem I had was that loading the game took about an hour (with disk-switching), and loading each combat took about half an hour!) Another benefit of Dungeon Craft is the ability to use combat icons of any size, so you can have huge dragons, gargantuan squid, or colossal sharks as part of your combat scenes!

When playing the game, you wander through areas from a 3D-esque viewpoint (you can also use overland maps). Once you trigger some kind of event (including random events), you are treated to a view of the monster or creature you have encountered, and then you may opt to enter battle!

Once you are in battle, you are treated to a grid-like scene where your PCs face off against whatever creatures you are fighting with. Positioning is important in these battles, especially since you should consider the range of your weapons and spells, as well as area effects!

That basically wraps up the quick introduction to Dungeon Craft (and my half-baked adventure module, two screens of which you can see here!).