Tutorials

Locked Doors and How to Open Them

Locked doors show up in almost every game. Whether the doors are shut through magical means, a password, or even a simple deadbolt, chances are the heroes will need to figure out a way to unlock the door to move forward. Since having to open locked doors is so common, let’s learn the basics we need to add our own doors to our games.

hiddenone

January 12, 2021

Using States with Skills in Battles

How many games have you played where a spider enemy’s bite can poison your heroes, or a huge foe’s bodyslam causes stun? We’ve all seen states in games, but sometimes it’s tough to come up with different ones that really add to our battles. So let’s figure out four different ways we can use states to improve our battle skills for some of our default MZ actors.

hiddenone

December 29, 2020

The Basics of Tints & Picture Overlays

A common complaint about RPG Maker games is that many of them look the same since they use the default tiles that come with the program. There are a ton of ways to deal with that complaint, from editing tiles to buying brand new tilesets, but for this tutorial we’ll look at a simpler method: using tints and pictures to improve our games’ appearance.

hiddenone

December 16, 2020

Eventing a QTE: Time Hits Minigame

Quick Time Events (QTEs) can add an extra bit of interaction between our players and our games, rewarding them for their focus. So let’s take a look at how we can event one type of QTEs: timed hits.

hiddenone

December 6, 2020

How to Make Rounded Caves Walls

Ever wanted your caves to a be a bit more organic and less square? Ever thought "I can't do that I'm not an artist!"? Well we're here to tell you that you are wrong. You CAN do it yourself, and we're going to show you how!

Avery

December 3, 2020

December 1, 2020

Classic Tutorial: Making an Autotile

The companion piece from last week's classic tutorial, originally posted in 2018, this tutorial walks you step by step through how to make your own autotiles.

Touchfuzzy

November 24, 2020

Classic Tutorial: How Autotiles Work

This classic tutorial from our old blog can show you how autotiles are generated. It was originally written in on our original blog in 2018 for MV, but everything it has to say about Autotiles still works for MZ!

Touchfuzzy

November 17, 2020

How to Map a Desert

Mapping a desert sounds easy, right? Select sand, click fill, and done. But there is a lot more to keep in mind if you want to make it visually interesting and engaging for your players, and today we are going to talk about these things!

Avery

November 10, 2020

Eventing a Push/Pull System

The in-engine tutorial gives us a brief guide to making pushable events with moving rocks, but sometimes we want our players to have more options when dealing with a puzzle. So why don’t we create a system that lets players grab those events to push and pull them out of the way?

hiddenone

October 29, 2020

October 27, 2020

Making Secret Doors!

Pssst! I heard, secret doors might be a nice element, that might enhance your game and be a good fuel for puzzles! The big disadvantage of that element is that it might be difficult to find the right charset just for the situation you have in your game, but no worries! Today we go step by step through several options you might want to have and show them how to create them with any tile you might want to have to do that movement.

Avery

October 20, 2020

Using Plugins in MZ

In some of our recent Resource Spotlights, we’ve looked at some of the amazing plugins creators have shared with all of us to use to improve our games. It’s great to know about all these options, but let’s take a closer look at plugins for those new users who aren't familiar with how to use them.

Hiddenone

October 13, 2020

Improving Key Items with Common Events

Key Items are a major part of many games, from keys that unlock dungeon doors to crystals that you need to find and return to a magical kingdom. But sometimes we want our items to be more than just a two-line description in the item menu. That’s where common events come into play, giving us the freedom to make our items as detailed as we want.

hiddenone

October 6, 2020

Animating Tiles: Opening Animations

When it comes to adding some extra “life” to your game, small animations for interactable objects are usually a good thing to go for. Today we will cover three base techniques of how to open things, and many of them can be used on other object types as well.

Avery

September 29, 2020

Basic Anatomy of a Cutscene

Cutscenes are a vital part of most games, drawing the players into the game’s story and giving them a break from the action of battles. But sometimes it’s difficult for new developers to get the ideas from their heads into the game itself, so let’s take a look at a few things to keep in mind while eventing cutscenes.

hiddenone

September 22, 2020

Charsets: Structure and Avoiding Traps!

Today we are going to have a closer look at characters – or charsets, sprites or character sets, as some people call them. There are some common misconceptions about how they work and some traps people run into, so we will use this chance to make sure they don‘t happen to you anymore!

Avery

September 22, 2020

September 15, 2020

Creating Behaviors from the Damage Poses

MZ gives us the choice between three different damaged frames for our sprites, which is great for some variety on a battlefield! But there’s so much more we can do with them if we just edit the sprites a little bit. So let’s take a look at how we can make a few new behaviors out of the damaged sprites.

hiddenone

September 8, 2020

Mapping: Towns

After my last tutorial on Mapping Interiors, many people asked for help with the exterior of a town. So that is what we are going to do today. Let’s make a starting town for our hero!

Avery

September 1, 2020

Randomness in NPC Dialogue

“Welcome to our village.” “Welcome to our village.” “Welcome to our village.” “Welcome to our village.” Sometimes hearing an NPC say the same thing over and over can be boring. For players who are looking for some world-building or little lore bits, these one-phrase NPCs can be disappointing and cause them to even ignore all but the important NPCs. If you’ve spent hours creating these characters from nothing then you want your players to spend some time with them. That’s where adding in some extra dialogue can help. Instead of having an NPC say just one thing repeatedly, let’s look at a few ways to improve their comments.

hiddenone

August 25, 2020

You've Downloaded MZ... Now What?

Congratulations, you’ve gotten your hands on the newest RPG Maker, MZ! With all its new features it’s tempting to just dive right in and start working on your dream game, but do your best to hold off on that right now. Whether you’re brand new to RPG Maker or a user who’s been around since the old days of 2k3 and XP, taking some time to explore MZ will improve your time playing with it. Here are a few things to do before starting your first big project.

hiddenone

April 6, 2021

August 18, 2020

Tutorial - Mapping: Interior

Lately, there was a status post on our forums about how difficult it can be to find a good mapper for your project. That is interesting, as good mapping is the most essential graphic skill needed for using RPG Maker, as you can go far with just the default graphics. So, why don’t we make sure your maps are the best you can make?

Avery

August 18, 2020

August 11, 2020

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