Introductions

"Make a blog," they said. "It will be fun," they said.

No, but seriously now, folks. My name is Shannyn (alias A-Moonless-Night) and this is my game-development blog. I've considered making a blog for some time now (like, five years) but I could never figure out what it should be about. I'm still contemplating making a blog about the things that I hate but I thought perhaps I should make this blog first.

When I say that I make games, I mean that my hobby is to use RPG Maker to make games that may or may not see the light of day. I've been using RPG Maker since I was about nine or ten (so since about 2000—makes me feel so old) and I've always had a game in the making, but this is the first time that one has been well thought out and, can I say, promising. This is the first time that I've had the whole story planned out (and separated into palatable 'acts'), instead of just opening up the developer and being like, "this is the very first cutscene ... fuck it, I'm going to play Minecraft."

Not that Minecraft existed back then, but you get my drift.

So, the game that this blog will be focussing on is Vermilion. *cue epic music or some shit*

I have topics on rpgmaker.net and the official RPG Maker forums. Read the topics I just linked; it's easier than me copying and pasting what the game's about.

Vermilion is being made in RPG Maker VX, referred to from here on as RMVX. The game will be free when released. I'm doing everything myself (except, of course, for all the pre-made things, such as scripts and tiles), so it's going to take me a while. I would say that the game has been in-development for about a year and a half, but I only really started making progress in about July last year (I was off work sick for a while and had lots of free time).

Parts of game-making that I enjoy:

  -  Story/character creation and all that jazz (aka writing)
  -  Spriting characters
  -  Parallaxing maps (for those not in the biz, this means painting out a 'background' in Photoshop, rather than using RMVX to create the maps tile by tile)
  -  Creating face-sets

So, you know, basically all the writing- and drawing-related stuff.

Parts of game-making that I hate find difficult:

  -  Script-making and -altering (it involves writing in code, which reminds me of maths)
  -  Making and altering enemy stats (i.e. making the battle system work/be balanced)
  -  General databasing (making items, armour, etc)

So, yeah. That happens. I think this is enough wall-of-text for now, but I'll update when I can. I might even include pictures, if you're lucky.