I started looking into RPG Maker MV to update some of my VX Ace scripting panels and posts, and… it’s different. If you’ve read some of those posts, here’s a few things that might help with the transition.

I mentioned in my intro to RPG Maker scripting post (and in the panel that’s based on it) that you can use source control systems like Mercurial or Git with RPG Maker VX Ace, allowing you to take periodic snapshots of your work.

(First, you’ll want to read a tutorial about how your chosen source control system works, such as hginit.com for Mercurial. This post will make a lot more sense once you do.)

What I neglected to mention is there’s two big, easy-to-forget gotchas with this setup.

My last post was basically an info dump on what I’d learned about RPG Maker Ruby scripting during Ludum Dare 37. From the comments I got on it, I realized “info dump” is not an exaggeration–it’s literally a bunch of abstract, raw information without any examples, and so it’s confusing if you haven’t messed with it before.

So, let’s walk through how we’d think through a very simple change.

Ludum Dare 37 was the first time I’d really, truly built a finished product in RPG Maker rather than tinkering, and I learned a lot. Given that RPG Maker scripting doesn’t seem to be a well-known topic among more casual users, it seems like a good idea to try to summarize a lot of what I picked up.