I'm in the process of making a "book" of event tutorials revolving around puzzles. If people think is is a good idea let me know what kinds of event puzzles you want tutorials for.
I know some of these will probably already be done - I'm doing them again.
Box-push "passage" puzzles. - In Progress
ie, push the boxes in the right order or they get stuck and you cant get past them.
Box-push "switch" puzzles.
ie, push the box into the right place to activate a switch or event.
Ice-slide puzzles.
ie, Slide till you hit a wall - no turning, try and find the exit.
Conditional Puzzles.
ie. of all the statues are facing left, the door will open. Or - if the pillars are destroyed the roof will cave in. These kinds of puzzles are quite similar in some senses. I’d attempt to cover the basic understandings of them rather than one specific one.
Advance Puzzles
ie. containing multiple maps and complexities.
I'll be working from the Idea that you know the basics of RMXP, if you dont know the basics I suggest you look for a tutorial providing an overview for beginners. If you dont know the basics; you could still probably follow some of these tutorials however I will not be explaining why most things work; and as the tutorials become more complicated I will expect you to know where most things are.
If you can think of ways for me to help you understand what I'm writing, feel free to point them out. I find the biggest flaws in tutorials are related to finding things, so I've attempted to point everything out as clearly as I can.
I know some of these will probably already be done - I'm doing them again.
Box-push "passage" puzzles. - In Progress
ie, push the boxes in the right order or they get stuck and you cant get past them.
Box-push "switch" puzzles.
ie, push the box into the right place to activate a switch or event.
Ice-slide puzzles.
ie, Slide till you hit a wall - no turning, try and find the exit.
Conditional Puzzles.
ie. of all the statues are facing left, the door will open. Or - if the pillars are destroyed the roof will cave in. These kinds of puzzles are quite similar in some senses. I’d attempt to cover the basic understandings of them rather than one specific one.
Advance Puzzles
ie. containing multiple maps and complexities.
I'll be working from the Idea that you know the basics of RMXP, if you dont know the basics I suggest you look for a tutorial providing an overview for beginners. If you dont know the basics; you could still probably follow some of these tutorials however I will not be explaining why most things work; and as the tutorials become more complicated I will expect you to know where most things are.
Basic Box Puzzle
Most of you should know how this one works. You create a bunch of pushable boxes which you need to move to the right place so that you can pass through the puzzle and progress. This kind of puzzle is one of the easiest puzzles to event in RMXP. Making a good box puzzle takes more thought process than RMXP skills. Making sure its not too complicated for your adverage user but not to simple for your experienced user gets rather difficult.
Below is an example of a puzzle I made.
I've also included an image of the same puzzle solved and steps through the progress. Planning how this will happen is essentially the hardest part of this kind of puzzle.
Okay, so lets get started.
First, go into the event editor. You should know how to do this already, if you do not then please look at an overview for the RMXP interface before attempting these tutorials.
Lets have a look at the "Boulder" Event. What we want to to is have it so that when the player interacts with the event, the boulder moves away from the player. This is very easy to do. I'll be breaking it down into steps.
The Boulder event is the basis of this entire puzzle, once you have this event done it's all design work.
Step 1 - Yellow arrow. Name your event.
This is important, Name your event "Boulder" or something relative to what you're going to be pushing around. The original name will be something along the lines of "EV####" - numbers vary depending on how many events you have on the map. If you feel you need to keep track of each individual "Box" you can assign it a number as well. The more specific you are here the easier it will be for you to make modifications to your puzzle at a later date.
Step 2 - Red arrow. Give your event a graphic.
Doubled click on the window titled "Graphic:". Select your image and push OK. If your image dost have a Charset dedicated to the event (meaning there are multiple objects in the one charset) then you will need to modify the OPTIONS under the "GRAPHIC:" box on the initial event editor. By default the option "Move Animation" will be ticked, we want to UNTICK "Move Animation" and TICK "Direction Fix".
Step 3 - Green arrow. Give your event an Event Command.
This is where we tell our Event what to do. We are only going to be using a single very basic command. To do this double click on the "@>" sign in the event editor (Green Arrow).
The event command we're looking for is in TAB 2, Column 1 and is called "Set Move Route...". Click on this command.
Step 1 - Green arrow. Select the event you want to move.
Click on the drop down arrow, it will list all the events that are on the same map. You want to select the option called "THIS EVENT" - Meaning the event that you currently have selected in the Event editor.
Step 2 - Red arrow. Set the move route.
We want the object to move one space away from the player. So select the option "Move Away From Player" from the first Column, it should add to the list - push Ok.
That's the core of this entire puzzle.
Good work, you now have a pushable object. The next step is to create a puzzle with them, its something that's not easy to teach. You do not have to set up a new event for every block, you can COPY AND PASTE the event to create large quantities of the same pushable object quickly.
Creating a good "box pushing puzzle" might take a while at first. I've only showed you the easy part, the hard part is in the design. I will add on to this tutorial sometime soon with a few design tips and how I make a "Reset" event for this puzzle. I will also upload a tutorial containing an example of my puzzle.
Feel free to attempt to replicate the puzzle shown in the picture at the top of this tutorial.
Most of you should know how this one works. You create a bunch of pushable boxes which you need to move to the right place so that you can pass through the puzzle and progress. This kind of puzzle is one of the easiest puzzles to event in RMXP. Making a good box puzzle takes more thought process than RMXP skills. Making sure its not too complicated for your adverage user but not to simple for your experienced user gets rather difficult.
Below is an example of a puzzle I made.
I've also included an image of the same puzzle solved and steps through the progress. Planning how this will happen is essentially the hardest part of this kind of puzzle.
Okay, so lets get started.
First, go into the event editor. You should know how to do this already, if you do not then please look at an overview for the RMXP interface before attempting these tutorials.
Lets have a look at the "Boulder" Event. What we want to to is have it so that when the player interacts with the event, the boulder moves away from the player. This is very easy to do. I'll be breaking it down into steps.
The Boulder event is the basis of this entire puzzle, once you have this event done it's all design work.
Step 1 - Yellow arrow. Name your event.
This is important, Name your event "Boulder" or something relative to what you're going to be pushing around. The original name will be something along the lines of "EV####" - numbers vary depending on how many events you have on the map. If you feel you need to keep track of each individual "Box" you can assign it a number as well. The more specific you are here the easier it will be for you to make modifications to your puzzle at a later date.
Step 2 - Red arrow. Give your event a graphic.
Doubled click on the window titled "Graphic:". Select your image and push OK. If your image dost have a Charset dedicated to the event (meaning there are multiple objects in the one charset) then you will need to modify the OPTIONS under the "GRAPHIC:" box on the initial event editor. By default the option "Move Animation" will be ticked, we want to UNTICK "Move Animation" and TICK "Direction Fix".
Step 3 - Green arrow. Give your event an Event Command.
This is where we tell our Event what to do. We are only going to be using a single very basic command. To do this double click on the "@>" sign in the event editor (Green Arrow).
The event command we're looking for is in TAB 2, Column 1 and is called "Set Move Route...". Click on this command.
Step 1 - Green arrow. Select the event you want to move.
Click on the drop down arrow, it will list all the events that are on the same map. You want to select the option called "THIS EVENT" - Meaning the event that you currently have selected in the Event editor.
Step 2 - Red arrow. Set the move route.
We want the object to move one space away from the player. So select the option "Move Away From Player" from the first Column, it should add to the list - push Ok.
That's the core of this entire puzzle.
Good work, you now have a pushable object. The next step is to create a puzzle with them, its something that's not easy to teach. You do not have to set up a new event for every block, you can COPY AND PASTE the event to create large quantities of the same pushable object quickly.
Creating a good "box pushing puzzle" might take a while at first. I've only showed you the easy part, the hard part is in the design. I will add on to this tutorial sometime soon with a few design tips and how I make a "Reset" event for this puzzle. I will also upload a tutorial containing an example of my puzzle.
Feel free to attempt to replicate the puzzle shown in the picture at the top of this tutorial.
If you can think of ways for me to help you understand what I'm writing, feel free to point them out. I find the biggest flaws in tutorials are related to finding things, so I've attempted to point everything out as clearly as I can.