Why get this if you have RPG Maker MV?

[Lord von Games]

Okay... for those of you who are not very familiar with RPG Maker MV, this probably seems like a dumb question... BUT...

Since RPG Maker MV easily allows for endless page after page of screen art w/ text and choices, keyboard and character name input, full sound, music, and video integration, fade-in, fade-out, ANY graphic art and mini games between the story - Why get Visual Novel Maker? How does the customization and mini game integration compare?

I'm sure there is a good answer for this... I just don't have the experience in this particular program.

[korytoombs]

RE: I would rather use RPG Maker VX Ace over MV.
MV can has some very terrible performance issues in some cases.

Yes, it's possible to make a VN in RPG Maker. It would take more commands and know how to get it done though. In addition, for some features, you might require scripts.

Things VN Maker can do right off the bat:

Custom title screen and UI, just so easy to make and program into the the engine.
RPG Maker's title screen and UI is really hard to change from default.
You can save anytime and do other thing while the text is being displayed.
(I'm not sure how saving would work in RPG Maker if your just showing text,
well without a script that is. If your playing a game with a map, then yes, but if you want a traditional VN, then much harder.)
Keep in mind the other options besides saving you can access while on the message box here. Go back to title screen, fast forward, view backlog, etc...

For showing text and pictures, yes, RPG maker is very easy, but for customization, it's trash.

[Lord von Games]

RPG Maker MV -Custom screen can be made in MV w/ a javascript plugin in 5 minutes. Any condition can be made to call in the "save" game feature, at any point in the game. Menu system can be stripped of all RPG aspects by default. Text fast-forward is also built into the MV engine.

Backlog is do-able, but somewhat tricky in MV.

Changing the UI more complicated in MV, depending on the scope of changes...

Tell me more?

[korytoombs]

I'm aware that RPG Maker has a lot of scripts (I have made a lot of RPG Maker games), it might be possible to do all these thing with scripts. But VN Maker doesn't require any script to do what I just mentioned. I'm not really convinced that making a title screen, save menu, load menu, settings menu, CG menu, and message box any way you like would be so easily doable in RPG Maker. (And I would probably choose Ren'Py over RPG Maker for making a VN if VN Maker didn't exist.)

I want to really convey how easy it is to layout the menus anyway you want, provided you know how to use Gimp. Make a title screen, put the options anywhere on the title screen you want. When the mouse hovers over them, they can make an animation, when you click on the option it can do what you want. And this doesn't require a script or complicated knowledge of Ruby or Java Script.

Let's look at some title screens I made:

https://rpgmaker.net/games/10634/images/85033/

https://rpgmaker.net/games/11179/images/90522/

Message Boxes:

https://rpgmaker.net/games/10634/images/85034/

https://rpgmaker.net/games/11179/images/90519/

How easy would that be to do in RPG Maker?

[Lord von Games]

Thank you for sharing (love the title btw). How expandable is this VN Maker? I see bits of tease about mini-games in the VN, but how do-able is it really? Card games? Bullet hell? Etc.

[korytoombs]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Lord von Fleck:

Thank you for sharing (love the title btw). How expandable is this VN Maker? I see bits of tease about mini-games in the VN, but how do-able is it really? Card games? Bullet hell? Etc.

It's hard to say, you're not going to see as many custom scripts for this engine as RPG Maker or Ren'Py. If you really want to customize your VN to have complicated mini games or something then you'll need to use Ren'Py at the time being. If you know Java Script then it might be doable. Bullet Hell = Unity might be your best bet for that sort of thing. Unity is easy to get started, but it gets harder as you move through you dev cycle. I wouldn't use it to make a VN, unless you really want something very complicated like that bullet hell thing you mentioned.