The Complete Guide to Cutscenes

• Introduction
  
• Understanding the Basics
  
• Lights, Camera, Action
  
• Advanced Techniques
  
• Conclusion
  

• The start of the game - A very simple mistake many people do when making their RPG is to not actually have an introduction. Doing this can really ruin the whole gaming experience for the player, as he/she has no idea who he/she is, where he/she is or what is going on in the world. On the entire opposite side of the spectrum, some people make their introductions far too lengthy. Making the player read through a massive wall of text just to get an understanding of the game's plot and setting is NOT the way to go about things. It's boring, uninteresting and chances are people will forgot 50% of what they read. The old saying "show, not tell" really comes into player here: you should show people the setting, not tell them about it. Onlly when recalling past events should you really have an excuse to make the players read, but if you feel this is ever necessary then be sure to keep the amount of text to a minimum. People downloaded your game to play it & see it, not to read about it.
  
• The player comes to a very important plot point - When the player stumbles upon something important, or causes some major event to occur, then it is imperative that you notify the player that something significant is going on. You need to give important events some room to be recognized, otherwise the player could get very confused with the plot and may have no idea where to go or how to go about it. Going on and on about insignificant things in terms of story (like the player obtaining his first sword) but then barely mentioning the opening of the Gates of Hell is very bad form indeed. This one's really a no-brainer.
  
• Introducing main characters - Again, this is something many people tend to skip. If you've ever read a book, you'd notice that most authors give quite a good description when the reader first encounters a new character important to the plot. While you should do something similar, actually giving players a long description isn't a good idea. If you went about the whole game, introducing characters and villains through the normal course of gameplay, then chances are your characters won't be nearly fleshed out or interesting enough by the end.
  
• The ending/conclusion of a game - A conclusion is quite important as it is needed to tie up all those loose ends in your story, as well as provide the player with a sense of completion and satisfaction. Try to stay away from being cheesy; "They all lived happily ever after" is hardly a decent conclusion.
  

• First, boot up RPG Maker VX and start a new project. Call it anything you like (in this case, "Cutscene Demo" would work just fine). Once you've created the new project, create a new map (17x23 is fine) and fill it with grass.
  
  
  
• Now, place your Player Starting location (Event Mode > Right Click on map > Set as Starting Position > Player) at the very top of the screen. Next, place an event near the middle of the map. Give it a monster graphic, and make sure it's facing upwards. Here's my map so far:
  
  
  
  
  
• Next, create a new event (with no graphic). Name it "Controller" and set the Trigger to "Parallel Process". This means that the event will run automatically again and again until stopped. Double click in the Event Commands pane and go to "Set Move Route" (found in the second tab). In the Move Route window, make sure that "Player" is selected. Once it is, click "Move Down" a couple of times. This will force the player to walk towards the monster. Click OK once you're done (make sure "Wait for Completion" is selected.
  
  
  
  Ticking "Wait for Completion" ensures that the rest of the commands in that event will only occur after the move route has been completed. Unticking it will mean that the commands will continue to be executed during the move route.
  
  
  
• Now we're going to bring a little more animation into our cutscene. Create a Show Balloon Icon command after the move. In the character box select "Player" and in the Balloon Icon box select "Exclamation". To make sure the player cannot move around, put a blank Move Route command targeting the player and set it to "Repeat". This neat trick prevents the player from doing any actions. You could also disable menu access using the "Change Menu Access" command, but it's not really needed.
  
  
  
• Create some dialog between the player and the monster. For the sake of this tutorial, just make it quick and simple.
  
  
  
  Although it doesn't really matter now, it is always good to remember that dialog should be concise, yet descriptive. Grammar is also very important; having a distinct lag of grammatical skills will definately show in your project and will make it look unprofessional.
  
  
  
• Instead of just initiating a battle, we're going to show an "on-field" battle of sorts. This can easily be done by using the "Show Animation" command. This one command can be used in a variety of scenarios to display a vast array of special effects. For now, we're just going to use some of the more basic battle animations. Using the "Show Animation" command, create a small battle between the player and the monster. Here's my event so far:
  
  
  
  You've probably noticed that I've used the "Wait" command numerous times. This is important, as otherwise you're cutscenes can go way to quickly. Particularly in these "mock battles", pacing is very important. I've also used made the player jump; this can be achieved in the Move Route window. "Wait" functions can be added to the Move Routes as well. Additionally, I've added an extra empty, repeating Move Route command for the player, so that he can't move around and screw up the cutscene.
  
  
  
• After you're battle, you should make the monster disappear. You can do this in any number of ways. I gave mine a defeat speech, and made him disappear in a puff of smoke (literally, I played a darkness animation over him and then removed him). You're probably wondering how to actually remove the monster? The only really easy way is to use switches.
  
  
  
• Open up the monster event and click "New Event Page". Once you've done that, go near where it says "Conditions" (making sure you're still on page 2), tick a box next to "Switch" and rename the first one to "Monster Dead". It's very important to name your switches, otherwise it's easy to get mixed up.
  
  
  
  
  
• To stop the cutscene from replaying over and over again, we need to add a few commands to the Controller event. At the very end of the event, create a "Control Switches" command and set "Monster Dead" to ON. After that, add an "Erase Event" command. Erasing the event only works once; if you walk back into that same map then the event will still be there. To stop this from occurring, create a new, blank event page on the Controller event and set the conditions so that that event page only runs when "Monster Dead" is ON. Do the very same for the Monster event, as well. This basically means that if Monster Dead is switched on, then the cutscene won't run a second time (even if you re-enter the room) and the monster will disappear permanently.
  
  
• On the line before "Erase Event", add a blank Move Route for the player (making sure all the checkboxes in the Move Route window are unticked). This restores movement to the player and allows him to walk around again.
  
  
• If you want, add some detail to your map and make it look decent. You can see my final product below (although do keep in mind it is a very rough mapping job).