RPG Maker XP Resources

1. Choose where in your map you want your enemy to go.

2. Open up an event file.

3. Open up Event Commands, then click Battle Processing.

4. Select the troop this enemy is connected to.

This tutorial only covers singular enemies, but I'll start on another one which covers true troops / troops including multiple enemies. Circled here is a drop down box for all the troops (read: groups of enemies, can be actual groups or singular enemies) you've created. Select the one you want this enemy to be.

Can Escape allows the player to attempt escape, Continue Even When Loser continues the game even if you die / prevents the "game over" screen.

Click OK.

5. Ta-da!

You've caused this event to create a battle. Great. Too bad there's a lot more to programming an enemy event than that. The next thing we'll do is give this enemy something to walk around as on the map.

Double click on the Graphic Box and choose from the drop down menu the sprite you want your enemy to have.

6. We're getting there!

Next, we're going to change how the enemy moves around the map and attacks the player. Or maybe you attack it. You're about to decide.

7. Decide how it moves and who attacks.

Autonomous Movement decides how the enemy moves, how fast, and how frequently.

How - There are four options from this menu, and all of them can be useful for enemies. There is Random movement, where the enemy just moves about; Fixed, where the enemy doesn't move - perfect for blocking passageways; Approach, where the enemy follows the player; and the option to design the enemy's exact movements yourself. My example picked Random.

Speed -  This determines how fast the enemy moves. Slowest, Slower, Slow, Fast, Faster, And Fastest. The player moves at a Slow speed, so I recommend making the enemies move at Slow or Fast.

Frequency - This determines how often the enemy moves. Lowest, Lower, Low, High, Higher, and Highest. The player moves whenever they choose to, but I suggest using either Higher or Highest. Lowest through Low settings can look awkward, and also don't make your enemy work very often!

Trigger decides how the event (the battle) opens up. I'll discuss the first three.

Action Button - Event opens when player chooses it to, by going up to it and selecting the action button (ie, spacebar.) This is good for plot relevant / boss battles.

Player Touch / Event Touch - These two are similar. Both trigger the event by having the player and the event contact. However, in Player Touch the player must initiate this contact, and in Event Touch the event must initiate the contact. It’s up to you, though Event Touch is, in theory, more effective, especially if the enemy is chasing after the player. Just for example of clicking buttons, I chose Player Touch for this. I recommend trying both out and play-testing to decide which you prefer!

8. Make it so once you kill it, the enemy stays dead.

Open the Event Commands window.

9. Create a new switch for the enemy.

 I suggest something like “Enemy Name # Dead” or something like that. Just keep it consistent in your naming! I also suggest making all of your enemy switches around the same time, so they all line up. This makes things much more convenient if you want to make enemies respawn.

10. Turn that switch on!

And create a new event page.

11. Mark the event page with the condition of the enemy being battled and defeated (your just created switch).

Now you have an event set up where after being killed, the enemy disappears!

12. Yeah, okay, great, how do I make respawns when I enter the area again?

I’m so glad you asked!

First, this will go in the event that leads you to the map where the enemies are located. Since I don’t actually have one of those in this project (yet), I’m just using a random empty event. But you want this to happen before you begin the map. Alternatively, if you want to do this as you leave the map, that should work as well.

This is where creating the dead enemy switches in a row will come in handy. Open up the view of all your switches and make note of what numbers the enemies in the area have.

14. Create a Batch of switch changes.

This just means you’re changing multiple switches directly after one another to the same status, on or off. Turn all of the switches for your dead enemies Off. This reverts them back to their original event page, or the one where the battle is possible!

CLOSING NOTES:

Here I am, with an empty map. Everything done in this tutorial will be on the FIRST LAYER.

Outlined in red is one of the wall autotiles, which I've completely filled the map with. I chose the second one specifically. 

The next step is flooring. I like to use the rectangle or circle tool to fill in the floor - keep in mind that, if you do it the way i did, leaving hardly any space, you'll have to cover up some of the floor to create the wall.

Alternatively, you could leave yourself with more space at the top. Either way, the end result will be the same.

Back to this version, because I like it more and find it a little simpler. We're going to start simple: the back wall of a room. There are a LOT of different ways you can mess with the back of a wall.

There's Way 1, which includes Way 1A and Way 1B. Way 1A is to completely fill the back wall with the single center piece of your wall options. Way 2B is to use the dark single piece. I've outlined both A and B, and marked them for your convenience. Way 1A is my personal favorite, and the method I typically use.

Next is Way 2, which is visible here. Using Way 2, you use the sided piece of the wall tileset on either farthest side, and the center piece for all parts between it. It's nice and simple, but adds a little more something to a wall. When I use Way 2, it's typically in larger rooms.

Finally is Way 3, in which the possibilities are endless and which I don't particularly care for. However, it can certainly work for some rooms, and can end up looking very nice. The basis is to take either Way 1A or Way 2 and then put in either of the side pieces of the tileset (both outlined in red) at whatever interval/placing you see fit.

Here is "Aluxes", aka 001-Fighter01. The graphic is 128 pixels wide, and 192 pixels tall. This is the default sprite size for RPG Maker.

And here is the same sprite, but broken down for your enjoyment. RPG Maker divides the width and height of each sprite sheet by four.

The resulting pieces are each part of the sprite that you'll find yourself able to select in the game maker. If you ever find yourself with a sprite that has a foot moving at the top, or cuts off the head, your best bet is to make a four by four grid and work on placing the sprite inside.

When you finish, simply change the background color all to the same one, and then import it with that as your transparency color.

But so we've got a grid. Great! What do we do with it?

Here I've divided the grid into four different colors.

The red grid is the front-facing sprite. This is the walk cycle that will happen when you move DOWN in any way, whether it's thanks to the arrow key, telling a character to walk or turn down, or talk to an event from above it.

The yellow is the same, only it's for any time you tell a character to move LEFT in any way. Green is the same for RIGHT, and blue for UP.

Now let's break down what each of these pieces are.

Red and green, for most sprites that are going to move, have the same graphic. This is the default "stopped" mode. Red, does, however, have one extra use. When you select a character graphic, the red piece the part that will be chosen to show on the menu.

It is also the part of the character that will show on the save screen.

Green, on the other hand, will act as a "pause" in whatever movement the character is doing - walking or bobbing, etc. Alternatively, green can be a continuation of the action - a chest or door won't revert back to closed in the middle, for example, but it may be halfway open - rather than a repeat of red.

But back to our rainbow front-view of the sprite.

We then have yellow and blue, which play similar roles to each other. These are the moving graphics: typically, they make the same movement in opposite directions. One will take a step forward with the left foot, the other will take a step forward with the right foot. Maybe the graphic is something that bobs up and down: in that case, it will bob up on the yellow part of the graphic, and bob down on the blue part. This isn't always the case, though. Things like doors and chests will typically continue their original movement, rather than do something opposite to it.

The stationary/movement parts of these pieces stay consistent throughout the sprite, only from different angles.

And, that's a quick summary of how RPG Maker XP sprites work! Take into account that you can manipulate the way they do so to suit your purposes.

For example, I needed to give off the impression that a character was climbing down a ladder. However, the down arrow key automatically made my character face forwards. So I created a second version of the sprite where the backwards-facing character took up the first row, giving off the impression of the character climbing down.

You can also change the sizes of the spritesheet, just make sure the sprite is placed as a four by four grid!

Finally, if you're making an object that can't move in the game, there's no reason to fill in the entire spritesheet with the same thing! Combine your spritesheets - think of the bulletin sprites. If you break them up properly on the grid, you can even make one item take up multiple pieces of the sprite grid, and create it in-game by placing the events side by side.