kitten2021

Exactly. You know, I'm glad those are in there... For someone who is terrible with villages, this at least gives me a simple base with which to work with and play around with until I get it to the point I am satisfied. Might post a picture later on to show what I mean, but for now as this is the main city, I want to play with it a bit longer. -Kitten ^u~

Hey guys, sorry for the late update - life and all. ^.^ So, I finally got to work on the village and it actually worked out real nice, if I must say so. Rather proud of it actually~ I wanted to thank KilloZapit and MasterTaffer for their idea's on working with the town setups; I kibnd of played around with villages and decided to go ahead and follow their directions and made a town from the auto-generator, this worked out extremely well for me actually. I had to turn it all to snow, change a few things here and there and then remove/re-add some houses, but it worked out great! Image coming soon... I'm thinking I'll post one up of that when I am satisfied with everything in it, i.e the villagers in it and everything like that. Thanks again guys! ~Kitten ^u~

Thank you both of you, I had honestly forgotten about the engines auto-build option, hadn't used it in a long time. I think I'll use one of those as a base and then play around with it, then once I'm mostly happy with it, I'll post it to the forums and see if I can get any other pointers from people and then edit as I move along from there. Thanks again guys, lovely idea~ ~Kitten ^u~

Its been a slow week... Every time I open up the engine to work on the game and realize that I really do need to make the village where the entire game centers around, I stop and just close the engine. Anyone ever have that ONE thing in their games that they are just terrible at and know they actually have to do it, but because you are just terrible at it you procrastinate in doing it? For some its the Database and making all their new monsters, or fine-tuning the stats for their heroes, or even just getting the right music for their game. For me... It's making villages. I stink at them, horribly so. I can never get the houses made right, they always look all dis-proportioned (spelling?) and I have a terrible time with using the slanted roofs - no, I refuse to use 'flat' roofs, it just looks wrong. If anyone has any pointers for me on making villages actually look... believable (especially considering the fact my entire game basically centers around just this village - and you're in it 90% of the game) then I would seriously appreciate you. I am using JUST RPG Maker VX ACE graphics, no added in graphics at all. That's the point of this game, to use just the bare minimum and not go out of my way to make it harder on myself than it should be. Even a YouTube video would suite me just fine to watch, I don't really care... I'm just looking for advice on this folks. :/ Thanks to anyone that can help~ ~Kitten ^u~

@KilloZapit I agree with you on the game music thing; since I was nine years old I have had a very strange affection towards the music in Final Fantasy iX, the instrumental versions to Garnets song (plus her song she sings). As for Minecraft, I call it "Minecrack" as I am frighteningly addicted to that game, have been since 2011 when the game got a few good updates and was good to go. I play it on every system I can get it on (PS3 which is broke now, PS4 with Twitch even, iPad, iPhone and PC) and even follow a lot of people on YouTube (i.e. Skydoesminecraft, ThatGuyBarney, Pewdipie just as examples). There is nothing wrong with that game and I hope to see it continue to build, I hear they're planning on adding real roads in the next large patch - WOOT! I have heard that Pokemon song before in other videos, as like a lead-in to the video, and had no clue that was where it had came from... I love that song! Oddly enough listening to that song reminded me of the old Gradius game - loved that music. (https://youtu.be/hz9OkKo9rW0) ~Kitten ^u~

Thank you Vectra~ <3 Yea, I'm really starting to love the idea of a snow village and landscape instead of the same-old, same-old of an eternal Spring in the RPG world. Time to spice the worlds up a bit I think. lol

Hey, thought I should start a different blog for other random things that came to my mind and had nothing to do with the RPG Maker.... mostly. You ever come across a song that once it hit your hears you suddenly halted everything you were doing, be it programming, editing, watching your dogs play (LOL), and just listen to it? Couple that with an amazing AMV (Animated Music Video for those that aren't aware of the abbreviation) and you are suddenly sucked into something you had not expected to find. I had that with this AMV created by the AngelicSerenadeMEPs group on YouTube titled This Song Saved my Life: I sat and watched that video for over an hour straight (finally went and bought the song on iTunes)... I remember during what I would have considered "difficult times" while growing up and throwing headphones on and pounding music into my ears to keep me either sane or make me smile once again without it being forced. Break-ups were especially when music was so close to me, there was always a song I could find to turn on that would make me smile right after the break-up, like, for example, KELIS "Caught Out There" for some specific break-ups, lol! I don't know what everyone's past is, and I never pretend to understand it or try to. But everyone out there has at least ONE song that, at their worst point, they turned on and it just... it just saved them. It helped them, I would like to think. Because that's what music does - it heals, it smiles at us when we just can't and it wraps us up in its beats and rhythm and tells us "It's OK, you will be just fine soon". Those are my thoughts anyways... NOW GO LISTEN TO SOME MUSIC THAT MAKES YOU SMILE!!! Lol! ~Kitten ^u~ P.S. Hey guys, I just thought of it... Why not post a song down in the comments below that you listen to for specific situations, be them happy moments, sad moments, it doesn't matter and you really don't have to explain - most of the time, the songs explain it for themselves. Otherwise, ciao!

Well... I have had a post up on the page for the last three days, came back to check on it and possibly post another one and found that the post had been saved to stupid Draft for the past three days. -.- I swear I will figure this blogging thing out, that's the second time I've done that now.

Hello again everyone~ I liked the way my outside map looked, all green and Spring-looking, but then I re-created the entire map and checked out how it would look in snow. I'm really starting to like that one a lot better, lol. See how this works? You let your imagination just flow and you end up with something magical at times. Thinking I'll keep the snow theme and go with it for as long as I can. (btw, family member in the hospital, so not updating as often as I would like. See ya when I can see ya!) Keep RMing adventurers! EDIT: Wow.... Another Oops moment. Realized that this post never went up with the new Snow image.

Thank you Vectra.

Hello again everyone~ I liked the way my outside map looked, all green and Spring-looking, but then I re-created the entire map and checked out how it would look in snow. I'm really starting to like that one a lot better, lol. See how this works? You let your imagination just flow and you end up with something magical at times. Thinking I'll keep the snow theme and go with it for as long as I can. (btw, family member in the hospital, so not updating as often as I would like. See ya when I can see ya!) Keep RMing adventurers!

So, first week of working in the game and I've officially got two maps completed PLUS almost all of the entry to the game. The games title has officially been decided upon: Poor Jack. Once I have enough info on the game and enough maps generated for a Game Page I'll actually create one, or I may just leave it all here in my blogs... Let me know what you guys think! I'm seriously enjoying myself this time around, I am doing about 1-2 hours a day, taking a break on some days so it doesn't become repetitive and really just twiddling with one or two things at a time. If I find myself starting to become frustrated with something, I just stop on it and go play something more entertaining for the time being - only returning to the project the next day, or the day after that. It has worked out beautifully for me and I have had more progress in the span of one week than I ever have in any other project I have ever done! I've attached a preview of a map I just finished after working for 2 hours then a little more the following morning before work - I think it's pretty looking and rather happy with the little entry area to the cave the stories protagonist "Jack" goes into to find things. I didn't want it to be something extravagant, because it is just simply a small area leading directly into the cave; it needed to be something simple and clean to make it easy for the player to navigate through and know precisely where they needed to go.

Thanks for the comment Brackev, and I liked your Point #3, a group does tend to help a project along.

This has now been resolved through private messages, can a admin please close out this thread for me as Finished?

Hello world, Kitten2021 here~ So, I've never blogged before, so this first blog might seem a bit... odd. Forgive me, but I wrote down what I was thinking at the time of writing this... I sectioned it out, so you can skip around in it for simplicity reasons and because this is going to be a long one since its my first blog and I just kind of felt like writing this information down. Thanks for reading and being patient (and commenting if you do)! --------------------- First Mistake (i.e. the rant, lol) --------------------- So, I've been absent from the RPG Maker world/community for a very long time and even longer from any 'real' project (looking back, looks like on my actually 'real' projects, almost 1.6 years-yikes!) and I'm tired of making projects where I get great ideas, get into RMVX:ACE and start the project, get it going, but then a few days later have zero interrest in the project any longer. I have decided to actually sit down and think about my future with the RPG Maker and what I really want from it; I mean, I've paid out money for every version of this engine since it's release back in the '90s, I should be using this thing - right? Well, thats where my first mistake has always been... And when I started thinking about it, I think thats where a LOT of peoples mistakes start. A feeling of requirement, responsibility, NEED. Just because we paid out large amounts of money for the RPG Maker engine(s) doesn't mean we are 'required' to actually sit and use them, that just takes all the fun out of it! We should want to make a game in them because WE want to make the game, not because of a feeling of obligation due to buying it or seeing others making games with it. This was always what caused me to give up on projects, I always felt obligated to get into the engine and work on a project that I knew was either too large or the story was too lost in all the graphics I wanted the project to have. I gave up. I quit. (Rant over, lol) --------------------- Researching --------------------- Now its been a really long time since I sat down and actually thought about really 'making' a project. I figured, instead of just plowing into the project head-first, why not do the smarter thing and SLOW DOWN! Read a little... Do a little research before I just plowed into a project and got lost again then eventually give up again. I've never been a quiter - not until RPG Maker, oddly enough. So, I set about reading online on different ideas from people, researching projects people had been working on, and reading other peoples blogs on different websites. The one blog that really affected me the most was the one on www.RPGMakerweb.com titled "How to start a new game after a long break" (featured here: http://blog.rpgmakerweb.com/advice/how-to-start-a-new-game-after-a-long-break/ ); as I was reading this blog, I started writing down my own thoughts on his subjects he pointed out in it and realized, it was time to start a new project. I am finally ready. --------------------- My List --------------------- Here is my list that I started writing up as I read through Mr. Conforti's blog linked above, maybe it will help others out too! 1: Set A Clear G-O-A-L > Make it a goal that's actually attainable, not something that you know starting out is going to be a long and arduous 'job'. Make GOAL stand for "Go Off A List", meaning, make a simple game that could be wrote down on a list and actually be followable, and I don't mean something that requires two or three pages to follow it. 2: Be Consistent > Set a specific time or specific days in the week where you spend an hour or so on your project; maybe just an hour each morning, or two hours every other day. This allows you to be consistent in your work, yet not work so hard on it that you grow tired of it. I'm 'aiming' for every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to spend maybe one hour in the mornings prior to going to work on my project; if that doesn't work, then I'll switch it up - hey, its your project, make time for it that best suites you and your busy schedules. 3: Love the Work > This one really shouldn't be that hard for people to do - but it always is. When I start thinking about a project, I get really excited for it; I'll jot down some notes, pull open the engine, start working on it, then realize I don't have the exact art I'm wanting for my game, so I'll start researching online for resources - six hours later, I'm STILL looking for the resource that's just perfect for my project. I start to dislike the project already, then when I give up on that particular resource and use something that will 'do for now' I have already set mysefl up for failure... Because now there is a very simple portion of my game that I already don't love. If you don't have the resource, then oh well, use something else that you like (or if you have a friend, ask them if they'll edit the resource for you if you don't know how), make do with what you have and YOU enjoy. Of course, thats just a simple example, but you get the idea of what I'm going at here... 4: Make It For Yourself > This one kind of ties into #3... start the project out for YOU - not for the RPG Maker Community/World. Going out there and looking at all those amazing, albeit incredibly complicated looking, graphically enhanced projects might inspire you to go forward, download addition resources yourself (after searching for 5-6 hours) and make something just as amazingly awesome and share it with the world, but its going to do you little to no good if you aren't making it for yourself first and actually staying in YOUR comfort zone. Look... Not everyone out there is a Photoshop Master - hey, some of us don't even own it! - but there is still simple ways to edit some parts of some resources to have them match what you want if you just absolutely need it in your project. Use simple tools that are out there, like Paint or Gimp, and just do something small like adding a dot or an extra line onto an item in your Charset or your Tileset you have, just to make it YOURs and make you feel better about it. But most importantly, make it for yourself, not because someone else thinks it should be this way or that way, or should look like this or that. That sort of train of thought will ruin -your- project... Just go with the flow. And thats what I am aiming to do with my First project in the past year or so. --------------------- New Beginnings --------------------- Ok, so, I've rambled on a bit - first part was a bit of a rant, sorry; but you know what? I feel better! And I hope someone out there feels better too. As you read through the list above, take time to grab a piece of paper, maybe open a word document of some type (notepad even!) and write down what 1-4 actually makes you think of when you read through them at the RPG Maker Blog post I listed above. Don't just go off of my thoughts, these are just what my thoughts were as I read through Mr. Conforti's post, everyones thoughts will always be different. So, I'm going to officially start my first project. I'll post another Blog Post specifically for that in a little while, but I gotta get the in's and out's of what this first -simple- project is going to be about. Thanks a ton to everyone in the RPG Maker Community for being great insprirers in your own little ways~ Game on people - and have FUN doing so! Ciao~ ~Kitten2021