MAX MCGEE'S PROFILE

Day 2 check. No signatures even after PMing slicer directly. That's fine.

On some level I'll breathe a sigh of relief that I'll be under no obligation to revive Backstage 2 this month. (And of course, on another level I'll be just a little disappointed.)

author=Archeia_Nessiah
I'm sorry college happened and other shit ;-;

Nah, it's all cool, Nessy.

And some of that "other shit" included you becoming the de facto leader of the official English language RM community, you creating a legitimate community around an engine stigmatized for years as a ghetto of rips and the legacy of cargo cult approach to game design (and while that's the scene I came up in and I wouldn't have it any other way, I think going legit eventually and forming partnerships with the Japanese companies that make the engines so much of our lives revolve around was a necessary step), and overseeing the production and distribution of an enormous quantity and quality of free resources through ReStaff. (I may have been running mostly silent and dark since '14, but I've been lurking enough to pay attention.)

Don't take it the wrong way, but I'm very proud of you, hun.

You should be proud too. You were in on the ground floor of transforming this hobby from the ground up and now we have RPG Maker games selling, actually selling, on Steam. Thanks in large part to your efforts we've finally evolved beyond our Rodney Dangerfield stage. Even my much-maligned ego can concede that's much more important than Backstage 2's CMS. Also the direction the RM scene's taken under your guidance, along with the passage of time, seems to have shaken off or mellowed out almost all the elitist hipster snobs from the bad old GW days that were hanging around here like dingleberries for so long, and that's nice too. :D

@pianotm: jeez, man, at some point while I was gone did you like, rob a Makerscore bank or something? HOLY FUCK. srsly dude.

@Darken: is that Game Maker? Those platforms remind me of the infuriating numbered moving directional blocks that are in a couple of levels in SMW. Or wait, the figure you're controlling is actually pooping out those numbered blocks? That's really cool. There aren't a lot of platformers where you can spawn your own platformers. I think you might be onto something.

author=LockeZ
If it seems like the forums are tumbleweeds, Max, it's only because they got 99% replaced with Discord chat. You should log in once in a while.

Thanks LockeZ, maybe I'll do that. No promises tho. : )

That looks very nice ESBY. Odd place for a mirror, though.

The dead armies of games forgotten lurk in the dark, waiting for unsuspecting developers to lose their way on the path to their current games and stop in their tracks to think of days gone by.

It's time to dig them up from their early graves and release them on the world come this Hallowe'en.

Yup, it's that time of year again! Combining Release Something and the annual Halloween event, we task you with taking an old, abandonned game, shining it up and letting it run free in the fields of 2019.

The last time I participated in one of these events was in 2014. I attempted to resurrect my circa 2002-2003 rm2k game The Tower in the form of Lionheart in VX Ace. I failed (although at least I released a demo). I think it was the last project I worked on seriously and in earnest, but I could be forgetting something between then and now.

However...HOWEVER...

author=slicervanguard28
backstage 2 needs to be finished for some reason the creator just gave up and cancelled it.

Well, not to be a jerk, but the reason that I gave up and cancelled it is because Archeiah_Nessiah never finished the CMS she promised me LIKE 10 YEARS AGO and I cried myself to sleep because she's WAY too busy to do it now nah, it's kind of that I am sort of like a grownup now, and have responsibilities, and stuff, and can't afford to spend tens of hours working on something I am not being paid for like I could when I was a kid.

HOWEVER, slicevanguard28 I can tell you REALLY care about this. You have been actively anticipating Backstage 2 for YEARS. So let me make you a modest proposal.

Let's do a miniature petition, slicervanguard28. You get 12 signatures of people saying they want Backstage 2 reanimated, I will come back and "reanimate" Backstage 2*.

Even though 12 is a laughably tiny number even for a community this small, if the signatures don't materialize, I'll try not to feel too bad about it. In my lurking I've noticed that RMN is very tumbleweeds nowadays (outside of the event threads like this) and Backstage 2 is an old game--maybe older than some of this site's members lol--and also I'm not unaware of the fact that many of the people around here do not like me or my games very much.

(That's the other reason I stopped doing this is that not only is no one paying me to do it, but periodically trolls will come along and shit all over my hard work: why should I spend 20 hours a week on unpaid labor just to feel bad about myself and/or get stressed over internet drama? Even if someone managed to sell me on the idea that my games are fine and it's my abrasive personality that invites criticism and trolling, that's really no less upsetting: I hate the idea that my jerkass personhood and self might be getting in the way of my creative output being successful!)

If you do get a dozen signatures (yours counts too) then as I said above I will have a go at reanimating Backstage 2. *But, be aware that it will be in a new engine with new mechanics, almost certainly new graphics, and maybe even new story and characters. I know that might not be exactly what you want, slicervanguard28, but it's the best I'd be able to do.

As I realized here during a discussion of Backstage 1, I no longer have the fan translated version of rm2k3, the RTP for same, or the project folder for Backstage 2. So actually *finishing* Backstage 2 unfortunately is literally impossible. All of these things have been lost to the sands of time several computers ago. And honestly, even if I did still have the project folder and a working copy of the fan-translated RM2k3, it is REALLY hard to go back to the game mechanics and systems you thought were acceptable the last time you worked on them, eight years ago. The same is true to a lesser degree about the characters and the writing. I have learned a lot in the almost-a-decade since I last worked on this, and the urge to start over and apply that knowledge is strong.

But rest assured, you show me proof that a dozen people give a shit, I will do my best to make something very scary called Backstage 2, my previous failure at "Revive the Dead" events not withstanding.

I'll check back in 2 days to see if any of the 12 signatures are there, then I'll check back again in 2 days after that, then one final check three days after that.

Other'n that, sorry for the long ass post, happy necromancy everyone! Y'all have a blast making games spookyscary games this spooktober.

Man, I almost did some of the writing for this. That would have been cool. Not how things worked out, though.

took you three months to get back to me kiddo, what're you, running on ME time? holy fucking shit I'm completely wasted and stoned I'll make this post coherent and sensical when I sober up. I just saltblasted an old 1.5 star review of Backstage which was probably ill advised but I am flying. Kind of regret that salty, salty discharge from my proverbial vagina, but it's too late to turn back on it now.

Well I cannot say anything else as I discovered Rmk only lately, but being and old gamer, I appreciate old-style rpgs, the references to System Shock and so on.

Funny story? I never heard of System Shock till after I released the final complete build of Iron Gaia. But I played in between making this and making virus

I mentioned Alter Aila and a Blurred Line in the beginning as I liked them too, despite being not without flaws.
But, I'll say that again, I had fun, so that's all. Many other boring fantasy jrpg instead were a chore to play, but this is not the case.

Wow. You put me amongst some illustrious company, sir. Alter Aila looks amazing and is incredibly popular. A Blurred Line is still finally my favorite RM of all time. I am not worthy of such illustrious company. Not worthy!

Maps are average for the most part, and due to the used of the default futuristic chipsets there's not much to say about that. Even with that I didn't mind the design of the locations, even if it's true that Max McGee did a far better job in his other games. But I did mind the minigames as I hated them (especially the hacking minigame, the shoot-em-up one was not so terrible).

Call me Legion! (muahahahaha)

Ahem.

Addict, thank you so very much for this wonderful review. In my early 30s, with over a decade of experience as a creative professional under my belt, I am still AMAZED every time I learn that someone unironically enjoyed a game made mostly made back when I was as a 17 year old kid who didn't know nothin' bout 'nothin, least of all game design.

Amazed, and deeply touched.

At this point this game has been reviewed so many times that I know what the most common gripes and what will be praised most often.

Things People Don't Like: The 99 empty rooms that comprise 99% of the "world map", having to go to a terminal to use your menu/save in the beginning, the minigames, the way the focus of the game suddenly swings from being focused on the story and characters to a bunch of minigames before swinging just as abruptly back to a tight story focus, Coheed & Cambria.
Things People Do Like: the survival horror-esue atmosphere esp. at the beginning, the unique setting of the station or the novelty of the plot, the journal flashback, the writing and plot and direction of the story in general, Coheed & Cambria.

Clearly there is something about Iron Gaia that is worthy of your praise, but I personally can't see it. I love when people love it, because I put a TON of work into it. But that work was sloppy and amateurish. Personally I find the original Iron Gaia to be an embarrassment on almost every level:

The mapping is shite, the writing (dialogue) is even worse, at least one of the minigames (the shooting one) was a failed attempt at abusing the RM2k engine, the soundtrack is painfully embarrassing 90s midis mixed with painfully embarassing FF7 midis mixed with just-plain-grating tracks, I made some stupid decisions when designing some of the game's skills (although I was rather limited by the non-existence of scripts or plugins at the time), and most characters have three different facesets, often with none of them matching the sprite they belong to, because I couldn't tell the difference between an "emote" face chip and a "whole other character" face chip.

There are a few things I'm proud of. I'm proud that there's not one ending, but three (did you get all three???) and I'm proud of the first two of those endings and all they both imply. I'm proud of the characters and the general in-media-res shape of the plot, even if the dialogue was often cringe-inducing and clumsy. And finally, I'm proud of the world building which inspired a failed sequel, a successful gaiden, a LARP and LARP Campaign that ran near-continuously from 2005 to 2016, and finally and most recently this crowdfunded tabletop roleplaying game.

Of all the things I have made over the years, this is both the first thing I made that was lauded, and it has been lauded more than anything I made. Or more succinctly, I guess...

author=The RPG Maker Addict
is still one of the classic and best futuristic games due to the great atmosphere and storyline.

So much for creators being able to evaluate their own work, right?

Because while I look at it and and can see only old shame, clearly I'm in the minority.

I am working on a remake.