update (jan. 2nd):
threw together a basic placeholder room with default tiles for familiarizing myself with some environment effects that i haven't tried before, at least not in vx ace (screen tinting, weather, animations, etc). rpg maker has a lot of helpful presets, so this is a neat process! (lol you can see my placeholder sprite hanging out here. i'm hoping to edit it into some semblance of decency by tomorrow night)
i also want to start the hunt for more assets asap; i have a folder of previously-downloaded music (and a catalog of their licenses) that i've been saving up, but a lot of it is already in use in one of my other projects. tonight i think i'll stick to grabbing a ton of sound effects, getting my first few maps blocked out, and setting up some documents in which to hash out the plot progression and how everything should fit together.