Make your own RPG with Dante 2!!


A new course...

D. Lardenoye

Before I got ASCII's Dante 2, I heard someone say it should
be possible to make an RPG of the level of Ys 2 without much
problems. That person was wrong. The RPGs you can make with
Dante 2 are BETTER than Ys 2. Agreed, of course everything 
depends on the skills of the graphics artist and the same
goes for the music, but with regards to its capabilities 
this RPG editor leaves everything far behind, judging from
what I have experienced so far. Until now Dante 2 had been
rather useless for non Japanese people, because of the 
Japanese in it. Fortunately an organization like Oasis 
exists - we intended to translate it, but this not even 
needed to be done anymore. Thanks to a Spanish project we 
can finally play Dante 2 in English. As for starting this 
course my thanks go out to Elvis Gallegos, editor of MSX 
Journal, who has made the effort to throw in all the English
texts and explore all the program's options. A patch has 
been created with his permission [NOTE: the original patch
by Elvis Gallegos is on Future Disk 14; an extended 
translation of Dante 2 and its sample RPG Legend of Lidorune
can now be obtained on www.msxtranslations.com].

But let me start at the beginning: what is Dante 2? Dante 2 
is a program, which enables people who know Jack about
programming to create their own RPG (Role Playing Game: 
examples are the Ys, Dragon Slayer and Xak series). Of 
course you need to have some pixeling skills to create a
good looking game.

THE POSSIBILITIES

These are formidable, without a doubt. Dante 1 and the Game
Builder can instantly be shelved, because Dante 2 beats them
on every level. The type of RPG you can make with Dante 2 is
similar to Ys 1 and 2, meaning no fighting menus like in 
Dragon Slayer 6, but 'real' action without the spectacular
jumping capabilities like in Xak 2 and Tower of Gazzel.

You can create an RPG spanning 17 disks (!) with Dante 2, of
which 16 data disks that contain game data. Every data disk
can contain 10 'maps', a certain area in the game (so you
can put 160 maps in a game!), and then you need to realize
that every map consists of 12 screens (this is not so easy
to determine, because the RPGs don't have separate screens,
but have scrolling). So far about the elaborateness of the
RPG. 

Furthermore you have 128 items at your disposal, varying 
from weapons of different strengths, magical rods and other
items of which you can determine the effects yourself to a
great extent.

For every 'map' you can define 256 monsters/ NPCs / objects
all of which can be properly animated and with a plethora of
movement patterns with regards to the player. You can create
walking monsters, zig zagging monsters, fleeing monsters,
villagers who suddenly transform into monsters and much, 
much more.

Every map allows you to make a 48x48 pixel boss (fairly big)
with a to be determined strength, movement pattern and 
attack pattern.

Is is also possible to create a '3 dimensional' look; 
effects which for instance allow your hero to walk 'behind' 
a row of trees. Teleports can also be made. 

Aside from that you can create 'cut scenes' to your heart's
content; animations in which something happens beyond your
control. To allow this and a couple of other things, a type
of 'adventure macro language' is added to Dante 2 ; a small
type of programming language (non coders can feel at easy. 
It remains really simple), which allows you to do all kinds
of things; causing flashes and earthquakes on screen, 
animating NPCs, creating shops, allowing villagers and 
monsters to talk, exchanging items; you name it.

All this is possible with Dante 2 without any knowledge of
any programming language whatsoever.

LIMITATIONS

No matter how extensive the possibilities within the program
are, it has some limitations, the most important of which I
will say here.

- The most important: the music for Dante 2 RPGs must be
made with MuSICA. This program is not too user friendly,
although it offers the possibility to make music for PSG +
SCC + MSX-Music, because it uses input from a Music Macro 
Language similar to the FM-MML in MSX-Music, and this is 
not a user friendly way of composing music. In Dante 2 there
are a couple of standard songs and sound effects that can 
apply to virtually all situations, but in the long run these
will get tired. That's why I only see 3 possibilities:

-  Create songs in MuSICA nonetheless (if you don't have 
this program, no problem. With Dante 2 you can create a 
MuSICA system disk.
- Try to convert more accessible formats of MSX music (like
Moonblaster or Soundtracker) to the MuSICA format (do note
that MuSICA can't handle MSX Audio). [Note: to my knowledge
there is no such program; so that leaves manual converting
them]
- Trying to create a library of a large number of existing
MuSICA files, that are undoubtedly available from the 
Japanese Public Domain scene.
- [Note: or create a possibility to load other formats]

-  The demo possibilities in Dante-2 RPGs (intro and ending 
demos) are fairly limited, although you can create a nice
result with a lot of creativity (the limitation is that you
cannot load new graphics data during the demo - you are 
'stuck' with the 2 shadow pages in Video RAM). Also the edit
function for the demo is fairly cumbersome, especially if
it relates to displaying large sections of texts. [Note: 
indeed displaying texts letter by letter like in the sample
RPG intro is a hassle, but displaying text blocks all at
once like in its end demo is easy.]

- Dante 2 RPGs cannot exist in and of itself. To play such
an RPG you always need the Dante 2 system disk. So if you 
don't have Dante 2, you can't play RPGs that are created 
with Dante 2. 

Despite these limitations I guarantee that you can create an
RPG relatively easily that overshadows for instance Pumpkin
Adventure 2, if you can pixel skills are good and you put in
enough time. I hope I have warmed up everyone to Dante 2. If
so, then be sure not to miss the coming Future Disks. Next 
time the actual course starts of with the first part: how to
design your own RPG?

Until then!

Dennis