How to Make a Debug Room

In RPG MAKER WITH, you can create a Debug Room to test your Events, enemy battles, etc. Read on to learn more about making a debug room and what parts might be in it.

How to Make a Debug Room

Create a Debug Room Ahead of Time

Creating a debug room early on helps you organize and refine your game mechanics. During game development, it's easy to get caught up in creating maps, Events, and other parts of your game, which makes keeping track of these Events and organizing them more challenging as your game expands.

For example, if you've already created much of your game without a centralized place to test mechanics, managing its Events becomes cumbersome and time-consuming. Creating the debug room ahead of time allows you to streamline the process of testing and optimization without spending too much time and effort.

What is a Debug Room?

A debug room is a map that allows you to test mechanics such as Events, battles, or shop vendors, without needing to play through the entire game - saving you time and effort. The room only needs a simple design, where you can quickly identify and address any issues or make necessary changes to improve the game.

Ultimately, having a dedicated debug room streamlines your bug-testing process and enhances the overall quality of your game.

Parts of a Debug Room

Parts of a Debug Room
Open Door Using a Switch Make Chest Appear Using a Switch Healing Point Quest-giver NPC Item-giver NPC Boss Battle Monster Encounters Save Point

Open Door Using a Switch

One of the game mechanics a typical RPG game has is opening a door using a switch. There are different ways to create this Event, such as its appearance or conditions to trigger it. If you encounter an issue with this Event while playtesting the game, you can easily solve it in your debug room. A debug room allows you to modify it without having to look for this Event in your game map.

How to Make a Locked Door

Make Chest Appear Using a Switch

Another use for a switch is to trigger a treasure chest to appear. You might create these Events to provide a challenge for players. Also, you might want to test different objects and add animation to this Event. Adding this in your debug room allows you to change and even improve this Event.

You may want to use a switch in your game to trigger a treasure chest to appear as a small puzzle of sorts. You may also want to have the treasure chest show various Animations or use different kinds of objects as your treasure chests. Placing this feature in a debug room allows you to modify and refine the Event, ensuring it enhances the player's experience.

How to Use Self Switches

Healing Point

In most RPG games, there are locations where the party can fully recover their HP and MP. Though this is a simple Event, you might want to add changes to it. Putting this Event in your debug room allows you to change and test it, especially if it's a Common Event.

How to Use Common Events

Quest-giver NPC

Quests are also a staple part of RPG games, and they're given out by special quest-giver NPCs. Having all your quest-giver NPCs in one room allows for easy testing of quest lines, especially one with branching quest lines.

How to Make an NPC

Item-giver NPC

Some NPCs will give items in RPG games. Though setting the Events for them is quite simple, you might think of adding conditions or other related events before they give an item. For example, the NPC will only give you this item if you defeated a certain amount of enemies. A debug room can help you modify and test this Event, especially if you have all those NPCs in your room.

Boss Battle

RPG games also include epic boss battles, which provide challenges and rewards to players. Since bosses are designed to be more difficult than typical enemies, you might want to add these bosses to your debugging room. This allows you to fight them and balance their difficulty without visiting their dungeons.

How to Make a Boss Battle

Monster Encounters

Here, we added random and on-map enemy monster encounters. Depending on your choice of enemy encounter, you can change how they move or behave in the debugging room. You can also balance their difficulty. Instead of locating these enemies on your map, you can fight and modify them in your debugging room.

How to Make Different Kinds of Monster Encounters

Save Point

Though you can add a save option in the game menu, you might want players to save their game via object interaction. Here, we have a yellow orb where players can save their game. If you're having trouble setting up this Event or have created multiple save points throughout your game, keeping a copy in a debugging room can be incredibly useful. This way, you can easily modify the event commands and efficiently update all save points in your game, ensuring a smoother gameplay experience.

Debug Room Tip

Make Room for Expansion

As you create your game, you might have added new features and mechanics that do not fit with your current debug room size. For example, the debug room described in this guide lacks space for dungeon traps or a stat adjustment NPC. By making room for expansion and increasing the map size with minimal edits—such as extending this hallway—you can easily incorporate these elements.

Leaving a space for expansion and adjusting the debug room's map size can help you accommodate future game mechanics.

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