[size=200][b][url=http://phpbb.mfgg.net/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=16159]Super Mario RPG: The Starlite Worlds[/url] by C-Division[/b][/size] [img]http://i.imgur.com/fUlfaRP.png[/img] [img]https://dl.dropbox.com/s/iikn6k9dw91bhzb/Starlite%20Worlds.png[/img] Whoa, what's this? A Game of the Month award for a game that never appeared on the mainsite? Yes, it can happen, even if it's a bit of a rarity. This game is unique in several other ways, too. First of all, it's an RPG! Making high-quality RPGs - or, for that matter, RPGs that are playable - is always a challenge, and it's rare for RPG fangames to reach completion. With a download size of nearly 400 MB, you might be wondering: Is this game really worth the download? The answer is yes, unless you're using dialup and the download would take days to complete! Super Mario RPG: The Starlite Worlds has all of the features that we associate with modern Mario RPGs, including equippable Badges and an Action Command system. Mastering the Action Commands is integral to your success when playing this game, so be sure to learn them well. C-Division's new game also boasts an engaging storyline with a variety of playable characters - it's not all about Mario and Luigi here! The cohesive graphics add to the experience as well. Don't let the hefty download size scare you away - you'll like this game if you give a chance. [size=40]One of these days I'll have this GOTM backlog conquered.[/size]

I played this game back when it was still in Beta. it's pretty good. Everyone should give it a try!

This is a great game! Why isn't it posted on the mainsite?

[quote="MarioSonicCouncil"]This is a great game! Why isn't it posted on the mainsite?[/quote] The filesize is too big. It has to be hosted on a filehosting website.

[quote="MarioSonicCouncil"]This is a great game! Why isn't it posted on the mainsite?[/quote] At 380 MB, it's about four times the size of any other game on MFGG. It would be nice if this was on the mainsite, though - someone should ask Guinea about that.

Whoa, I hadn't been on here in a while and I just randomly noticed this. Thanks a lot for choosing as the the game of the month for May. I really appreciate it. Yeah, the game is huge so it's fine if it's not the main site. I'm fine with that. Music wasn't even the biggest offender I don't think. It was all those huge character sheets for battle. Each monster and hero had 21x7 frames for each battle sheet, not to speak of the battle animations, etc... BiS was incredibly smooth, so if you have the frames, might as well use them. Anyhoo, I hope anyone who plays enjoys the game.

I thought I would come into this thread to talk about the game's reasons for its large file size. It is true that the character graphics are a heavy part of the game's file size. In fact, the game enforces 9×4 squares instead of 4×4; for each direction, every character has 8 walking frames in addition to a standing frame. With this comes a slight modification in how characters animate compared to RPG Maker XP's usual style. But for quite a few of the ones used for extra animations, the 5×4 squares on the right are left blank. Only 16 out of 36 frames have data in them. I consider this wasted space, so I have an ongoing project to make a hardcoded list of characters for which the edited game will revert to RPG Maker XP's old 4×4 standard to cut down on file size in my computer. In addition, many character graphics for objects such as Blocks that must be hammered get their own graphics when they could be grouped together. The Wooden Block, Stone Block, and Metal Block all get their own graphic files when they could be grouped into 1 file; each one uses 1 frame out of 36, which is 3 frames out of 108. For these cases, I use a batch script that iterates over every map, troop, and common event and remaps events and move route commands to reorganize character graphics. Music may not be the heaviest part of the game's file size, but it is still a big part that should not be ignored. There are actually unused songs in the package. For example (spoilers for Chapter 9): [spoiler]The "Barrel Volcano" theme that plays in Battleria is in "Audio/BGM/srbarr2.mid", but there are 2 other MIDI files for the same song that go unused: "Audio/BGM/BarrelVolcano.mid" and "Audio/BGM/smrbvoc.mid". To the best of my knowledge, they can be safely deleted without any bugs.[/spoiler] If anyone asks, I will not share my edited version of the game out of respect for Gigasoft's work, nor will I describe how I extracted the game's resources at all. They choose to encrypt the game, and for me to share my changes as a full download would go against their wishes. If they someday release an unencrypted version of the game like they did with Super Mario RPG: The Seven Sages, I may reconsider.

A full Mario RPG fan game of excellent quality? I'll have to look at this. Shame about the file size though.

Newer RPG Maker games seem to be pretty hefty in size. I had a coworker who made a game with RPG Maker, and it was nearly 200 MB despite having only about 10 minutes of gameplay.

[quote="VinnyVideo"]Newer RPG Maker games seem to be pretty hefty in size. I had a coworker who made a game with RPG Maker, and it was nearly 200 MB despite having only about 10 minutes of gameplay.[/quote]Talk about GM being inefficient. That's an insane size.

[quote="VinnyVideo"]Newer RPG Maker games seem to be pretty hefty in size. I had a coworker who made a game with RPG Maker, and it was nearly 200 MB despite having only about 10 minutes of gameplay.[/quote] This is because the bulk of RPG Maker games are uncompressed graphics and sound files, which are increasing in quality and thus filesize each generation. Hell, they still use WAV's for sound effects I think.

One common mistake that get's made with RPGmaker games, is that it gets compiled with the entire RTP package, leaving a bunch of unused data. It's a tedious task removing all the unused stuff, but the file size will be much smaller for it.

Banner added to the first post. Sorry for the delay!

'Starlite Woods' Um

[quote="LuigiM9"]'Starlite Woods' Um[/quote] [img]http://www.redicecreations.com/ul_img/13216neutralizer.jpg[/img]

Oh, awesome. Thanks. I'll make that my signature.