Wazoo Enterprises

http://tkool.jp/products/rpgvx/eng/index.html

In the past few years there’s been a bit of a “revival” of RPG games created by Indie game companies, and one of the more popular “engines” that has been used quite successfully, is the RPG Maker XP product.

Aveyond and Aveyond2 created by Amaranth Games are 2 such excellent examples of using RPG Maker XP.

Well the engine has been upgraded with the release of RPG Maker VX!

If you use this software, you can make a game screen of a resolution, 544×416 pixels, with 32bit colors, 60 frames a second. In the new version, it’s possible to move around with transport such as vehicles and vessels. Also “a dash” is equipped as a standard function. The battle scene has become an orthodox front view type. As for details, “UmePlus Gothic” has now been adopted to make the messages clear and easier to read.

This editor makes the map which becomes the stage of the game. You can make a map by combining the small parts called “tiles” together. The process is simple. You only choose tiles from the list which is on the left of the editor, and place them on the map. Anyone can make a map like drawing a picture with a graphic tool.

Create your main character, skills, magic, items, monsters, all those characters and articles with the data base. General contents are already prepared in the data base, so you don’t need to set up things from the very beginning. You can make your original game by just setting up necessary things.

Talks with characters, battles with boss characters, treasure boxes with items, all these things which happen in the game are called events. In the RPG MAKER, all these events pile up and make a story. Events can be placed where maps are made, or also during the battles.

In the new version, script editors are fully equipped, succeeded by the previous “RPG MAKER XP”. Detailed using parts are improved, and became more users friendly. Functions are also fully equipped, by adding “Automatic Dungeon Generator” which will automatically make maze maps. The new version can be called as a compile version of the RPG.

Looks exciting! I’m going to set some time aside to pull down a demo to check it out.

http://tkool.jp/products/rpgvx/eng/download.html

Still getting used to the boatload of new features and functionality available in WordPress 2.5,
but at least the site navigation / layout didn’t seem to be clobbered during the upgrade process..

Found this helpful link about 2.5.

While going through the 2.5 beta information a week or so ago, I tripped upon the Stats feature which provides you with a ton of usefull data about who is visiting your site, your top entries, etc.