Can Playmaker make Japanese Style Adventure Games?

[SapphireForestDragon]

Hello! 

I was thinking about getting Playmaker, and I was curious if it could make Japanese Style Adventure Games, the first-person 2D games where you click on buttons to talk and do other things. An example would be the Famicon Detective Club games.

I'm new to everything Unity and the majority of my previous game-making knowledge is RPGMaker. So I'm bouncing from asset to asset, seeing what's available and what looks like something I can use or learn about without learning coding.

[mrminico]

I used to use RPGMaker back in 2005 haha and I'll tell you one thing, Playmaker is VERY similar in the sense that you don't have to code at all and use logic modules in RPGMaker. BUT just like RPG maker, playmaker is also a tool and you decide what kind of game you make. The addon itself doesn't make the game for you.

I've been using playmaker for 5 years, even published a mobile game. I'd say you can pretty much make anything including games like Famicon Detective. Here's a video of doing mouse click on scene objects using Playmaker.

https://youtu.be/sTUJUoEwiE0

HOWEVER.......

Although you can literally make any kind of game using playmaker, it's learning the inner workings of Unity's game engine that matter most. Playmaker is only snippets of code you put together, the same way you write words to form a sentence. As much as people write bad or good code, you can also make bad or good FSMs (Finite State Machines).

I strongly would recommend you check playmaker out. It's great for anyone trying to make games even as a stepping stone. They also recently made a new 2021 tutorials playlist which you should check out if you wanna learn more!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx4TxvtqICE&list=PLFXYYxmSM-Gc5PCiulXzPFv2nkidhni1N

Nevertheless, I hope you find this useful. Good luck to you and your future endeavors. Happy Game Deving!

[SapphireForestDragon]

It's actually relieving finding someone who is also used to RPGMaker. Ha ha.

Yeah, I figured it wouldn't be plug-in-play to be exactly what I wanted, just as long as it was easy enough to figure out how to do without code.

I've made somewhat similar to what I'm wanting to make in an older RPGMaker before, but it was clunky since I was trying to get around RPGMaker's intended game style. So glad that this is made to be so versatile while still being without code.

Also, thanks for the links! They're very helpful!   

Thank you so very much!

[Broken Stylus]

What would be the limitations of the RPG middleware that would bring you to consider Playmaker?
Mastering Unity and Playmaker is not to easy, and as said by mrminico, Unity is certainly the biggest piece to digest here. Unity wasn't built for 2D games, although it has come a long way since the early days of awkward implementation of 2D support.

[SapphireForestDragon]

I haven't tried the work arounds with the current RPGMaker, but the company has made it harder to do what I was aiming to do with the newest versions. With the older RPGMakers, I noticed slow-down and at times it would blink out to a screen that was never meant to be seen. And those moments were enough to break the illusion of the story.

If I could wrap my head around coding, I probably could do what I'm wanting in RPGMaker, but then I could also be using RenPy (which is free and can do what I'm wanting). But my brain sees a large chunk of text and shuts off.  I do have something like dyslexia, and I wonder if that has something to do with it.

So, yep. That's why I went looking into other options. Unity was recommended, and when I saw that you could buy assets to help not use coding, I got excited. I have learned some intense programs before, so I am hopeful I could learn the basics of it too.

[Broken Stylus]

Right, fine. If I recall correctly, there are a few RPG oriented plugins of interest that would provide a solid backbone for your goals. Look here.

[SapphireForestDragon]

Thanks! I'll look into those.

It's amazing how many assets there are. I'm very happy to see how active the unity community is.