The V.X. Club – August 28th, 2010
August 28th, 2010 by Ookie PandaThe V.X. Club
-August 28th, 2010-
Ookie Panda

News & Announcements
Summer Love Contest
Summer is here, all. It’s been here for a while, actually. Everyone is out in the sun and sweating their butts off! And what better time than rolling in the smoldering heat smelling like fresh perspiration to meet the love of your life? Rejoice! For the love of romance and melting ice cream, it’s time for another contest!
Hosted by my buddy zbdarkflame, the contest was announced August 16th, after a teaser thread two days before. The contest focuses on the theme of “summer love”, which zbdarkflame explains is “a short but intense relationship full of passion and excitement that happens, you guessed it, in the summer.” You can take this theme wherever your heart desires- within reason! The rules are simple and as non-restricting as possible. Just keep it rated PG-13 or below, and stay within the 30 minute time limit, and you’ll be set to win!
The prizes are pretty sweet too. Like the Olympics contest, there’s two awards to win: judge’s choice and member’s choice. The judge’s awards include sponserships, pinned topics, and even an interview from the V.X. Club! So what do you have to lose? There’s only 3 days left, so check out the thread for more details!
Signatures
Click here.
That is all.
Resource Focus
R a j a w a l i
Alright, so once before I focused on a group of people (The GFX Cream). Now it’s just one person. It’s not an interview, it’s just a focus.. on how awesome he is! As we the staff of RPG Maker VX Community were updating the long out-dated Resource Showcase Directory, I couldn’t help but notice this particular name pop up often. Not just once or twice.. but everywhere! Rajawali is on the ball, and becoming a fairly popular resource distributor and adviser. He really should just make a compilation of all his stuff, but for now it’s scattered amongst the boards.

Rajawali’s resources focus mostly on portraits, though he can also sprite. He has a collection of gender-swapped RTP characters, which are males turned into females, or females turned male. You can have Ralphina now: Ralph’s angry-looking sister! Rajawali then continued to distribute two girl actors with their hats removed, including the witch (Actor4-8), and more recently, he converted some RTP actors into children with matching sprites! Who’s a cute little Ylva-kins~? (Yeah I’m getting creepy now..)

Rajawali is also fairly active in the request section! Maybe if you’re lucky he’ll help you out! Again, he is usually most focused on faces, but he’s done some great sprite work, and basic resource-hunting as well. So, for someone I’ve never seen ask for one thing in return, I’d like to thank him with the good words of Jalen: “@ Rajawali: GET OVER HERE. XD GET OVER HERE AND LET ME HUG YOU”.
OwO;;;
Yeah, thank you Rajawali! We all hope to see more of you around!
CHOOSE YOUR FATE… QUICKLY!!!
Okay, this script is really cool. I’m surprised it didn’t come about earlier. On August 20th, XIV released a small script that can really make a big scene! TIMED choices! Like any other choice in the game, you get options and things happen based on what your choice is. But unlike normal choices where you can get up and get soda while you ponder, the developer now has the option to time you!
Yeah, it’s basically what it sounds like. When the normal choice window appears, so does the timer. The timer counts down, and if you don’t decide, then the game will! If it doesn’t sound significant, just try out the demo and see for yourself how much pressure it puts on you! The demo’s villain is in a room with lava that will fill up, killing either your new found love or your childhood friend! You can only save one of them. Or even neither of them and defeat the villain. But you only get five seconds to choose! And boy, does that five seconds really put you to the test!
Love, friendship, or justice? You decide! Check out the script here!
Game Review
Castle Chase
Released rather recently, Castle Chase is a “short adventure game” created by Racheal. It hasn’t gotten much attention, but it’s really a sweet game, with up to 10 times of replay value! Right away this game caught my interest because of the custom artwork. I wonder how long Rachael has been keeping that stowed away! Let’s see what else Castle Chase has to offer, shall we?
STORY
8/10
The story is overall simple, but grows depending on which path you take. You play as Princess Monica, a reckless girl who is avoiding her studies to go out on a date. Why? I don’t know, I suppose she just woke up one day wanting to make out with the various boys of the castle that she never seemed to pay attention to before. On an important day, nonetheless. How old is she? Sixteen? You’d think there’d be a bit more connections with men her age. Despite this, I quite love the characterization. The more you interact, the more you see how sassy our princess is, commenting on various placements of things and such, and seeing what she thinks. The men are all quite charming too, with intriuging personalities that keep them all apart. Fun characters, evolving story, but still I can’t help but be bothered by the slightly unrealistic details, hence, an 8 out of 10.
GAMEPLAY
6/10
This game consists of performing duties given to you by your bachelors. Most, if not all of it is fetching items. At first I was terribly bored and had to force myself to continue. But as I got the hang of it, it was relatively rewarding to finally have those men under my powe– I mean have those men go on a date with me! There are tons of things to interact with, and I had a field day. I love clicking on otherwise insignificant-looking things.. sometimes to find that they were not insignificant at all! But, with lack of any type of minigame or puzzle, it is rather repetitive. It’s just a matter of who to talk to, and where the heck is it you’re looking for, which is never hard to find considering the easy-to-adjust-to layout of the castle. There were only a few errors I found, and they weren’t game-breaking. A 6 out of 10 for the somewhat lacking gameplay.
VISUAL ASPECTS
7/10
As you can see, this game has a lot of custom artwork. Each and every character, even the unimportant ones, get a face. The art style is very cute and comedic, which definitely fitting for this game. In fact, this game has enough custom-fitted graphics in each area that you don’t even need RTP to play it. Nearly all of the sprites are from the Famitsu generator, with a bit of editing. Not too impressive, but you can’t fight convenience, eh? The other stand-out thing, since most of the game revolves around items, are the icons. They all look like what they’re supposed to be, and they stand out well on the maps. Mapping was done well, though repetitive (it is a castle after all..), each area has distinct features that help you remember them. A 7 our of 10 for the custom work, but only in two areas.
SOUNDTRACK
8/10
There isn’t much variety in the music. Besides heightened moments, and the area in the basement, the music is the same loop which eventually you get used to. Then again, it is the same environment, so no need to have a vast collection of pieces. The ambient tune is pleasant and light-hearted just like the game itself. And the softer music during those romance scenes make it that much more emotionally powerful. And 8 out of 10 for the fitting music, despite not having a wide selection.
ORIGINALITY
9/10
The characters are all very unique. The story is interesting. Though the medieval era isn’t anything new to the RPG Maker genre, it’s not like there are many other options. Each character’s background is creative and unexpected. Just one point less for the chosen time period gives Castle Chase a 9 out of 10 for originality.
OVERALL
7.6/10
Castle Chase is a fun and short game. It can be replayed for more challenging quests and fun adventures. The custom artwork is great, and the gameplay, though repetitive, is simple enough to want to try again and again for those alternate endings. The soundtrack is just as simple as the game itself, giving it a nice, happy, atmosphere. I recommend this game for anyone looking for some time to kill once you’ve beaten the internet. Good job, Rachael!
iEntry 10th Anniversary











Now I know why Techie hasn’t been active…damn.








KRokon may not be a well known member within the community, but if he continues to do what he’s doing, then I’m sure most all of us will know him by the end. On May 2nd of this year, KRokon posted his Retro RTP Tileset topic, and since then he has continued to post tiles and sprites redone in the style of the old school days. It’s not only tiles that he’s redoing (and he’s completed a fairly large percent of the tiles already) but he’s also slowly reworking sprites, having done actor1, people1, and monsters. He may even do other parts of the RTP in a retro style, such as the windowskins. He’s even got the support of our very own Ookie, who has also helped with the project, working on the TileB set.











