Indie-Resource.com

*update 2 (oct 31st, 2011)*

new screenshots!









Hi there, name's Brendan.

I like to tell stories. Anyway I can really. I have dabbled in independent low budget filmmaking, freelance writing, and.... creating RPGs! Currently I am making one called ALTERED STATES that will feature multiple chapters of single player gameplay that unravel a central story. I also hope to create other things within the same world, that is to say, things like a live action short film that directly ties in with the game and more.....

RPG Maker.... I stumbled upon it when I was about 13 years old. I am now 23 and have been using it ever since. This has made me pretty good with events and that allows me to pretend that I know how to code .

My coding skills lack to say the least. That's where this site comes in! It has been teaching me a lot about php in particular. Big thanks to Halls for all the work he has done

My big plan is to use the open sourced Forsaken Sanctum to make a simplified mmo version of the game that will let you unlock new chapters of the single player RPG made with RPG Maker XP



*update 2* continued

http://my.tbaytel.net/brendan/as_screen01.png
(event based custom menu system for my game ALTERED STATES)
this menu was scrapped for a scripted one (ended up less work , the battle system is still evented)


here are screenshots of the new menu screen you can access pretty much anywhere outside of battle with the esc key:


and here is the achievements screen you can also access pretty much anywhere with the shift key:




Here are some more screenshots to show the dark sci-fi art style of the game (mostly comprised of art provided in the Enterbrain rmxp example game):






this trailer is very old and much has improved since it was recorded : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D41qkSa1Fo






If you are interested you can check out my progress and a short gameplay trailer on my website http://www.appallingproductions.com

Wow, that looks good!

So how does the unlocking work? You play the browser game, then it gives you some sort of access to the single player game?

Perhaps ask people around here (like Jackolantern), there might be some way to link RPG maker to a database, so you can have players play directly in your game (perhaps a seperate instance each, but sharing one database).

Unfortunately, I know absolutely zilch about RPG Maker. In fact, I have never even played a game made with it, let alone dug into the engine itself.

The game looks very nice, though! I particularly like the lighting effects you have going on in there! It gives it a 3D feel in a full 2D environment! As far as the linking is concerned, if you have problems making the RPG Maker game unlock actual content in the web game (and that sounds like a pretty deep programming job unless there is something I am not aware of in RPG Maker), you could always just give passwords to unlock things. Of course, they would be shared really fast within the community, so that would be a downside to that.

Very nice!


Hmm i wonder if RPG maker has a html request command or something.

thanks for the replies

yes, i plan to somehow let the online mmo unlock new chapters of the game by giving you a link. Not sure exactly how I'm going to do it yet. Right now I am just focusing on the first chapter of the game and once I have a good working demo of that I'll start on the web side of things




one thing I have thought about is to have passwords generated specifically for the players username. but that seems complicated and i have no idea how to go about such a thing

update: still working on this!



here is a screenshot of the battle system I am currently working on:

Very nice!

The issue of unlocking things in the PBBG through activity in the single-player game is still quite difficult, though, unless you are ok with the player community of the PBBG sharing passwords or links to unlock PBBG content.

There is one idea I did have, though, that could let you get around having to add online features to the single-player RPG to support this (which would be very difficult to impossible, depending on how RPGMXP is setup and how flexible it is, and it would still be a challenge for even experienced coders).

Basically what you would do is create a convoluted encryption system in the single-player RPG that takes the current time down to the millisecond (surely RPGMXP gives you access to the system time) and turns it into an indecipherable, long string of characters and numbers. Just make sure you can reverse the encryption process and get the original time stamp back out of it. You then tell them to enter this access code in the PBBG to unlock the new content, that the code is only good for one user, and that it expires in 30 days (or whatever time-frame that you choose). Then, on the server-side of the PBBG, you receive that code and compare it to a list of codes already redeemed. If it has already been used, it is no good. If it has not already been used, decrypt it in PHP. Take the resulting time stamp you get from the decryption, and see if it makes sense. If it doesn't result in a date in the last 30 days (and maybe about 1 day into the future to cover time zone differences), then the code is either expired, or is not an authentic code given by the single-player game.

There are a couple of downsides to this method. Of course, there is a possibility that two players could generate the same code at the exact same millisecond. However, unless you have several tens of thousands of players playing, the chances of that happening are probably worse than winning the lottery (provided you are working down into milliseconds). You would also have to remind players to ensure their computer's system time and date is correct when they are playing, or their code could be generated for a time that your system would never accept. On the plus side, most systems I have seen with the wrong time are usually only off by a day or two, and not 30+ days. However, just telling players to set their clock gives away a lot about the code-creation system. You could perhaps work the player's local time into some actual game mechanics which could act as a front so you don't have to tell players it is to generate correct codes.

Anyway, that is the best I can come up with that doesn't require the RPGMXP game being internet-aware and linked to your databases or that doesn't create universal (and sharable) codes.

Thank you for the advice Jackolantern! I will surely look into it and read over what you have written





*update #2 (oct 31st, 2011)*

new screenshots!

looking great!

Love the Eraser Head and Tetsuo the Iron Man posters!