Regarding that RPGMaker project revival I've been working on. I said before that I worked on the original project for three months before I dropped it. I also said back then that with what I know now, I could probably catch up to the original stopping point in less than a month, and do it better. The story has a three act story structure, and I previously stopped at the end of act two.

Well it's been about a month since then, and I did indeed catch up to where I quit before, and I do believe I did it better. The story's certainly better, on account that I actually paid attention to it this time. While I haven't implemented the RPG combat that I had originally, that's not a bad thing, on account that the original combat sucked, and was there just for the sake of having it. I've been throwing around ideas on that front, anyway, and I think I've got some good ideas for that.

Point is, it's all coming along great so far.

Progress marches on for my RPGMaker game. However, as I draft out the story and key events, I realize that this might end up being much larger than I intended. When I scrapped my first project years ago, it was due to introducing too many gameplay gimmicks. This time it's because the scope of the story is getting much larger than it was.

To give an idea of how big it's gotten, I now have enough material to make a multiple hour-long first game, and then a sequel. The story was originally a four-act narrative, with a big twist at the end of the third act. But then I sat down and took a hard look at what story threads had cropped up in my writing process and what needed to be resolved in the ending. I realized that the main story goal had been fulfilled in act 3, but none of the main character arcs had been tied up neatly, and that the story had a lot more potential to grow after the twist. Breaking it up seemed like the best move to give everything the breathing room that it needed.

For the record, I don't think that a game getting bigger due to story complexity is a bad thing. It does make things take longer, but it could also produce something really special if I get this right.

EDIT: Alternately, I could also just cut out the story thread that's making everything so complicated. That's a lot simpler, and probably smarter.

I picked up my old RPGMaker MV engine to try and work on a project after years of neglect, and it's moving at a really good pace so far. There are several reasons why, but I think one of the biggest is that I actually picked up a design process that works for me, compared to when I first tried this. My process might not work for everyone, but I hope sharing this might help someone find their footing.

First, before doing any sort of programming, I bring out a word document/notepad and start brainstorming. This might sound obvious to some people, but there are so many tutorials out there that skip straight to implementing mechanics or programming without ever touching the fundamentals. I jot down all the ideas and questions I have, regardless of whether I think they're stupid, then I leave, get some sleep or something. Often, when I come back to look again, some idea that seemed cool at first is actually garbage when observed with fresh eyes. Conversely, something I dismissed before might have more potential to be expanded on that I initially gave it credit for.

Second, once I actually boot up my creation software, is to not do any kind of programming or add any objects beyond defaults. My only objective at that early stage is to form the basic structure of the game. So many tutorials and game samples for RPGMaker games start straight off with plugins or other advanced systems, when the main point of an RPG is usually to tell a story. You don't need a dynamic lighting program to be able to do that.

On my last RPGMaker project that never saw the light of day, I made new items, skills, enemies, etc. on the spot as I came up with new ideas. This ended up bloating the game with stuff I didn't use, or worse, filled it with garbage mechanics because I didn't want to waste the effort of making them. For my revival of my old project, I've scrapped all the clutter and am starting fresh.

So before I actually create any skills/items/etc. I'm brainstorming all the major characters and the broad strokes of what kind of skills and weaknesses they have, what they can and can't do. Once that's done, I have some direction when designing the skills that will be implemented in my game. For example, one character I designed for the original project had a weird mix of tank and debuff skills that failed to mesh at all and felt awkward to play. This time, I've brainstormed him as a hardcore survivalist with healing, status effect control, and ways to avoid damage The result gels much better as a support that specializes in DoT, and it works with his backstory too.

So after repeating that process with all the other items and enemies, then I think I will have reached the point where I can start doing all those advanced programming and plugins to try and enhance the game experience and make something special with it. Then comes beta testing, then the game should be complete (I make that last part sound so simple).

I think that's everything for now. I'm tired after writing all of that. But it felt good to do it. Hope that helps someone out there.

I used to dabble with RPGMaker MV a few years ago. I made a simple game on there just to test what I could do with that engine, a basic RPG with a basic story. However, the characters and plot ending up developing on their own as I wrote lines, and I got more ambitious with gameplay mechanics as I got further in. The project ended up growing far beyond what I initially planned.

I never finished it, however, for a number of reasons. The novelty of the engine wore off. College was hitting me hard. I got stuck in testing and debugging hell, and changing early areas to keep up with the increasing scope of the game. I think the big one, though, the thing that caused all those other problems, was that I never had any big plans for the game beyond testing the engine and it's functions, so it didn't have any concrete goals for the game, despite having some neat ideas, and the game ended up being really disorganized. Ultimately, I lost the project when my old computer croaked.

That said, recently I've gotten interested in trying to make that game again. It took me about three months to get to the point I stopped at before, but I was also learning how to use RPGMaker as a whole. Now that I know more about how to use the engine, what the best parts of my old project were, and know some basic game design fundamentals, I could probably recreate what I did before in less than half the time, and do it better.

A shout-out to @Saeko-Chan for inspiring me to give my old project another chance. I know you didn't intend for anything like this when you uploaded your own RPGMaker project here, but thank you.