Beginner's Guide to RPG Maker VX

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

At the bottom of the screen you can configure the initial equipment of that character. Give
Salazar the long sword and the leather shield and breastplate.
Now we’ll create Zach, our Rogue companion. Set his name, class and graphics this way:

50

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX
Now, create some parameters according with his job. For example:

And about his equipment, check the Two Swords Style checkbox in the Options panel so
he can use two weapons in combat instead of one weapon and a shield. Give him two
daggers and the leather breastplate.

Lime is the only character left. As always, start by giving her a name and a job. Notice how her
initial level is set to 3. This is because she will join the party later, not at the beginning of the
game.

5501

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX
Set her parameters to something similar to this:

And don’t forget to equip her!

Since Lime won’t be in the party since the beginning, we have to remove her from the initial
party. To do that, go to System tab and remove Lime from the Initial Party list.
We are done with some of our game elements configuration. In this category would also fall
enemies and troops, but I think they deserve a whole chapter in their own. So keep reading!

5512

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

ENEMIES AND BATTLES

MONSTERS!

In the Database manager you can create all the monsters and enemies that will populate your
world. They are located inside Enemies tab.
Balancing the game it’s a hard task, so we will build up our work from some pre-set enemies.
Delete all enemies in the list but Slime, Bat, Hornet, Spider, Rat and Ogre.

We are going to customize these enemies. Let’s start with the Slime. The part of the window
displayed below configures the enemy’s main parameters.

53

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX
You can see the stats for the slime and also how much experience and gold will be rewarded to
the player when he defeats this enemy. Notice that you can also configure which items the
enemy might drop when defeated.
We are going to leave those stats just like they are, but we’ll change the image for the Slime a
little bit. Double click on the picture area.
With the Hue slider you can tint the image for that enemy. Choose a color you like.

At the Elements and States Efficiency panels you can configure the weak and strong
points for this enemy. The Slime is especially vulnerable to Ice, since it has an A for that
element. In our game, the Slime won’t have such vulnerability, so click on it until you choose C.

In the Action Patterns panel you can set the enemy’s behavior. Each action has a rating
associated to it. The highest rating will be the standard action and every action with the same
rating will have exactly the same odds to be executed. Ratings two points below the highest
one will get its action executed too, but with much less probability.

The default Slime would always attack the party. But if the Party Level is 5 or above, the Slime
will have a 50% chance of fleeing in its turn.
With that in mind, let’s customize our other enemies. Select the Bat. If you look at its Element
Efficiency panel you’ll see that the Bat is vulnerable to Wind and Holy elements. Since these
elements are rated with a B, any spell or weapon causing Wind or Holy elemental damage will
get a 50% bonus.
Now click on Drop Item 1. We are going to make it drop one Potion with 20% of probability.
The configuration would be this:

54

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

In the Action Patterns list there is an Ice action. It makes no sense, but it is there because
we messed with the default skills. Change that action (double click on it) for a Darkness Attack
and give it a 4 rating. That way it will have less chance to be chosen than the common attack.

Leave the Hornet and the Spider as they are by default and go for the Rat. Change its second
(and empty) action for a Double Attack with a rating of 3.
As for the dropped items, set them as you like. Later, when you test your game, you can adjust
the loot to balance the game.

5545

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX
The Ogre is our final boss. It has pretty high stats, so we will have to adjust them to give a
chance to the player for win. However, until we don’t play through the game we won’t know
certainly which level will reach the players when they get to the Ogre’s lair. That’s why we’ll
leave his stats they way they are for now, and focus on the Action Patterns.

You will also see that the Ogre, by default, is vulnerable to Fire and can perform critical hits
(like the party members). That sounds pretty reasonable for a final boss, but you can change it
if you don’t like it.

TROOPS

The Enemies tab is some kind of bestiary. In order to make combats with the Party Members,
you have to organize your enemies in troops.
Troops are groups of enemies (though a single enemy can appear on his own). You can set up
the troops in your game in the Troops tab.
Delete all troops but Slime*2, Bat*2, Hornet*2, Spider*3 and Rat*3. Create also a new empty
slot for the Ogre.

The Spider*3 and Rat*3 seem quite hard troops for the party, so let’s change them. Select the
Spider*3 troop. Click on a spider and then on the Remove button to delete that monster from
the troop.

5556

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX
Now select a Bat from the list and click on the Add button.

You can drag the Bat picture to put in wherever you want in the battle screen. Click on the
Autoname button to rename this troop.

Repeat the steps with the Rat*3 troop to change it for two Rats and one Hornet.

The Ogre troop is quite simple. Just select the empty troop slot and add the ogre at it. Don’t
forget to autoname this troop too!

At the bottom of this screen you will see some kind of Event editor. That’s right; you can have
events in battle! This way, you can add dialogs or make a magician summon monsters, etc.

For example, let’s make the Ogre say some lines when the battle has just begun. Double click

on the list of event commands and insert a Show Text command. As Condition, set it to

Turn number 0 (that’s the beginning of the battle) and choose Battle as Span. The Span

controls how often the event checks for the condition. With Battle, the event will only be

triggered once per battle.

5567

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX
To test if it works, click on the Battle Test button at the top of the screen. You will get to
configure the party members and equipment. You can leave the defaults and click on OK.

A battle simulation will begin! If you have set up properly the event, you will see something
like this when the battle starts.

58

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

ENCOUNTERS

Once that you have enemies and troops you can create encounters which will lead to battles.
These encounters can be either random or triggered by an event.
For example, let’s create an encounter with the Ogre when the player goes over the tower in
ruins (the Ogre’s lair). In the world map, create a new event at the lair.

Insert a new command called Battle Processing (in tab 3) and configure it to fight the Ogre.
If you want to prevent the party from fleeing, uncheck the Can Escape checkbox. Change the
event’s Trigger to Player Touch so the player won’t have to press the Action button to
fight the Ogre.

Playtest the game to see if it works as it should.
Random encounters are very popular in RPG’s. Let’s create some random battles with weak
enemies at the world map. Right click on the world map at map’s list and select Map
Properties.
If you double click in the Encounters panel you will be able to choose a troop to battle to.
Create encounters with Bats and Slimes.

59

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX
Also, change the Average Steps to trigger one encounter, since our world map is very tiny.

If you ever want a troop to appear more frequently than the others, you will have to repeat
the encounter twice or several times.
Go and play the game now to make sure it works.

60

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

STORY

In this chapter we will learn some techniques to tell a story to the player and making the game
“advance” through quests.

CUT-SCENES

Cut-scenes are the key to tell a story. In them, the player acts like a TV spectator and watches
some scene with action and/or dialogs. In RPG Maker VX, cut-scenes are created with events.
For example, let’s assume that our game begins with the party entering the village of
Evergreen. We could arrange things so when the game starts the two characters on the party
have a conversation. This cut-scene should be only played once in the whole game, so we will
introduce an important concept in RPG Maker VX: switches.
Set the starting position for the player somewhere in the village’s entrance. Now create a new
event two tiles north from it.

First things first: put the Trigger on Autorun. This way, the event will be triggered
automatically and the player won’t be allowed to do anything until it ends.

61

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX
Be aware that if you don’t end the event somehow, the player will be stuck in an infinite loop!
Now, change the event’s graphic for the picture of our Rogue.

In order to establish a proper conversation, the characters should be looking at each other.
We’ll have to change then the direction the main character is facing. Create a new event
command Set Move Route.

You will see a lot of options now. Note that you can set the move route not only for this event,
but for the player’s character and every other event. For now, make the player look at North
by selecting Turn Up.

It’s time to add some dialog with Show Text. If you want to make your dialog more expressive,
you can insert some balloon icons in it. To do that, choose the command Show Balloon Icon.

You get to choose then the character will display the balloon and what kind of expression will
be inside it.

6612

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX
Once your dialog is finished, you want the secondary character to disappear. Instead of making
him vanish, let’s make him “join” our main character by walking towards him (like in Final
Fantasy VII). Since the Rogue is placed two tiles North from our main character, just insert a
Set Move Route command and make the event move down twice.

Now the cut-scene is finished. How do we make now the Rogue to disappear? How do we
cancel the playing of this cut-scene every time the player enters the village? This is what
switches are for. A switch holds the ON or OFF status. There are switches local to events (self
switches), but there are also switches which can be accessed from anywhere (control
switches). Most of the times we will be using self switches and this is one of those occasions.
The trick is that some events can condition its execution to the status of some switch. So, if we
create a new page for the event and make this page execute when a switch is ON, we will stop
the cut-scene. But first, let’s insert a command that turns ON a self-switch at the end of the
cut-scene. This command is called Control Self Switch.

There are a few self switches for each event, called by a letter. In this command, turn ON the
switch A.

Now create a new page clicking on the New Event Page button and condition the execution of
this page to the ON status of self switch A.

6623

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

Don’t put any image for this event’s page and that will make the character disappear. And
that’s all!
Well, if you actually execute the game now you will detect a nasty bug. The cut-scene never
ends because the Rogue can’t “join” the main character by walking over him. To do so, set his
priority (remember, this priority belongs to the event page number 1!) to either Above
Characters or Below Characters.

With that fix it should work now. By the way, this is how my cut-scene turned out:

And… ta-dah!

64

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

FORBIDDEN PLACES

Often, we will have to restrict the access to certain areas of our game until the player has
completed a quest, or possess some item or has talked to some NPC. There are several ways to
achieve this; one of them is using control switches.
For example, let’s prevent the player to enter the Forbidden Forest until he has talked to Lime
in the village. To do that, create a new map and name it Forbidden Forest. You don’t have to
draw this map yet, so fill it with grass for now.
Now, create a new transfer event to that new map from the world map.

Once created, right click on it and select Edit Event. Now you have to condition the
execution of the transfer to the value of a control switch. Either create a new conditional
branch or a new event page. This time, we will use the conditional branch.

Click on the ellipsis to manage switches. Right now you have empty slots. It’s better to give
them proper names because in a non-trivial project like this, you will be using a LOT.

Now you can fill the condition for the branching. Set it to check if the Talked to Lime new
switch is ON.

6645

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX
Your branching will look like this:

Now cut the transfer event and paste it the true branch (the one before the Else). Now it
should look like this:

To tell the player what’s going on, insert some dialogue lines in the Else branch, like the main
character saying “It seems too dangerous and I have no reason to go in!”

Since all switches are OFF by default, if you play the game and try to enter the forest, you will
get the main character complaining. Go and check it.

6656

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX
Now we have to turn that switch ON once the player has talked to Lime. Go to Lime’s event in
the village (remember that NPC following a fixed path?) and edit it. Add some dialogue lines
first and insert a Control Switch ON command at the end of it.
Now, we are going to avoid repeating the same dialog again and again. Create a new branch
like this one:
And paste the entire dialog in the Else branch. Like this:

In the true branch, insert some dummy dialog for now. We will work on it later. Go and try to
enter the forest once you have talked to Lime. It should work properly!

67

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

FOREWORD

PART II

I guess I should introduce myself. I lurk around a lot on the rpgmakervx.net boards, I’m
known as Kelsper on there. I learned from BenKo’s brilliant guide how to originally work
with RPG Maker VX. Unfortunately, BenKo does not have enough spare time to continue
work on this – but they have done a fantastic job already with this. Great applause to BenKo
for this.

I hope to continue in the same sort of vein, but you will probably notice a change in writing
style and the like. Hopefully you can follow the guide as easily as BenKo’s first part of this
guide. So, while I am talking about writing style…

Bold text indicates that whatever it is bolded is the name of a variable, switch, skill, or just
generally the name of something that is important. (i.e Berserk skill, TalkedToLime
switch)

Italic text indicates something that is related to the story or an ingame object, like an area or
character’s names. It is also sometimes used for technical things. (i.e Forgotten Forest, Lime)

Highlighted Text indicates something that is a command or event that should be followed
in order to achieve things (i.e Resource Manager, Change Party Members)
Send any queries or any suggestions my way if you want – my email is
[email protected]

68

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

IMPORTING TILE SETS

Sometimes the normal tile sets provided with RPG Maker VX are just not enough to create what
you really want to with them. Luckily there is a (relatively) painless way to import custom or pre-
made tile sets. The reason why I bring this up now, is because that I will be using this tile set to
create the Forbidden Forest map.
Luckily there already is a blank tile set provided by RPG Maker VX, in tab “E”. It’s completely
blank, perfect for importing our tile set. I should have included the specific tile set (the main
reason being the trees are, in my opinion, much better than the standard ones for building a
forest.) It is known as Mack’s mapchips and it is an especially popular tile set collection.
However, to overwrite the “E” tab, the name of the image must be TileE.png, so make sure it is
named that. You can just download it from here:
http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/3294/tilee.png
Now what you want to do is go into your Resource Manager (F10) and navigate to the
Graphics/System tab. The blue dots mean that the files are already included in the RTP, and do
not needed to be downloaded by the person running your game unless they lack the RTP.

Afterwards, click the Import button and find the tile set that you downloaded. (Make sure it is
called “TileE”. Importing it should cause the blue dotted TileE file to disappear and at the top a
red dotted TileE file will appear. This means that the file has successfully been imported and this
is an “extra” file associated with your project.

69

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

Now back out of the Resource Manager and check the “E” tab. You should get this:

You have successfully imported a tile set into RPG Maker VX. Congratulations. If you want to
overwrite the Tile E set at a later time, you will need to rename the file you want to replace it
with TileE and import it in the same way you did with this through the Resource Manager.
There is a problem, though – Passage Settings. What this means is that generally anything
you put down from this tile set can be walked over by the player. This is a bad thing, since many
of the things you do not walk to be able to walk over, such as the trees or statues, so we are
going to fix this.

70

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

PASSAGE SETTINGS

You can find the Passage Settings button on the toolbar. Afterwards it highlights everything in
the tile set as an “X”, an “O” or a star. Clicking on the object will cause it to change its tile
setting.

An “X” causes an object to be completely impassable, meaning that the character will not be
able to move over it at all, or go behind it. Consider it as having a square block where the object
occupies.
A “O” means that the object can be walked over. You should use this for things such as small
stones or flowers, but not big objects as it is illogical.
A star is a special case that means that the character can walk behind the object on this tile. It is
mainly used for taller trees where the stump of the tree is impassable, but the top of the tree
can be walked around behind it.
I did not do every tile, but make sure you at least make the trees, logs and rocks impassable,
because we are going to have to use them to make the Forbidden Forest map. Otherwise, you
can leave the other tiles unless you feel obligated to use them later. If while testing you can walk
over anything that you really shouldn’t be able to, come back to this setting and fix that.

71

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

CREATING THE FORBIDDEN FOREST

We want our first real dungeon area to be fairly big and lead players through a mostly linear
pathway. Create a New Map and think of an appropriate size. It does not have to be that
elaborate, I settled on a size of 25x25. The area where we are going to get Gladius is going to be
a separate small area so do not worry about squeezing it in. Make sure you are especially
comfortable with the multiple trees tile, as it does get some getting used to before you can
make the trees look more like an actual forest rather than randomly thrown together. Following
this example of the area, you can’t go much wrong. It might be a good idea to add different
treasure chests on different paths if you want to.

The trees can be rather complicated to put down, so we are going to look at them.

72

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX
It is rather simple to put down cluster of trees – just find the multiple trees tile (a 2x2 one at the
bottom of the tile set, along with the single tree tile) and go crazy with it.

To finish off the cluster take the single tree tile and go around the edges with whatever side you
need to use:

This is kind of unnatural for a forest though. You want to make it so that some of the trees “stick
out” randomly. Use the multiple trees tile to achieve this. This presents a problem, though.

These tiles are jutting out – you need to use the other section of the tile from the cluster of trees
to make it look natural. (In this case, the bottom right tile of the 2x2)

There you go! It takes a little fiddling around with, but you’ll get it eventually.
Leave this area after you have made it and put a Transfer back to the world map inside it. We
will come back to it later.

73

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

TITLE SCREEN

Let’s take a break in order to customize our project a little more. Everyone new to RPG Maker
always wants to find out to change the title screen it seems, so here we go. First of all, you want
to either get your image that you want to have as your title screen. Make sure it is of an
appropriate size (the picture must at least be 544x416 to fill the whole screen) and that it is
named Title much like how the tile set worked.

After you have your image, you want to go back into the Resource Manager again, in the
Graphic/System sub tab again. Once again simply Import your title file.

You will get a screen asking if you want Transparent or Semi-transparent colors in your title
screen. I have not really experimented with this, so I just clicked okay as this was exactly how I
wanted it.

74

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX
It should turn into a red dotted Title file now. This means that it was successfully imported. After
that, Playtest your project to make sure it works properly. This is what it will look like:

75

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

CONTINUING ON

GLADIUS RUINS

The Gladius ruins is the area that will have most importantly the Gladius sword. When we collect
the sword, it will set the second global switch we are going to use, Get Gladius to ON, so that
when the player goes back to Lime she will respond accordingly to the fact that Salazar has
found the Gladius. To save time we are also going to make the Gladius auto-equip when Salazar
picks it up, and makes him learn the Berserk skill for as long as he has it equipped. First of all we
have to Create a New Map. I kept it relatively small at a 17x15 map.

Do not worry about the events right now, just create the map.

76

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX
Since the sword is going to do quite a few things when it is picked up, we want to right click and
use Quick Event Creation to create a treasure chest. Pick the sword graphic from the sub-tab
!Other3 so it is like this.

There are a few errors with using this though. One is that it uses the chest sound effect, which of
course doesn’t fit. Another is that it does not have the glowing sword animation, and the last is
that it does not equip automatically like we want it to. Let’s fix that. We want to edit several of
the events and while we are it, let’s make it so that it automatically leaves the area afterwards
via a Fadeout Screen and a Fadein Screen.

77

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

Here is a breakdown of what has changed here:
• The Stepping Animation checkbox has been ticked. This means that the sword will run
its normal animation.
• A Battle Processing was added at the start of the event commands. This means that
as soon as the player goes to take the sword, it will engage them in a battle. (In this case
with 2 slimes. They are just placeholders at the moment.)
• The sound effect Sword3 has been edited in instead of the chest sound effect, which
sounds like a sword unsheathing, which is perfect for us here.
• There is some speech after picking it up – remember that \n[1] refers to Salazar, or
whoever is your first party member.
• Salazar equips the Gladius automatically through the Change Equipment event.
• The Got Gladius global switch has been switched ON. This is important for initiating the
last part of the quest.
• The Fadeout Screen happens after some dialogue, and then a Transfer event occurs
to the World map, followed afterwards by a Fadein Screen.

78

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

MINI BOSS

We want a mini boss to be created for the purpose of guarding the Gladius – well, 2 slimes aren’t
exactly the best choice for an exciting fight at the end of a major dungeon, so let’s fix that. First
all we need to think out two of the skills that this boss will have. I decided on:

• Heightened Defenses, a skill that raises defense by 50%. He will cast this on turn three,
and only on turn three. The effect will drop off after 5 turns or at the end of the battle.

• Fury, an attack that does three attacks in one attack to three random enemies. He will
use this move on turn 2 and every 5 turns after that. (i.e turn 2, turn 7, turn 13.)

First of all we need to create the Defense Up state which will raise the mini bosses defenses, so
to start off go to your Database (F9) and after going to the states tab, changing the maximum
amount so you can fit it in. Call this state Defense Up because that is what it does!

Just copy the settings as seen here for your Defense Up state.

79

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX
Next, go to your skill tab and create the Heightened Defenses skill which causes this state.

The only thing the Heightened Defenses skill will do is cause the Defense Up state. This is
exactly what we want.
This is a very easy way to have “war shout” like abilities that cause attack % or the like to go up.
Simply tweak the numbers or stat increase and you can get your traditional, war cry that gives
150% attack for a short amount of time in battle. Notice that you can also use this state later on
for actor skills or even different skills altogether. Moving on, our fury skill is rather simple.

80

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

As you can see the Scope of this attack is 3 Random Enemies which means of your current two
party members at this time, one might get attacked 3 times and the other no attacks, or one
might get attacked twice and the other once. Since this can be rather devastating, the base
damage is a little meek at 75. The Physical Attack checkbox means that this attack takes into
consideration normal hit formulas, meaning that any of the attack CAN miss. This is about all we
want for this mini boss, so go to the Enemies tab and we’ll finally make this guy.

81

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

As we can see, this mini boss has a specific graphic (pick any one you want really, I just felt this
one fitted nicely.) At the bottom we can see the two skills… if you go into the action pattern
editor we can see that Turn No. is the option selected. (using the Fury skill as an example) The
first option selects turn no. 2 as the original usage, and the second box (+5*X) is how every five
turns after this it does the same move. Rating 10 ensures the skill will go off. For Heightened
Defenses it is the same, just with no extra +number*X modifier, so that it only activates on turn
3. I called this mini-boss Defender.

82

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX
Change the battle processing on the Gladius to this guy and you are done.

COMMON EVENTS

We still have a problem, however. While we have the Berserker state and the Berserk skill, there
is nothing that is saying that Salazar has ever learned the skill Berserk. (as we decided to make
the Gladius teach him the skill) A way to get around this is to use a common event.
Common Events are events that you may either want to link to multiple events to save time, or
link to skills to generate effects, one example may be a stealing skill may randomly roll the
chance to steal something, which has to be done through a common event. We want Salazar to
learn Berserk as long as the Gladius is equipped and “forget” it when he unequips it. First of all,
open up your Database (F9) and go to Common Events.

As you can see the common event has been given the Berserk name. It is a Parallel trigger,
meaning that it will always be checking for the event. The condition switch is when Got Gladius
is on, since there is no point checking for it before you get the Gladius anyway. The event itself is
very simple: it checks if Salazar has the Gladius equipped. If he does, it changes his skills:

As you can see, he learns Berserk. The else statement says how if he doesn’t have it equipped,
he forgets the skill, by just ticking the Forget box.

83

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX
Testing it out, we find that it works.
#
This is with the Gladius equipped.

After unequipping the Gladius.

VERY BASIC SCRIPTING

By very basic, I mean very very basic. We are going to do the easiest script ever, just two lines
long. All it is going to do is change the games default font and with no default bold. If you decide
you don’t like the font, just go back and change it later.
First of all, we want to go to the Script Editor (F11) Here’s what you should see:

84

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX
Great, now what you want to do is scroll down until you see the Materials heading. There
should also be an (Insert Here) page that you could give a quick read. Basically, this is where you
will put most of your scripts under unless it is changing the scripts already used by the game.

To keep organized, you probably want to delete that (Insert here) page. You click on the lines to
get a new page ready for you to write script into. If you need another space, right click and click
on Insert or just hit the Insert key. Call your page Font and prepare to write a few lines.
Font.default_name = [“Arial”]
Font.default_bold = false
What does the first line do? In essence, it simply changes the font that RPG Maker will use when
you are running it to whatever you put in the quotes. I used Arial as an example, but others
popular ones will work too, though the less popular ones will not be recognized and will need to
be imported. If the game does not recognize what you put in the quotes, it will simply not display
any text. The second line means that font will not ever be bold, which is the default anyway.
There are a few other lines you can use for this script, but that is about it:
Font.default_size = 18 (the default size is 20)
Font.default_italic = false (default = false)
Font.default_shadow = true (default = true)

85

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

WRAPPING UP LIME’S DIALOGUE

Since we have basically done most of the stuff needed for the rest of Lime’s dialogue, we should
go back and finish it off and let her finally join our party.

This is the new part of Lime’s dialogue. You should have the conditional branch for
TalkedToLime already done, but the rest you will need to add. It is more or less just another
conditional branch within this one checking if Got Gladius is ON. If it is ON, it gives the player a
choice, yes/no. Yes lets Lime join your party, no will leave her there, and if Got Gladius is OFF, it
automatically responds with “Sorry, we don’t have it yet.” The only real new part of this is the
Change Party Member event. Here it is:

86

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX
The Initialize option means that it uses the database information. This is what we want. The
next part is creating a new page to make her join the party by physically bumping into Salazar.
Set the conditions to Self Switch A is on, which will occur after you answer “Yes” to the previous
Yes/No choice. After that make the trigger an Autorun, set the priority to Below Characters (or
above, technically) and make sure the Move Route is Move toward Player because you are not
sure what direction they will approach Lime from, then put Transparent ON, meaning that the
event will seem to disappear, though it is still live. As this is an Autorun trigger, the game will
freeze after this, so be sure to use the event Erase Event. We could have used another Self
Switch to make the graphic disappear, but I showed you how this could also be used to achieve
the same effect. After that is done, you have completed all of the necessary dialogue for Lime.
Now we can move on to creating and making the final dungeon, the Ogre’s tower!

We have got our basic level progression down for the Forbidden Forest now. We can talk to
Lime, get the Gladius, and talk to Lime again to make her join our party. That means the first part
of our quest in our project is finished!

87

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX 87

MUSIC & SOUND EFFECTS

Importing music is done in the exact same way as importing the title screen or tile sets – through
the Resource Manager again. It will actually probably be harder finding the music compared to
importing it. The file can be a .mid, .ogg, .wma, .mp3 or a .wav giving you a lot of choices.

I assume that you will have your music files already prepared. I am going to import both a battle
theme and a title screen theme. There is a way to switch music through events, too, which is
very handy for boss battles, but we can worry about that later.

As long as you have a clearly labeled name for your music file that allow you to organize it and
know exactly what it is, then there is no naming restrictions on music, because you aren’t
replacing any RTP things, you are adding a music file.

First of all we go into the Resource Manager. This time we will be navigating to the Audio/BGM
tab. While you are there, unfortunately you can’t listen to any of the music there, so just Import
your music the same way as before.

After you have imported your files exit out of the resource manager and instead go into the
Database. We want to go into the System tab this time.

88

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX
Here’s what you should see:

As you can see, these are all the music or sound effects that are used in the project. I have the

Battle music selected. If you click the … next to all the names of the sound files, a window like

this pops up:

90

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX
This will allow you to simply pick some background music to use for the Battle Theme.
And that’s all there is to it! You’ve pretty much discovered how to change the music for the main
battle theme and the title screen music. Sound Effects work in the same way:

Sound Effects work in much the same way, simply click the … and it will open up pretty much

the same window, only difference is that it opens the Audio/SE section instead of BGM.

Simply Import your custom sound effects into the Audio/SE section and you can change them
in-game exactly the same way as background music.

91

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

OGRE’S TOWER

We are now going to design our final main area; the Ogre’s Tower as a smaller dungeon, not as
big as the Forbidden Forest, but still some random encounters with rats and insects to fight
before your party confronts the final boss, the ogre. Create a New Map as a 25x21 area. It does
not have to be complex, and should have a linear path. Here’s what I came up with:

This should do fine. It does not need to be that elaborate, just enough to make sure the party
will gain a few levels before fighting the final boss.
Create an Event with the Ogre as the graphic – talking to him will initiate the final fight and
also change the music.

92

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

Simple event commands here – the only one you might have trouble finding is the Change
Battle BGM event. It’s found in the third page of the event commands menu, under the
Systems Settings sub-tab. Afterwards, set up the Battle Processing event and put a self
switch on.

93

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

This event occurs when you beat the ogre – the game will remove the ogre graphic, wait a total
of 180 frames (around 3 seconds) before fading out to the title screen. Remember to set this to
Autorun and Below Characters for Priority.
First of all, you want to find the Wait event. It is on the second event page, on the top right,
under Timing. You can set it to the amount of frames that you want – 60 frames usually signifies
approximately one second, so feel free to add more if you want to wait longer. Fadeout Screen
is also under Screen Effects on the same page, while the Return to Title Screen event is on
the third and final page.

94

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

REFINEMENT AND BALANCING

PROGRESSION

Often it is necessary to go over a previous area in order to make sure that it is fit for play. For
example: after we link the Ogre’s Tower to the World map it is possible for the player to go
straight to the Ogre’s Tower without getting the Gladius or speaking to Lime. This is an issue
because we want the players to do the areas in a linear order, since it is likely that they would be
faced by enemies much higher level than them if they went to the “wrong” area first.

We are going to change this; go to the Quick Event Creation and create a Transfer event.
Set it to the desired area in the Ogre’s Tower. Next we are going to change the Conditional
Branches when moving into the area.

95

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

95

The first Conditional Branch checks to see if the Got Gladius switch is on. If it has, it will
successfully move the player to the Ogre’s Tower because they both have the Gladius and have
therefore talked to Lime at least once. However, it does not check to see if Lime is in the party –
this could be used instead of the Got Gladius switch because it may be a forced decision to make
sure Lime is part of the party before going into this area of the dungeon. I left it optional; you
can decide what you want to do with it.

Moving on, the second Conditional Branch will check if the TalkedToLime switch has been
activated. If it has, the text displayed will mention the Ogre since we have learned from Lime
that the Ogre resides here. Else the dialogue that will appear will simply not mention the Ogre but

both options will still move the player away from the Ogre’s Tower since they have not yet acquired the
Gladius.

Another possible choice is that it is possible to revisit the Forbidden Forest after you have
acquired the Gladius. This can be a good thing if you think that the player may wish to grind in an
area, but if you want to keep it linear you have to somehow prevent the area from being
transferred into again. Decide whether you want to allow old areas to be revisited or not, as it is
a key part in the progression of a game. Once again we use a simple Conditional Branch to
check that the Got Gladius switch is on.

96

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

The change is that there is a second Conditional Branch inside the first one. The first option if
both the TalkedToLime and Got Gladius switches are both on, is that Salazar will say “There’s no
reason to go back in there,” and move the player away from the Transfer event.
The second part of the branch (the Else) is if the TalkedToLime is on, but the switch Got Gladius
is off. This will move the player successfully into the area.
The last part is the other branches Else statement that we had before: if the player tried to
enter the Forbidden Forest before talking to Lime, it will not allow you to enter. We had done
this back in the “Forbidden Places” section of the guide.
Now it is possible to play the game from start to finish: the player can only enter the Forbidden
Forest once they have spoken with Lime, after they get the Gladius they cannot enter the forest
again and can enter the Ogre’s Tower. After they beat the Ogre, there isn’t a specific cutscene
implemented yet but it will go back to the title screen.

97

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX
With the area progression fixed, there is a couple other things we need to take care of. The fact
that we do not have any random encounters in the last two areas yet is a problem. After testing
out the areas to make sure they work as intended, then you can activate the random
encounters. Let’s take the Forbidden Forest first. Remember to set encounters you go into the
Map Properties to change them.

We have the troops that appear as Slime*2, Spider*2 + Bat, Bat*2 and Hornet *2. This should
do for our Forest area, but unlike the World Map, we should set the Steps Average to
something higher – since this isn’t a straight corridor to walk down, 25 or 30 steps seems about
right. As a rule of thumb, for your areas that are 20x20 or more, 25 steps is a pretty good
amount, while areas that are 30x30 or more should be upwards of 35. People will get frustrated
with a game that has random encounters every two steps, so make sure you keep the
annoyances down.

98

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

Set your Ogre Tower area to have the troops of Rat*2, Hornet*2 and Spider *2 + Bat. You want
the same sort of Steps Average as the Forbidden Forest – keep it at 25.

WEATHER EFFECTS

Our Forbidden Forest is lacking life. It would be a good idea to add some rain weather effects
and sounds to it. We can do this by using a Parallel Process event so that it will trigger when
the player enters the area. The problem with this is that if the player then leaves the area then
the weather effects will continue – which is fine if our player enters the Gladius Ruins area, but
we want it to stop when the player exits to the world map. We use another Parallel Process
event to achieve this.
Start by creating an event in the Forbidden Forest.

99

Beginner’s Guide to RPG Maker VX

There are a couple new events here. First of all the Set Weather Effects event can be found
on the second event page under Picture And Weather and its options are displayed here:

Since we want a heavy rain effect, we set the weather type to Storm and the Power of the
weather to 8. We want it to instantly happen, so have the Time set to 0.

100