Can this make a side-scroller/platformer game or only top down?

[An Ning]

In what is the first of what I'm sure will be many annoying discoveries while working on my first game, I had the dawning realization that large parts of the game's base idea would work better as a platformer than as a top-down world-exploring game.

I was wondering if RPG Maker can still do this, or if I should look into a second software (and if there were any recommendations for which one).

[Amelia]

I found this, but I haven't tested it.

https://github.com/pgeogheg/RPGMaker-Side-Scroller-Plugin

I know their were scripts for VXA back in the day that did this.

[XIIIthHarbinger]

Fundamentally all game creation engines strike a balance between design flexibility versus design specialization, for the purposes of labor saving.

While most of these engines can be worked around their intended specializations, there is a diminishing return of labor saving, the further you distance yourself from the Engines intended specializations.

RPG Maker is an engine considerably more weighted to the specialization side of the scale rather than the flexibility side. Ergo, you can rather quickly take the diminishing return of counter specialization into the negatives, where greater efficacy can be found in other engines at least programming wise.

Simply put, while it is possible, it requires a high degree of skill to accomplish, & a rather sizeable investment of time & labor compared to other engines.

Given what I've seen of your technical acumen, from what you post here, I don't believe trying to restructure RPG Maker into a side scrolling platformer is a good idea for you. You quite simply don't have the coding chops to pull it off.

You need a level of technical competence where you can write the plugins yourself, to make it work with this engine. Because relying upon plugins made by someone else, for that extensive a redesign is a very bad idea.

To put things in perspective, I am not up to the task, & I'll break the 5k mark this month. & out of the big six that answer nearly all of the questions here on the tech support end, only two of us probably can.

[◢ k r i s ◤]

I concur. There are other engines out there better suited for your goals, I think. Building from scratch in anything from Clickteam or AGK or Unity would be optimal, but even something more pre-developed like Zelda Classic might be better suited for either of your particular goals. Reverse-engineering RMMV is no easy feat nor is it really worth doing.

[An Ning]

OK.
I'll look into anothe rengine for that project then... I looked at Unity before, but EVERYTHING I could find was a video tutorial and those took 4 hours to load 5 minutes with no "download and save" option... so Unity must wait for a time when I am in a place with much better internet, unfortunately

[Slim Jimmy]

I vouch for GameMaker. At the same time, hold onto your copy of RPG Maker, in case you get another idea in the future, since creativity can be weird like that sometimes.

[An Ning]

I'll check out that one. Thanks for the recommendation.

I had no plans to delete RPGMaker -or even the game I have so far. It ended up developing into something that would be too long and complex for the target audience; but when simplified for the age bracket intended, the limitations I found in RPG Maker just didn't let it work. I can keep going and use it to learn more, or tweak the story and game for an older audience.

[BossGalaga]

Originally posted by An Ning:

OK.
I'll look into anothe rengine for that project then... I looked at Unity before, but EVERYTHING I could find was a video tutorial and those took 4 hours to load 5 minutes with no "download and save" option... so Unity must wait for a time when I am in a place with much better internet, unfortunately

Two pieces of common advice for people making games is to use the best tool for the job and to use what you're comfortable with.

A tutorial video taking 4 hours to load sounds more like a problem with your computer and internet connection than with Unity itself. If you check out youtube and the internet in general there are massive amounts of resources for learning Unity as well as step-by-step tutorials for stuff like making a side-scrolling game.

[An Ning]

Originally posted by BossGalaga:

A tutorial video taking 4 hours to load sounds more like a problem with your computer and internet connection than with Unity itself.

I said it was a local internet thing, not Unity.

[BossGalaga]

Originally posted by An Ning:

Originally posted by BossGalaga:

A tutorial video taking 4 hours to load sounds more like a problem with your computer and internet connection than with Unity itself.

I said it was a local internet thing, not Unity.

I'm just saying that shouldn't affect your decision to use or not use Unity. Although, Unity itself is going to take a lot more data than a video on youtube so you're going to need a good connection regardless.

If you're looking at a video on youtube and having connection issues, you can click on the gear icon and adjust the resolution to a lower setting so it loads quicker.

While Unity is a top-tier game engine, that also means it will take a bigger investment of time to learn it properly depending on the scope of your project.

You may also want to consider making something small first and working up from there. While other posters mentioned that RPG Maker isn't quite the best engine for side-scrolling games, it is possible to do simple stuff without too much work.

For example, this was a sort of callback to Zelda II and Link's Awakening, in a RPGM game I made where portions of the top-down dungeon were side-scrolling.

But if you're trying to make the real deal platformer game, there are definitely better options.