Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 9
All About Common Events
This chapter is going to cover common events. You have probably seen the relevant tab within the RPG Maker VX Ace
(RMVXA) Database already and are probably wondering what it's about. Well, here's the summary:
•
A common event can be called using the
Call Common Event
command from any other event.
•
It is useful for eventing things that you will repeat many times over during the course of your
game. You can probably already think of two or three occasions on which this is true in the
game we've been making throughout this topic.
•
A common event can have an Autorun or Parallel Process trigger, contingent on a certain
conditional switch being on, as defined in the Common Events tab.
•
Common events have a limit of one page—no more, no less.
•
Common events are the only way to trigger events on item and skill use.
The final point is most important to what we want to do in the next chapter. Of course, this is as good a time as
any to show off the Common Events tab itself. (See Figure
9-1
.)
Figure 9-1.
The Common Events tab of the RMVXA Database
Not much to it, literally. That should not come as a surprise, given that common events are just another type
of event. A common event can have a trigger of None (in which case, it will always trigger when called), Autorun, or
Parallel Process. In the latter two cases, the conditional switch has to be on for the common event to trigger. We could
have a two-line common event that contains the two Control Variable commands we use for our Parallel Process
transfer events. There's a particularly neat item concept I learned how to event some time ago that I'm going to share
in this chapter. Do you want to
Escape
from a dungeon automatically?
