[VX/Ace]A Nifty Mini-game Tutorial!, Sorting Game/Mail Game/Whatever Options

[The Welsh Paddy]

"Sorting Game" - A Mini-Game Eventing Tutorial by Paddy
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Before reading, I advise that you read Despain's Switches and Variables tutorial if you're new to everything. It's what helped me with making this mini-game.

Okay! So I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert at any of this. The whole process I am about to show you has been as much a learning experience for me as it will (I hope) by for you. To the point; this tutorial will show you how to event a mini-game that I will refer to as 'The Sorting Game'. The gist of it is having to deliver specific items into specific boxes within a certain amount of time. (A basic scoring system will also be included.)

To begin, you will need to set up your map.

[Show/Hide] Click to open

On my map, I have:

3 Indicators (Situated at the top)
3 Drop Points (Beneath the Indicators)
1 Collection Point (Next to the NPC)
1 NPC (Next to the Collection Point!)

The NPC will be the trigger for the game. He will ask whether you wish to play the game or not, and should you choose to play he will call a common event and start the time limit. Here is his set-up:

[Show/Hide] Click to open

Right, now hold on a minute. Before continuing, you will need to set up four switches. In this case, I set up a switch for each indicator, and a switch to activate the mini-game. I simply labelled these as 'Sorting Game', 'Exclamation', 'Question' and 'Music Note' (More on the three indicator switches later.)

The Sorting Game switch will be the condition upon which the Common Event will be activated. To create a common event, simply go to the database and click the common events tab. Here is the set-up:

[Show/Hide] Click to open

Whilst in the database, you may as well set up the required items. Go to the items tab and simply create the items that will be the things you are delivering. I just made an item for 'Exclamation', 'Question' and 'Music Note'. These can be literally anything you want and don't have to be usable in any way. (I set them as key items so as not to mix them with my consumables.)

For the score, I have also assigned a variable simply labelled as 'Sorting Game'. As you can see, I have also added a little extra in which an invisible crowd either cheer, or express their disappointment depending on your score.

Continuing...

The indicator events are simply used as, well... Indicators to show you were you need to drop your items off. I
just quickly drew these in a sprite sheet format using MSPaint. If you want to use them...



And now onto the Collection Point. This event is where you will 'collect/pick up/whatever' your items to be delivered. I used the same graphics I used for the indicators. Upon pressing on the item on the collection table, your character will have a balloon hovering above their head showing which item is in their possession. This item will also be added to your inventory. Here is the set-up for the Collection Point event:

[Show/Hide] Click to open

and

From there, you simply deliver the item to the corresponding Drop-off point. Here is the set-up for those:

[Show/Hide] Click to open

and

As an optional feature, you can add an extra page for the NPC event, which will be activated when the 'Sorting Game' switch is ON. Include a little message saying 'You have scored \v[0] points!' ('0' being the number of the variable you used to keep tabs on the score.) or something along those lines. The '\v[0]' will be replaced by the number of succesful deliveries you have made.

So there you have it!

There are many things you can do to make the game more fun/interesting/challenging. Why not try throwing in some obstacles? Or having to track down various NPCs who may be running around or hiding in order to deliver the item to them? In my project, I added a little twist in which the drop-off boxes switch around after a certain amount of time passes.

I hope this has been of some use to you in adding a bit of extra fun to your games. And those with more experience with this sorta thing... any ideas on a more practical/simple approach to this would be great!

Take care!

-Paddy

This post has been edited by The Welsh Paddy: Sep 28 2012, 06:35 AM

[The Welsh Paddy]

I was actually considering people who may have a slow connection when I put up the images. But I put the images in the spoiler tags as opposed to having the links.

Cheers!