Acknowledgments

It has been a long journey to reach this point. This book started as a much smaller (self-published) offering titled The RPG Maker VX Ace Help Guide for Beginners: Tips and Tricks You Can Use For Your Very Own RPG (quite the mouthful, right?) that was released exclusively in e-book format for the Amazon Kindle. I was contacted by Ben Renow-Clarke in early June of this year concerning writing a RPG Maker book for Apress. He even specifically noted that we could expand on my e-book; a sentiment I promptly agreed on. Work on Beginning RPG Maker VX Ace started a few months later. Several iterations of editing, proofreading, and formatting culminated in what you are now reading. I started using RPG Maker VX Ace a few years ago and even made my own game (albeit unpolished) with it.

This book is the manifestation of my desire to teach other people the things that I have learned during my time using the game development engine. But, this is an acknowledgement section, so enough about the book for now; you’ll be reading it soon enough, after all!

I would like to acknowledge the efforts of everyone in Apress who has worked with me, especially Ben Renow-Clarke, who approached me to actually expand on my previous work, and Christine Ricketts, who has served as this book’s coordinating editor; the glue that binds the project together, if you will. Honorable mentions include Michael Laraque (copy editor), and Dhaneesh Kumar (formatting and composition). Without the efforts of those working in Apress, you would not be reading this book at this time.

Michael Lin served as this book’s technical reviewer, and I would like to thank him for helping me to make this book the best it can be. His expertise with Ruby and the RMVXA engine were essential in making the scripting sections of this book as beginner-friendly as possible.

I would like to thank the RPG Maker VX Ace community as a whole for all that they have done to make exploring and using RMVXA as easy as humanly possible. They have provided countless resources (both in the form of tutorials and other essential assets such as sprites and music). Working with a game development engine can be a daunting task, but they are always willing to lend a helping hand to anyone who needs it. There are far too many people to name, but I hold the community fondly in my heart (even if it has been seemingly forever since I’ve visited).

On a personal level, I have to thank my parents, Jose Perez and Victoria Diaz, who provided (and still provide) me with the support I needed to push through the barriers that one faces when writing a work such as this. It wasn’t easy, but here we are, and we have survived!

I also have to thank my closest friends for being constant bulwarks of support and always listening to me rant about this or that.

Finally, I thank you, my dear reader. At the end of the day, all writers make sacrifices to get a solid book out to you and everyone else who desires to read about a certain subject. It is when I see the number of people who read my work that I can boldly say that the sacrifices were worth it. May you enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it!