Final Reflection and Video Game

 A hero for Galendria by jloft

I intended to create a "getting ready in the morning," type of game but realized that it would probably take me too much work to create new characters and scenes or maps. I then switched to embrace the fantasy visuals that come standard with RPG Maker.  I intended to make this game a subtle commentary on the seemingly growing movement to ban books and/or interfere with curricula within the classroom. I also intended to have the hero and his party build skills by exploring the new world they have entered collecting tools and weapons and reading hidden books. I thought the weapons might start with a stick or rope that helps them fend off attacking insects. I then wanted the weapons to increase in strength by moving to a whip or a metal pole, and leading to swords and bows and arrows.

Designing a videogame is quite difficult, but I did discover that the iterating, prototyping, and debugging can provide its own sense of flow. As complicated and exhaustive as RPG Maker is, it is also simultaneously an ordered, well-designed engine for role-playing game creation.

Due to technical difficulties on my end, I encountered issues with learning the PC/Windows environment, and where files are saved, as well as applications, and general troubleshooting. One example occurred when a warning that a video tutorial was unable to be played gave me the option to quit or continue to wait. I clicked on waiting three times, where the computer tried to reload the video but it never worked. I then went to check the wifi connection and that took a while to find and troubleshoot. It ended up that nothing was wrong with the wifi, and when I returned to Youtube the video had loaded.

Similarly, RPG Maker had a moment where it was stuck with a spinning blue circle. I tried clicking around to see if it stopped, but when it didn’t, I tried to close the open dialogue window and it eventually did close but in my clicking, and the computer’s delay in responding, I also caused RPG Maker to close. Then I struggled to get RPG Maker loaded again.  I went to Steam and told RPG maker to load. It did, but seemed stuck on startup. I went to the documents folder where my files were saved, and looked for the RPGmaker.exe file. The file was not there, but I did find the project file. I clicked on that to load, but only received the window “select what application to open this file,” and RPG or Steam wasn’t an option.

When I tried minimizing all windows I found a shortcut on the desktop for RPG maker and clicked on it. It loaded Steam and said starting but then got an error, “unable to start” because it was already running. Now steam showed that it was running, but no matter where I clicked or right clicked, I could not get it to show the RPG Maker window, so that I could work. This seemed to be a somewhat common issue after searching the internet. I finally was able to get the program back after updating some graphic software.

 

Things that I would like to work on more

I would like to increase the racial diversity of characters. I watched tutorials on creating your own characters, and after looking at the standard characters provided by RPG maker, it seems like they are all white. I also wanted to make the first level more about building a team of players, or party. I wanted to have the fairy teacher Paxmos be a member of the party, and I watched a tutorial for it, but I was worried that I might mess up the coding when I deleted a default party member and name with another. I also wasn’t sure I could find her character in all the needed iterations to be a party member moving through the game.

I would also like to add more music. I really enjoyed adding music to the areas where I had time to add it. I thought it was interesting that the default sound added under quick events for map transfer was a door knock or closing type sound. I liked that I could go in and change that to a more airy sound when I moved from outdoor map, to outdoor map, as opposed to going into a building or house.

Taking this course, working on and reading about gaming, has made me feel a little like a kid again. I’ve found myself wanting to play games more, and I think it has made me more open to playing with my five-year-old daughter. In the past, I’ve occasionally told my daughter that the “world is not a playground.” I felt somewhat bad saying that, but there were times when I needed to, because she had run into a parking lot, in front of a moving car, to say hi to a friend. But, I think I’ve tried to look for the times and places where we can safely make the world like a playground, especially through the games she likes to play. And, as teachers or instructional designers, I think we can increase learning by integrating gamification into our lessons.