mini-game – RPG Maker Historia

Created by: Taylor`y`Josh
Released: July 2003
Engine: RM2003

Back in the early to mid 2000s the site Gaming World became my go-to place for everything RPG Maker. It would just keep appearing on google whenever I was looking for resources or games. At some point the site stopped, everything was frozen. Coaster Craft Gold was permanently on the front page for all to see. But my teenage self didn’t care, the site was still functional and I could still browse the many pages looking through content even if nothing new was going to be posted. Since a lot of RM games were funneled/re-posted through GW, it was a time for me to catch up on the RM games I had missed. One of these games I randomly remembered from this time was Huey the Kid.

It’s one of those RM games where it’s hard to tell if it’s a comedy or serious game. You play as an RTP kid sprite edit and the story dispenses the ‘save the world’ hooplah in favor of a small incidental adventure. A kid dares you to test the raft, but after a frantic mini-game you realize you’re off course and away from home. This leads to adventures involving slaying monsters and being ignored by adults. There’s a rugrats-like wonder to the perspective that doesn’t quite get committed to, a lot of NPCs have weird funky things to say occasionally. Yet there’s an odd goal of finding out “where you came from” involving angels. Your cat is also named “Teddy Boy.”

It’s the first rm2k3 instance I can remember that used Battle Animations instead of Battle Charasets. Battle Charasets were sets of 3 frame animations meant to make swapping weapon graphics easier, but there was lesser known option to use Battle Animations instead (which were used for things like spells but had way more control and frames of animation). Huey also uses a hammer, which wasn’t the weapon of choice by most RM heroes. There was also a great deal of editing in the animations such as head tilts and manually holding puzzle items. It also has a very strong grasp on cliff based mapping, where elevation is carefully considered. These kind of details perplex the “People who use RTP are lazy” stigma this game would normally be placed in.

Huey the Kid didn’t get the best of reviews. It’s somewhat average by a lot of standards. The puzzles are longer than they should be, the battles don’t really demand much, and there were better RM games starring kids. So why did I remember this game? Why did I pick this game to review? I dunno. There doesn’t have to be a crazy meaning to everything, media doesn’t always have to go through holding up against the test of time. What matters to me the most about this game was the simple context of when and where I was playing it. I’d like to think that when GW’s main site froze, the flow of time really did stop.

Estimated length: 1 Hour

Download Here (Archive)
GW Game Page (Archive)

Youtube Sample Playthrough

Created by: JKB Productions
Released: June 2001
Engine: RM2000

Okay so we’ve all been enamored with the battle royale Tetris that came out of nowhere on the Switch recently. But hold up, alright, stay with me here, what about, Tetris, but made in RPG Maker? You might be asking: “Why would someone make that…” and I would counter with “Why the hell would someone not?” If you ventured into any game engine or a site with games on it, there would invariably be some kind of Pong or Tetris clone posted somewhere. It’s a neat way to get accustomed to programming or working with whatever new tool you come across. Obviously RPG Maker 2000 has its strengths and weaknesses, with quite a few limitations going for it. It’s not that strange to put a newly found engine to the test.

Thing is though, I didn’t expect the presentation to be so extreme. The title screen opens up to a sped up sparkman stage.midi with a mish-mash of backgrounds from different sources, one in particular being a CGI South Park background. When you hit New Game, the Konami logo jingle plays while displaying the JKB Porductions logo instead. This made me burst into laughter. The sincerity of an RM author rolling out the red carpet for their little mini game project really gets to me. Each background you choose in the game offers its own music, my favorite in particular is the cgi purple mountain-scape background that plays a Black Sabbath midi.

So how does the actual Tetris hold up? Unsurprisingly the game uses individual events to display the tetris blocks and moves them downwards. Event movement is VERY finicky to put it mildly. Since it’s tile based, events are technically on the tile they’re moving to. This can create problems in terms of detecting when a piece needs to stop and feels very delayed and bleh to snap together. Not only that, but you have to wait for the entire piece to reveal itself before you can move it. Suffice to say you won’t be T-spinning your way into high-score chain land. All in all though, it is still playable and very much Tetris. There’s a glitch that sometimes happens where the individual event blocks slide off, which gets me thinking on how this was evented and put together.

The real question though, is it THE Tetris? Very likely not. The aesthetics are somewhat charming though, and it feels in the vein of CD-i Tetris and how it’s more interesting to look into the background/music choices than the actual programming. This is the only Tetris that I know of that has the South Park “Uncle Fucka” song.

Estimated length: ???

Download Here
Author’s Website (Archive) (Portuguese)

Youtube Playthrough