RPG Maker 2003/2000 Masterpost

RPG Maker 2003/2000 Masterpost

Since there’s been a spike in people asking me 2003 related questions lately and I know a lot of different tutorials out there, I made this beginner’s masterpost to help some newbies out.  This is the engine that OFF, Yume Nikki, Ib, & Pom Gets Wifi were made on, feel free to purchase it on Steam or the official RPG Maker website for 20$ (or for like 4-5$ on a steam or humble bundle sale).

NOTE: Most of these tutorials and all of these resources should work on RPG Maker 2000 as well.

The basics of game design

 a nice collection of articles here on RPGMaker.net.

how the hell do i get this program to work

Ebeth’s RPG Maker 2003 Guide for Complete Newbies (Reblogable Version)

an introduction guide to the old translation of RPG Maker 2003

understanding how events work

switches as explained by bleet

understanding switches and variables

how to use switches

understanding conditional branches

changing the “Start, Load, Quit” options on the menu screen

making a treasure chest

making a door

how to make a locked & unlocked door

how to give your characters footstep sounds

copy and pasting events at the speed of light

create an easy password puzzle

implement a game of rock, paper, scissors

making a boulder puzzle

how to appear smaller on the world map

making a repeating/endless hallway or road

how to create diagonal stairs (and moving backgrounds on maps!)

make your game work WITHOUT RTP

make a sidescrolling map

visualizing your map

my parallax map isn’t showing up

Making a seamless map transition

understanding pointers

activating events by proximity

implementing weather

double tap to dash!

hold shift to speed up

How to change the font (and a followup!)

create a condition to know that the game has been loaded (for new game + and other stuff)

have NPCs follow behind you, aka a caterpillar system (this): tutorial one | two | three | four | five

making an action battle system (like the 2D legend of zelda games)

custom menu tutorials: one | two | three

how to make images fade in and out of your custom menu

one way of debugging your game

more tutorials here

Fangame Specific Stuff

The Pokemon Resource Kit - a nice big collection of graphics and such to use for a generation 3 (firered/leafgreen & ruby/sapphire/emerald) type game!

How to Start your own Yume Nikki Fangame

How to create effects in Yume Nikki: Tutorial 1 

How to create endless hallways for Yume Nikki Fangames

How to make a “wake up” key for Yume Nikki Fangames

My tag for Yume Nikki Fangame Help

YumeResource was a blog created specifically for Yume Nikki Fangames

huge list of OFF spinoff/fangame resources

Creating battle sprites in the Mortis Ghost/OFF style

Check The Spriter’s Resource for any sprites you need to use from any game

sample games that were made for you to open up in the editor and see how events and such are done

A Sample Game for the Old RPG Maker 2003 (don’t worry, you can import games made in the old engine into the new 2003)

Mystic Sunrise, a sample game for the new RPG Maker 2003

graphics

Basic tips & links to some pixel art tutorials

my graphic resource masterpost

A base sprite you can use in 2003

how do I get a talksprite/portrait/full body sprite to work (these)? one | two | three 

how do i make a message box with more details on it?

how do I get the correct coordinates for a picture i’m importing in?

how do these chipsets/tilesets even work?

can i change the sizes of characters or tiles?  short answer: no 

Do you have any templates?  Heck yeah I do.  Check this site out too!

how to fix the invalid color depth error

how do I fix this weird color around my character?? The proper way to import graphics & a reblogable post about importing graphics.

Menu error you might get in the New 2003 and how to fix it

Panorama/Parallax mapping for 2003, aka making your maps in another art program then importing them in as a backdrop

why not try and hand draw your own maps 

how do i water tile??? 

map making: a set of guidelines

elevation made easy

make custom lighting for your game

If I want to create a room full of eyes that follow the player, how would I do it?

music

my stupidly big music masterpost

My First Game Jam’s Resource list

footprint sounds

You can search for stuff on soundcloud that’s free to use - click on tracks -> filter -> then click on “to listen to” and change it to “to use commercially.”  There’s a lot of free video game music and other types of music on there, so check it out.

nightmargin’s music maker suggestion

list of free and open source music programs

famitracker - for your NES chiptune style music

Pulseboy - an online chiptune maker

as3sfxr - an online sound effects maker (coins, jumps, explosions, level ups, etc)

online .wav converter to convert music files into the .wav format

online .mp3 converter to convert music files into the .mp3 format

Other

Sharing your game once it’s done.  Make sure to check everything!

So, you want to translate an RPG Maker 2000/2003 game?

Common Problems when trying to open up games and how to fix them

Yumeresouce can answer ALL your questions about 2003 and more, no matter what game you’re making

I’m most familiar with 2003 since that’s my engine of choice, so until I start doing more research on the other RPG Makers, I can only do 2000/2003 for now.  If you want to do your own masterpost on any of the others though, I encourage it! :)

Feel free to add on anything you think is helpful. :)