Learn how to make this. Your world, your characters, your vision.
Let's get started!
Learn how to make a Retro-RPG!
I'm going to help you make your dream RPG. The book "How to Make an RPG" takes you from zero to a SNES-era RPG masterpiece.
What are you waiting for? Start creating today!
Let's make your dream RPG.
The package includes the digital book, over two-hundred example projects, over $2500 worth of art assets and full access to the C++ code for the underlying opensource engine.
All this for $46
Calling all creators!
Want to make your own SNES-style retro RPG but don't know where to start? This is the book for you! It takes you from nothing to a professionally finished RPG.
This is your chance to make your awesome idea a reality, stop watching from the sidelines and make it happen.
Features
- Your world, your game, your vision
- Step-by-step examples
- Exploration, Combat, Quests
- You own everything you make, to do with as you feel fit
- No restrictions, if you can think of it, you can make it
- Open-source multiplatform graphics engine let's you concentrate on the game
What's in the Book?
Go from displaying a single image, to an entire fantasy world. We'll cover the three pillars of RPGs; exploration, combat and questing.
The boring stuff is taken care of so you can concentrate on making an RPG, not writing boilerplate code for communicating with your graphics card or kerning fonts correctly. A fast game engine is provided, including the source. If you want dig into the hardcore C++ code and tweak it - you can! Everything you make, you own; to sell or giveaway as you wish - it's yours - go wild!
You'll learn the fundamentals - After reading the book, you'll be able apply the lessons to any platform or language. The book uses Lua code; the game industry standard scripting language. In fact, we'll be using a special version called LuaJIT which is tuned for speed. Lua is elegant, extremely fast and quick to learn. Games from Fable to World of Warcraft use it, with good reason.
What's Your Story?
Everybody has a story they need to to tell.This book will help you to tell yours.
You've played SNES-era RPGs like Final Fantasy 6, Chrono Trigger, Secret Of Mana, Phantasy Star and I'm sure you've thought "This would be better if...". With this book you'll be able to act on that thought and create your own worlds, characters and epic plots.
If you ever wanted to make an RPG you should. Do you want to passively play RPGs, or do you want to create one? Make your own original piece of work, your own take on the RPG - it would be a shame if you never gave it a go!
Buy Now! Take the first step in making your game.
Table of Contents
Here is the table of contents. Only major headings are shown.
- Introduction
- Origins
- Development Philosophy
- RPG Architecture
- Tools
- Part I - Exploration
- World Building
- Tilemap
- From Maps to World
- A Living World
- User Interface
- Menu
- Small RPG: Dungeon
- Part II - Combat
- Stats
- Levels
- The Party
- Equipment
- Combat Flow
- Combat State
- Combat Actions
- Winners, Losers and Loot
- Advanced Combat
- Small RPG: The Arena
- Part III - Quests
- Planning
- The Town
- The World Map
- The Cave Map
- Game State
- Small RPG game: Cave Quest
- Closing
In addition to the text you'll also recieve:
- Over 200 example projects demonstrating how an RPG game is made step-by-step.
- Hundreds of assets including sprites, tiles, maps, fonts and sounds files
- Full Lua source code for 3 complete mini-games.
- Full source code for the underlying C++ engine. (You never have to look at this but if you ever get curious it's yours!)
What You'll Learn In Each Section
The book is divided into three main sections; Exploration, Combat and Quests. These instruct you how to build RPG systems from the ground up. Once you understand the content you can use this knowledge for _any_ engine in the future.
Introduction
Learn where RPGs came from and how H.P. Lovecraft was involved!
Discover the correct mindset and philosophy to develop games to completion. Are you endlessly starting but never finishing projects? This section will help.
A brief introduction to the engine we'll use. It's clear, clean and allows rapid development.
Part I - Exploration
In this first section you'll learn how to create your own world! And how to write the code to let your players discover it's secrets.
The player is trapped in a dungeon. Part of the mini-RPG you'll create at the end of this section.
- Learn how to create maps from tiles
- Learn how to setup a 2d camera
- Learn how to make cutscenes you can reuse and tweak easily
- Learn how to animate and add NPCs to your game
- Learn how to add trigger zones to a map
- Learn how to make user interface element like a dialog box
- Learn how to control characters and NPCs using state machines
- Learn how to make a simple RPG inventory and menu system
- Learn how to play simple sound effects
- ... plus much more!
This chapter ends with a small demo. We'll create a mini-RPG with cutscenes, dialog, puzzles and a bit of intrigue!
Part II - Combat
In this section you'll learn how to add combat to your world. What creatures will you add? What are your world's magic and weapons?
The player stands outside the combat arena, preparing for battle. Part of the mini-RPG you'll create at the end of this section.
- Learn how to use to stats to represent the game world.
- Learn how to create a level curve that suits your game.
- Learn how to represent weapons, armor and items in a way that's easy to extend
- Learn how to create a party of characters the player can recruit
- Learn how to create monsters in a way that's easy to extend
- Learn the correct architecture to make dynamic combat simple, understandable and easy to extend
- Learn about magic, special abilities, attacks and using items
- ... plus much more!
This chapter ends with a small demo. The player is outside a grand arena. He can recruit characters, find items and battle his way through each round of the arena until he reaches the dangerous boss monster!
Part III - Quests
In this section you'll write your own quest, with puzzles, monsters, story and action!
The player attempts to solve a puzzle in a dark dungeon.
- Learn how to design a full game
- Learn what it means to make a full game
- Learn how track the state of quests
- Learn how to save and load game data
- Learn how to make a world map with random encounters
- Learn how to adds shops, towns folk and simple conversation
- ... plus much more!
This chapter deals with creating a small, fully-featured game. By the end you'll have a full game with a quest, a dungeon, overworld map, twists and end boss.