Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
In RMVXA, player characters (those that the player can mix and match in his/her party) are called Actors.
As you can see at the upper left of the preceding screenshot, the program comes with ten premade actors. If you're
using the full version, you can change the maximum number of characters and add some more of your own. With
either version, you can edit or erase the ones present, for the same effect.
There are various things to cover here, so let's work our way through this part of the Database.
•
General Settings
cover an actor's basic information and are largely self-explanatory. Of note is
Class
, which will be discussed when we reach the appropriate tab of the Database.
•
You can tweak an actor's initial level, which will determine at what level he/she joins the
party when placed in the game. You can also change an actor's max level as well, limiting
his/her growth, if you should have a reason to do so. One common use of limiting a character's
maximum level is when you have a temporary party member. You can set his/her initial level
equal to its maximum, and he/she will stay at the same level for the duration.
•
There is a pair of graphics. The one to the left is the character's sprite set, which covers
his/her appearance as well as his/her movement patterns, while the one to the right is
his/her character portrait.
•
Starting Equipment
determines what items a given actor starts with. A character should
generally start with some manner of equipment, although there are times when it would not
be appropriate (such as when a protagonist starts the game as a prisoner; he or she might have
the clothes on his/her back and nothing else).
•
Features
are kind of a big thing in RMVXA. You'll quickly see that the ten actors have a blank
Features list, and that's because the default characters have all of their features contained
within their classes and not themselves. The way RMVXA manages this by default is fine,
although there are niche cases in which it would be best to have some differentiating features
at the Actor level. If you have two characters of the same class, and they are not identical twins,
you could differentiate some of their stats through the use of Features at the Actor level. For
example, you could give one of the characters the [HP] * 80% and the other [MP] * 110%.
•
Finally,
Note
is just a notepad of sorts. If you have to make notes about a certain character, you
can write them here. Most parts of RMVXA have a Note section. It's awfully convenient, if I
may say so myself.
That covers the Actors tab. Feel free to take a look at the other nine default characters and see how they differ
from Eric. Afterward, let's move on to the Classes tab (see Figure
3-2
).
