I've been a little on the fence about this for a while now.

I'm sure most of you feel the same way as I do when I say the RTP is often unappealing when playing a game. But I have to question whether it's how it's implemented that's the problem.

I've been out of game making for a good year now and I'm getting rusty. I'm looking to build a relatively short, story-driven game to give me the skills I need to produce something a little different in the future. Before I go dragging in resources from every corner of the web, I would love to try my hands at building a basic game.

While I'd only really do this for my own personal needs, I'd be interested to see what the community would think if I were to build a short game featuring the RTP. This includes music, graphics, scripts etc. Absolutely nothing will be changed or added.

Personally, I have no problem with the RTP if its being used creatively.
I mean the whole RPG maker thing isn't like to become a game creator. I think I can talk for most of the RPG makers here that we mostly do it because of our own interest. I've only seen three or four RPG maker games actually gone official. So it's mostly for the creator and perhaps friends, or the forum i dunno. However, I truly believe if you want to do that you should and you should not be judged solely because you use RTP.

I think being creative with the RTP is key. I do agree with you there.

If I were to build a short game then I'd need to find some methods of keeping it interesting instead of creating cookie-cut villages and houses.

While on the subject, does anybody happen to know of a good fan-made game using just the RTP alone? I'd be interested to see how well they implemented the RTP and the techniques that they used.

There is nothing inherently wrong with using the RTP and it won't make your game worse. It's more a matter of market saturation: RTP is widely used because it's a set of graphics available with the program. Therefore, a lot of newbies use it and release a swarm of boring games with the wonderful autobattle/RTP combination. Because of this, a lot of people will simply disregard a game made with RTP altogether because of this feeling of saturation. If we were in 2004 and everybody was using Rudras chipsets with RM2k3 it would give the same feeling.

Now, because it's you, and because I know you're a good writer, I would play your game. But I can't say I would do the same for a random person. It's sad to say but this is the truth.

I've only ever used the rtp (with some minor alterations) and in all honesty, yeah my game's hideous. That's not entirely the RTP's fault, as Myst says I've seen some pretty good looking games using the RTP, but I gotta believe that having better quality, perhaps more versatile, resources would ultimately make for a better looking game (it gives me a great excuse ).
That being said, you did mention it was a primarily storybased game, so I don't think you need to worry too much about the graphics. Or rather, you shouldn't get bogged down in them and lose focus on what your game has to offer.

I think that's the key to my hesitance when using it. I do worry about the reception my game would receive if I were to release it to the public. We've all seen games with appalling dialogue and an even worse implementation of the RTP so it's likely to turn some people off.

Having said that, I also agree with Kaust. I feel there is room for a bit of a creative flair when it comes to designing the visual side to a game. While there's certainly nothing wrong with the RTP, it does lack character.

Note that I was referring to VX RTP: I don't see nearly enough of XP games nowadays to really feel overwhelmed by the amount of RTP.

As for character, I don't know if it's that the RTP lack of it. I'd say it's more a difference between "fit the graphics to your world" and "fit your world to the graphics" if you see what I mean.

A great game is a great game no matter what; graphics shouldn't count for much. I mean it's a bonus of course, but to be honest, the best games I've ever played on RPG Maker has used RTP, games such as Final Fantasy Awakening (my personal rpg maker favorite) and Revenant Gods (a.k.a CRISIS METEOR), they are amazing and they use RTP (I've only played one, but Revenant Gods seems amazing), so RTP isn't an issue for me, I really long for an RPG Maker game that can give me the feeling I had when I played; Final Fantasy Awakening.

The funny thing with Final Fantasy Awakening is that it stands as an example of how to make an awesome fan game using RTP, brilliant am I right? If it was still around id tell you where to find it, but it's gone...(was helping the developer, but he quit on it i think)

Perhaps it's an issue of personal taste, but the RTP just doesn't cut it for me. I'm talking in general here though the XP RTP is better in my eyes. I feel a style should mould to your story and not vice versa. Fitting your story to something takes away from what you originally wanted it to be.

I've started on a little project at the moment, just to see how it goes and whether I can do anything interesting with the resources provided for me.

Xach, I'm glad you mentioned a couple of fangames as I'd love to check them out. Being a Final Fantasy fan myself I'm curious to see what the game is like.

I do belive the great Cocoa Made a GREAT XP game with nothing but the RTP just to show ppl its possible, I think its actually still in on this site under games. That being said I like the RTP but yeah it does get over used and you really cant blame ppl for being turned off when they see ALOT of it in a game, the char just start to blend togather. But that again its YOUR job to make your game interesting and great so in a way it challenges you. Hope that helped

It helped a lot, thank you!

It's getting late now and I'm beginning to brain fart so I'll be downloading all of your suggestions tomorrow and trying them out! It's good to know that you've enjoyed games that feature the RTP. It seems to suggest that the intrinsic values of a game are more important than what the player sees.

you can just change a few parts of the rtp tileset, copy paste and connect here and there , so it would look like new and wont be boring on the eyes.

I can only think of VX/A RTP games as of now.
One was Subclassia, where Ralph and Co. go rescue Don Miguel from evil witch. Also Bennet is a manly man.
The other one is Princess Princess and as you probably guessed you go rescue a princess who got herself conveniently kidnapped.
It's all about the rescuing.


When I first downloaded 2k3 I was like wtf where's those pretty tiles can't find them in the Chipset folder help plz.
I thought those were part of the RTP.

2k3 RTP sucks pretty bad. This may be the reason why nobody ever use it - especially with large quantity of SNES rips floating around. And yeah Princess Princess only uses the RTP; it was originally Nessiah's attempt to create the first game ever with VX Ace trial. It's a pretty cool game.

If your are patient and willing to make your games look good RTP only or not you can make it have a different style than 100000 other projects that use RTP only.

With screen tintings that if you want you could make a game all in black or white, with scripts like mode 7 or first person and so on there is choices on how to make the game different if your imaginative enough.

Say for example yesterday while searching for fogs I found one that when I edit it and changed some of the fog options it made the game's colours more vivid.

Just my 2 cent.

I've had a short play of Princess Princess and it was pretty interesting. I got to the point where I had to fight the two people training in the forest. After swiftly being killed, I decided to stop.

It was actually pretty good, even with its simple story and childish humour. I didn't even think about the RTP and how I'd seen most of it time and time again. Plus Ace has made some very good upgrades which I'm more than happy to see!

There are a few more suggestions in this thread that I'll have to try out. I tried Princess Princess first simply because it was built with the new Maker.

Vexus, you're correct. I figure if I'm going to make a simple game (much like the one I have just mentioned) then I will need to create some subtle effects to set the mood of the game. If I want to set it apart from the hundreds out there then that's what I will have to do. This small project of mine isn't featuring any fanmade resources and that includes scripts. I'm using the RTP and that alone. With the advancements made in Ace, I think I might wait until the English version comes so that I can take advantage of the features of VX and more!

Hamedo Hamedo Hamedo ~



VX/A RTP fits perfectly with simple lighthearted projects because it's childish and fruity, but If you're aiming for something a little more serious then why not use XP RTP, it's still RTP after all and it could give you more freedom for the setting of your game.

I don't mind the XP RTP, it's just the character sprites I hate. The XP RTP does hold the benefit of creating better environments, I feel, and they are definitely capable of great things.