Let's Take A Minute

This blog is primarily for showcasing my own work, in the hope that it will eventually come to stand as a C.V. (or 'resume') of sorts. But this post is about somebody else's work and efforts, without which I'd still be crying my bodyweight in frustrated, frightened tears.

RPG Maker VX Ace, whilst undoubtedly the perfect foundation for anyone who wants to make an RPG but has no programming nouse, is not (apparently) without flaws.

I have, for two years, been working very hard on my demo. Continually upping the stakes and increasing my workload, I've humbly attempted to put quality before any other consideration. From the beginning, where I fumbled with the program and made ugly tilesets cannibalised from Google reference images, to now, where I consider myself to have acquired many new skills, the Erias Line project has become deeply personal to me. It constitutes hundreds of hours of painstaking, often back-aching and headache inducing work. With the encouragement of friends, supporters, contributors and well-wishers, my ambition for the game has steadily flourished, drastically exceeding the idle curiosity that first lead me to try RPG Maker VX Ace's trial version.

Imagine, with this prologue, how I reacted when playtests of the demo's first five maps lead to repeated crashes.

Crashes.

With no explanation.

Typically, RPG Maker VX Ace identifies coding faults in an error message. But this particular brand of crash, insidious and evil, culminated in the dreaded "...has stopped working, Windows is searching for a solution to the problem" banner and nothing more.

(When has Windows ever actually found a solution, by the way? Is it really even looking for one? Or is this message merely a form of ineffectual consolation?)

Trembling with fear and irritation, I took to the VX Ace forums to share my problem. And, like a patient in a GUM clinic, I anxiously waited for results.

To my rescue came Galv.
His website.

He recommended a thread in which was contained a 'debugger' script by Mithran, that deals with a generic problem encountered randomly by VX users.
That thread.

Now perhaps, to those with a more intimate understanding of coding and the software's technical aspects, my problem was incidental, commonplace and worth nothing more than a tut. But to me, like a prehistoric man faced with the wrath of a stubborn VCR timer, the issue was one of terror and intense frustration. My own methods of trial and error having failed miserably to even identify the problem's cause, I was literally elated to find a real world hero coming so casually to my rescue.

Galv, sir, should you ever come across this post, I'd like you to know the special significance of your help. I cannot over-exaggerate the particularly sinister timing of this malfunction and your simple recommendation saved everything. I wish that I could offer more than the gesture of special thanks in the demo's credits.