AbnormalHairGrowth

Blugh. I really should be getting back to work, but it's too hot and spriting fat guys is hard. So I thought I'd toss up a couple of maps. This is a cave that I did for a tutorial: And this is the outside area for the same cave. It wasn't a very big game. Those two maps comprise the entire world.

That seems like a sensible solution. I'm terrified of scripts, myself. Wouldn't go near one if there was a chance I could get the same function through an event.

No forests out here, just lots and lots of desert. Bumpy, rocky desert. No good for bike riding, even if I had learned to ride one. Which I haven't. I was working on it last year, but my front tire rolled over a goathead and died. We need to get it an unpoppable filler, but nobody's gotten around to that yet. I think I'll remind my dad once the tax return comes in. As Dave Barry once said, the license plates for Idaho read 'Famous Potatoes.' This caption won the contest by a slim margin, narrowly beating out 'A Whole Lot Of Rocks' and 'You Can Smell The Cows.' Well, one-third of his claim was entirely true, and the other two are based in reality. I live in Idaho. It is rocks.

Um... nothing? My situation is really pretty pathetic at this point. I live out in the country, no driver's license, and my mum's chronically ill, so I usually don't get out for anything except groceries. I do enjoy taking long walks around the area - there's some nifty scenery, at least - but that's about it.

Here's a full set of instructions: Right-click your event and select "Edit." Go to the point in your code where you want the loop to end, and right click the space. Select "Insert..." On the upper-right area of the first page, select the "Control Self Switch" button. By default, it will be set to "Self Switch A: ON." Leave it like that, click OK. Back on the main Event screen, find the "New Event Page" at the top and click it. This will create a new event page. With Event Page 2 now selected (you can switch between 1 and 2 any time by clicking the tabs near the top), go over to "Conditions". Select "Self Switch is ON." By default, it will be set to Self Switch A, so leave it like that. Click OK or Apply.

You will not believe, but I also hate all RMXP tilesets because of the same thing. Seriously. I could probably make a career on making and releasing expanded versions of those tilesets alone, that's how much they suck.

Ho there! Yes, Doctor Who is excellent. Especially the fanbase. It's pretty funny - every time the Doctor regenerates, the fans start whinging that the new actor's going to ruin it forever and they'll never watch the show again and yadda. Then they actually watch the Doctor and they discover they like him. :P It's only natural to be confused by the scripting system at first. You can find tutorials on the Internet that will show you what all the different commands mean, but I've never been good with that kind of infodumping. Usually I'll wait until there's something I want to do that has to be done in a script, then look up exactly what I need to do and do it. Do that enough and it gives you a good starting feel for what the scripts are capable of.

More like something people have played on the Super Nintendo. *winkwink*

Well, it seems pretty good so far. Don't worry; you'll be seeing some of my work as soon as I have something done. Right now I'm working my butt off trying to finish the first level of Weirdbeard, so (as you're probably familiar with) I have to do a lot of work that I won't be able to show off until it's finished. On the plus side, by the time I am ready to show my work it'll be awesome.

What I like to do is come up with a rough project idea, jot down what few concrete things I have for it, then put it away for several months while I work on something else. I don't forget about it, though - the whole time I'm working on other projects, I'll be thinking about the project in the bin, trying to figure out how everything should go together. It seems to be that the longer I spend working something out, the better the final product, as I'm liable to think of many more new and useful things over that period of time than I will if I rush into creating the project as soon as I think of it. This works especially well because a lot of my ideas to begin with are very sketchy, centering more around a theme or a particular starting point than an entire plot, and over time I can either flesh the plot out or scrap it and use the remains to improve something else I'm working on. I also like to bounce ideas off my sister. She's usually got some advice that, if it's not quite what I need, can be worked into something useful and incorporated. Another thing I do - which might seem like a bit of a tangent, but is actually very important - is try and accumulate new influences as I develop the story. Generally speaking my starting idea will be very simple, like "a tribute to Where's Waldo" or "a game with a ghost protagonist," and I may end up spending a lot of time just figuring out the main theme - which may or may not change later. There is one other thing that I cannot stress enough, and that is to put yourself in the project. Not that you should write yourself in as a cameo (though you can do that if you want), but every game should have something in it that is personally significant to you - be it something you like, something precious from your childhood, or even something that brings you pain. (And I don't mean "something you saw in someone else's work and liked." Whatever this thing is, pour your heart and soul into it. Craft it from the ground up, fill it with detail, and tie it into your story. (That last bit is probably the most important. Don't use something that doesn't fit the theme or style of your story.) Some of the best games out there started out as extremely personal expressions - such as the Legend of Zelda series, which was heavily based on Shigeru Miyamoto's childhood fantasies. It's a fairly pervasive fact that anything you have an attachment to will end up turning out better-made and more relatable to your audience, and lend vibrancy to your project on the whole.

I just took a look at their TOS. If you want to use their music for anything other than personal listening (whether you charge for the result or not), you are required to purchase a license.

Hrm... I was under the impression that unless you had permission from the creator, using copyrighted music (or any copyrighted material, for that matter) was not permitted under any circumstances. I could be wrong, but that was the idea that I got from RPGXP's very strict TOS document - and the ban-rampage that WMG has made across YouTube.

ATM, I loathe the FortIn tileset. Why? Simple: There's practically nothing in it. In order to get my map to look the way I want, I had to make nearly all the wall tiles from scratch. (I hate it SO MUCH that as soon as it's finished I'm going to upload the extended version so others can use it too.) That Ship set looks painful, though. And I'm going to have to use it later. *shudder*

And a hearty yo-ho! I am the individual that both represents and comprises Abnormal Hair Growth Productions (if that makes any sense.) I've had RPG Maker XP for a few years now, and mainly I've been farting around with it, but I'm finally working on a few serious projects - most prominently, a game called Captain Weirdbeard, which I'll probably post about elsewhere. I am 20 years old, gender undeclared, living at home doing stuff on my laptop - yay me, the pinnacle of success and ambition. My hobbies (and, depressingly, greatest skills) lie in writing and spriting, so it only made sense that I'd put them together eventually into RPG making. My favorite games - and I suppose, the ones most likely to influence my work - are Final Fantasy 4 and 8, Mother 2/Earthbound, most of the Legend of Zelda series (Majora's Mask in particular), Curse of Monkey Island (and any other sane adventure games) Eversion (just for messing with my head so much), Lost in Blue 3 (voted Least Likely To Influence My Work), Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town and A Wonderful Life, Rune Factory, Where's Waldo, and Scribblenauts. Outside of video games, I love me some Discworld, Dave Barry, H.P. Lovecraft (occasionally), Lemony Snicket, Interview with the Vampire, Iron Man, District 9, Sigourney Weaver, John Barrowman's singing, and... well, whatever else I happen to like, which just pops up wherever without warning. It's an ongoing list.