Something Classic Games

Recently, I stumbled upon a piece of game development news that surprised me. It is something, based on a variety of factors, I thought would never happen… but at the same time, never really thought about much to begin with. The news? RPG Maker 2003 was officially translated into English.

“Who cares about a 12 year old piece of point and click software being sold for $20?” one might ask. I can understand that, because it totally makes sense. But I also purchased this 12 year old piece of point and click software without any hesitation. Interestingly, I have no intention whatsoever of using my copy of RPG Maker 2003 (rm2k3). This was a purely symbolic gesture, showing my appreciation towards a company who made the effort to bring an entire group of RPG Maker users’ experiences full circle. Okay, but what does this archaic development tool have to do with indie gaming goodness? Sit down, kids. Grandpa Josh is going to tell you all a story.

In the early 2000s, there was a thriving development scene based around these RPG Maker editors. Unlike more popular and well-known successors such as RPG Maker XP/VX/Ace, these older RPG Maker editors were never (prior to this 2k3 translation) officially translated or commercially available outside of Japan. Thus, they were controversially translated and available for a free download in these communities, which led to their immense popularity. Due to the questionable legality of this situation, many larger sites refused to provide these translated downloads. When RM2K3 was officially announced in late 2002, there was a large petition for Enterbrain to officially translate and release this unique piece of software to the western world. Their pleas were ignored. At the time at least.

But we at Something Classic were kids who didn’t know any better when it came down to it. When I discovered RPG Maker 2000 (the immediate predecessor to 2k3), it changed my life forever.  The RPG Maker series made game development friendly: all of the harsh realities of programming are hidden, and what remains is a very intuitive user interface. You could create scenes with ease, edit your heroes, and watch your imagination spring to life surprisingly fast. This low barrier of entry let me create playable games within a matter of months of learning the program. I was so enthralled by this program that I began joining communities, finding out new tips + tricks, game assets, and downloading other peoples’ creations. Many others were bit by the game creation bug in a similar way.

It was during this time period that several of the Something Classic team members bumped into each other frequently. We all came from different backgrounds, but began collaborating on projects. We learned the importance of teamwork, debating over ideas, and how to get things done effectively. Everything was amateurish by today’s standards, but incredibly fun. The simplicity of the RPG Maker series made it incredibly easy to get ideas off the ground.

And some of those ideas clicked. Luke achieved popularity with The Way, which maintains a rabid cult following to this day. Tyler created a then-popular minigame called Easy Mac. A good deal of material and scenarios for Shadows of Adam was recycled (and vastly improved) from an older RPG Maker demo called Last Legend. It was fun sharing our creations with the world, no matter the response. It helped us build experience.

In retrospect, however, most of the projects I worked on were most likely awful! There are only a handful of early RPG Maker games that would even hold up to an objective analysis today. Despite that, many found the editor to be a springboard for bigger and better things. Some were frustrated by its constraints and began to learn formal programming, beginning a lifelong journey. Others found out that music was more their thing and honed their composition skills. Some artistically inclined people were able to breathe life into their artwork and ideas by using RPG Maker’s simple interface; their RPG Maker demo was able to court actual programmers for their project. And some simply were content with the editor, pushed it to its limits, and produced admirable efforts that were enjoyed by many in the community.

So here we are, over a decade later. Even if I never plan on using an RPG Maker entry again, I’m happy that the community which fostered a game development passion for so many people is being formally treated with the respect it deserves. 12 years is a very long time on the internet. Many communities have come and gone. Many people moved on, grew out of game development, or simply become too busy. But to still be here in the thick of project development all this time later and read that announcement… it was a humbling reminder just how far I’ve come since those days. Hopefully my work on Shadows of Adam can reflect that growth.

Creating an RPG can be a daunting task for an indie game developer. Here at Something Classic, we had to make a conscious effort to balance between ambition and a project that is finishable, all while hopefully delivering a satisfying end product. While we have made our share of bad choices, and still have a ways to go before completion, I would like to go over some project decisions that were crucial in getting the project to the point it is at now. They may not be industry standards, they not even be the best way, but they have definitely worked for us! I hope this helps any aspiring RPG makers.

The Almighty Design Document

The project starts in the design document. The format can be open ended, the content can change, but the design document stays. For Shadows of Adam, the design document established the laws of the project. Violating those laws is a punishable offense. But seriously, any time scope creep rears its ugly head, or we begin losing sight of our goals, the design document is the first place we look.

Time is of the Essence

It’s no secret that games in general are becoming longer. Not only do RPGs follow this rule, they have grown enormously from the 16-bit days. It is not unusual for a modern day RPG to be assessed in terms of hundreds of hours of play time. Naturally, the first decision we made was to keep the game relatively short, with a planned main story of 4-6 hours. This allows for a focused narrative that has some wiggle room for side quests if we exceed our expectations.

Easy on the Nostalgia

Nostalgia can be dangerous. It’s easy to gloss over a lot of warts and imperfections that were always at play in even our fondest memories. The retro aesthetic is a pleasing one, but let’s face it: a lot of classic games had serious flaws. Sometimes we justify this by comparing games to their contemporaries rather than objectively. When it comes to RPGs, however, usability and pacing were huge issues even until fairly recently! For this reason, we wanted to avoid the trap of including mechanics solely because our RPG forefathers had them. No random encounters, clunky menus, or level grinding here!

Focus!

Tying into the above, we wanted to give the project as much focus as possible. By imposing some limitations such as the 4-6 hour game time, we were able to play to our strengths as a small team of specialized members. Any project will have to deal with scope creep or increasing ambition, so the importance of setting a narrow range of parameters cannot be emphasized enough. With our goals clearly set early on, we have been able to refer back to our design doc any time we’ve observed ourselves getting off track.

Version Control, Use It

With the introduction of GitHub a few years ago, version control systems have entered the public consciousness. Well… not quite, but they are certainly more common and accessible than ever. Using Git to manage this project’s code and assets has been crucial for a variety of reasons. First, it allows for true collaboration: everyone can work on asynchronous schedules and Git can resolve any possible merge conflicts. Second, it provides a centralized, authoritative version of the project to be stored online. And third, it makes it easy to revert changes (particularly very bad ones) with minimal effort. There is certainly a learning curve to Git, especially if you are not technically inclined, but the payoff is immense.

Stick With It

The most important thing I’ve learned while being a part of this project is to stick with it. You will always learn cool new ways to solve old problems, or come up with great ideas that seemingly put your current ideas to shame. Ignore it! Keep going forward and try not to look back. Creating a finished game of any magnitude is no small feat, so for me it has been extremely important to not take project completion for granted. While we still have a ways to go, I am confident that these decisions have allowed us to get that much closer.