how does one create their own custom assets

[Jimmy Brando]

I'm wanting to make a game with custom, well, everything. music, character sprites, battle sprites, tiles, etc.

besides everything you can find in the database, what tools should I use to create and import custom assets of my creation?

[Moga CMDR]

For music, any software works. It largely depends on your skillset and style.

For visuals, some people (like me) can do everything in Photoshop, but there are specialized tools that many find preferable for making pixel art. Also, there is the question of animation, if that will be needed or not.

If you aren't familiar with making assets, learning the tools first is often best. Typically you would already have experience in (at least one of) those fields before trying to make a game with all your own assets.

Is their a particular area you specialize in (or want to)? I wouldn't recommend trying to learn everything at once.

[Jimmy Brando]

Originally posted by Guild Sweetheart:

For music, any software works. It largely depends on your skillset and style.

For visuals, some people (like me) can do everything in Photoshop, but there are specialized tools that many find preferable for making pixel art. Also, there is the question of animation, if that will be needed or not.

If you aren't familiar with making assets, learning the tools first is often best. Typically you would already have experience in (at least one of) those fields before trying to make a game with all your own assets.

Is their a particular area you specialize in (or want to)? I wouldn't recommend trying to learn everything at once.

I want to focus on the graphics of the game. that being the world, battle sprites, and character sprites. to be more specific i'm aiming for very simplistic graphics that are inspired by OFF, by Mortis Ghost.

also, i'm gonna be honest. I literally just started using rpg maker because its currently free. i'm trying to decide if making my game is within my skills (or can be) if you have any additional advice for someone who is completely new to rpg maker, i would appreciate that.

[Moga CMDR]

For art, a lot of people use Aseprite. https://www.aseprite.org/. Some use photoshop or gimp. There are a lot of others, but I haven't used them so I can't speak to what works best. Based on the style you mention, I think any tools you find comfortable would work. Basically what ever art tools fit your budget, and you find easy to use should be fine. You just need to save the assets as PNG. And you are good to go.

My main suggestion is for users to always start super simple. Don't make a "game", especially a long one, at first. Make a 10 minute mini-game, or short story. Learn the ropes. Learn the limitations. Learn how much time and effort it would take to make something more complex.

Don't spend a lot of time dreaming up big ideas for your current project. Maybe save those in a document for future reference. Use your first projects as stepping stones to make bigger ones.

Saying that is very simple, but what ends up happening is we still try to push things too far. Don't plan for 100 enemies, start with 3. Seriously. Don't have complex systems, do the basics at first. Slowly add more things over time.

I suggest making some mini-games at first. Short, sweet, to the point. You will learn a lot and you will more easily get some quick accomplishments under your belt. Which will help a lot in the long run.

[Elriadon]

Originally posted by DivineWalrus:

Originally posted by Guild Sweetheart:

For music, any software works. It largely depends on your skillset and style.

For visuals, some people (like me) can do everything in Photoshop, but there are specialized tools that many find preferable for making pixel art. Also, there is the question of animation, if that will be needed or not.

If you aren't familiar with making assets, learning the tools first is often best. Typically you would already have experience in (at least one of) those fields before trying to make a game with all your own assets.

Is their a particular area you specialize in (or want to)? I wouldn't recommend trying to learn everything at once.

I want to focus on the graphics of the game. that being the world, battle sprites, and character sprites. to be more specific i'm aiming for very simplistic graphics that are inspired by OFF, by Mortis Ghost.

also, i'm gonna be honest. I literally just started using rpg maker because its currently free. i'm trying to decide if making my game is within my skills (or can be) if you have any additional advice for someone who is completely new to rpg maker, i would appreciate that.

Tips from me:

1) Don't start off trying to make a masterpiece of a game with custom everything right away. That will most likely end up with you giving up. Rather, make some small games with default assets, customize them depending on your needs. This will help you get used to the process of creating art on your own later and also allow you to learn how to use the software.

2) Join a game jam, whis will give you some motivation to finish some kind of a project and is a good way to get started. A good place to look for those is itch.io here: https://itch.io/jams . There's pretty much always some kind of RPG Maker game jam going on there.

3) If you really want to start working on your planned game now, then just sometimes work on the main project on the side while having a bunch of other "learning" projects.

4) Don't try to make perfect maps right away. You will most likely need to change something anyway once you actually start making your game.

5) Don't use plugins at the very start, when you are trying to archieve something, try to archieve it with Event Commands first. Once you are somewhat familiar with the enngine, then try plugins.

6) Complete the in-engine tutorial, it explains the basics pretty well.

[Moga CMDR]

Originally posted by Darel:

5) Don't use plugins at the very start

This is a really good one, for a lot of reasons.

You want to learn as much about how the system works on it's own, and learn to milk it for everything you can. This gives you a bit more power and control.

Also, plugins can take a fair amount of time to understand. This would be a major distraction and can be frustrating. Just researching what they do, what their licenses are and all that is a major time sink. So early on, ignore them.

Plugins are fantastic, but you want to know what can be done without them, and what secondary things they ended up changing once they are installed. A lot of modern plugins have taken the liberty to change a lot of things you didn't sign up for...