#game feature

September’s Featured Game: Akademia

DEVELOPER(S):Somni
ENGINE: RPGMaker VX Ace  
GENRE: Horror, Exploration, Puzzle
SUMMARY: Akademia is a 2D horror RPG currently being developed in RPG Maker VX Ace. In the province of British Columbia, Canada, there exists a private school in the woods, Rayfair Academy, that is known for its wealth and ambition. The academy follows the motto, “Pearls are worthless in the pursuit of gold,” and it has a reputation for producing highly motivated and overachieving students. However, in a bout of curiosity late at night, six students uncover a secret, and the story of the school’s origin–and the being responsible for it–begins to unravel.

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! 
*Hello! I’m Somni, and I like to draw and write stories! I’ve been interested in RPG Maker games since 2013, and I’m a big fan of horror ones! I recently dived into community and I love how encouraging and positive everyone is. It motivates me to work hard!

What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially?
*Somni: Akademia is a story-heavy horror game about six second-year students in a prestigious academy accidentally coming in contact with a strange and powerful being. As Margaret attempts to find her friends and lead them to safety, the story of the academy’s past comes to light, and the otherworldly hollow they’ve all found themselves in starts to pick apart at the threads that hold their friendship together and prey on their minds.

How long have you been working on your project?
*Somni: I’ve been working on Akademia for more than three years now! The first two years were spent solidifying concepts and doing research, and the third year was spent doing game development. I kept the project to myself until I had a good grasp on everything, so it’s only been public for a year.

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project?
*Somni: The Witch’s House and Ib brought me into the RPG Maker engine, and they all have a very solid plot and cute character designs. Haunting Ground was also one of my favorite horror games because it delves into alchemy as well, and it lit a fire in me to work on my game.

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them?  
*Somni: The first thing I always groan about is the discovery of bugs. Sometimes, I get careless or tired and add in weird things that mess with my game, and I can never find them until I backtrack or one of my beta testers points it out. Always add comments in your events so your mistakes can be found more easily, and remember to thank your beta testers, especially if they pick out lots of errors!

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept?
*Somni: Akademia’s gotten a lot more sombre than it originally was. The first drafts I had were very campy, and the story didn’t glue well with character development. I guess time and experience allowed me to reconstruct everything and make the plot and character development a lot better. I can take the story seriously now, and I love it a lot!

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone?
*Somni: I like to work alone. I’m very picky about how things are made and written, and it would be a nightmare for everyone if I started micromanaging. A lot of things in my game are personal as well, and I’m hesitant to share them with others who can bend my experiences. In the future, I’ll think about voice actors, but that’s as far as I’ll go.

What was the best part of developing the game?
*Somni: Writing dialogue and making cute sprites! My characters have pretty different personalities, so I have a lot of fun making them interact and switching between individuals. I also wanted to make expressive sprites, so having small things like Jude tapping his foot or Austin rubbing his eyes makes development more fun for me.

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing?
*Somni: I like to explore things on my own. I have a better understanding of the engine if I experiment and play around with things and see it fit the image I have in my head. Besides, you can do pretty much anything in RPG Maker if you get creative. I think getting inspiration from other games is the best and a very solid way of learning, but it doesn’t work for me personally.

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?)
*Somni: This is a bit of a hard question for me because all of my protagonists have a part of me in them. I’d have to say Mai is the one I can relate to most, but I can’t say why because of spoilers. However, my favorite character is Austin because he’s genuinely sweet and supportive. He’s always there for his friends and wears his heart on his sleeve. There are other things I like about him, but they’re all secrets!

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently?
*Somni: Not really. Sometimes, I wish I released my game earlier. I spent three years on it and only just released a demo, but I also don’t feel too badly about it. All that time I spent working on it allowed me to polish the story and characters, and if I released the game too soon, there could’ve been some huge oversights. Knowing this, I don’t regret anything I’ve done.

Once you finish your project, do you plan to explore game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is?
*Somni: I think I’ll release some cute side stories in the future so the player can see how things are with the characters when Akademia’s done and over with! As for the plot, there won’t be anything else after the game.

What do you look most forward to upon/after release?
*Somni: Definitely fan reactions! A lot of players gave me their thoughts and plot predictions, and they also gave me very suspicious messages about a lot of carefully worded things in the game. The full game has a lot more stuff to analyze, and I can just sit back and rub my hands together in glee. I can also draw more indulgent stuff with the characters when the game’s finished, so it’ll be a wild ride!

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? 
*Somni: Lack of time. I’ve had some health struggles all the way during development, and I’m going to be busy with work starting September. I’ll have to dedicate all my free time to game development, and I’m hoping I can balance those well and give updates on Akademia’s progress whenever I can.

Question from last month’s featured dev: If you had to change the main genre of your game, what would you change it to and why?
*Somni: I’d make Akademia a friendship simulator. Bonds between characters are an important part of the game, and if it can’t be horror, it might as well be a cute and adorable thing.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs?
*Somni: This might not work for everyone, but try not to write your characters’ dialogue as a long script before you put it into the game. What feels right in a word document might not sound natural in the game itself. If you can, stick to a skeleton of dialogue and flesh it out as you event it in the engine. That way, you can consider the environment and situation the characters are in while you write what they say.

We mods would like to thank Somni for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved! 

Remember to check out Akademia if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum 

August’s Featured Game: Land, Sea, Entropy

DEVELOPER(S):Rozel
ENGINE: RPGMaker MV  
GENRE: RPG, Fantasy, Adventure
SUMMARY: Land, Sea, Entropy, is a story-heavy action role-playing game with elements of mystery and horror. You live beneath the sea in a small village called Tidemoor. To the North is a labyrinth inhabited by strange monsters… and their numbers are only growing. So as one of Tidemoor’s warriors, your job is to thin the beast’s numbers and protect your town. But you get too greedy, go too far, and reach a point of no return.
You find yourself in a world far different from your own, but it isn’t all full of monsters. There are peaceful places too, areas that are completely safe and untouched by any beasts. As you come to meet the inhabitants of this new land, and seek to return to your own, strange phenomena begins to occur and a mystery surrounding the unknown world unfolds. 

Introduce yourself! 
Hello, I’m Rozel! I began playing around with RPGMaker back in 2014, starting with a trial of RPGMaker XP. This is when I started practicing pixel art more and learned some of the ins and outs of the engine itself.

What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially?
*Rozel: I’ve always enjoyed role-playing games. Although I had used RPGMaker XP awhile back, I didn’t do much with it. One day as I was looking at a pixel RPG, a sudden thought popped in my mind. “Hey, this is neat… I could make something too.” So I started planning out an RPG of my own, and later bought RPGMaker MV.

How long have you been working on your project?
*Rozel: I started forming ideas for the game around March, 2016. It was also around this time when I bought RPGMaker MV, so I was still learning how to use it.

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project?
*Rozel: I was partly inspired by a manga called Pandora Hearts. In it, conflict occurs between the characters but they’re all still so likable at the same time. I also love how deeply connected the characters are to the story and each other, and how some of them have so much history together. LSE sort of adopted that interconnectivity, history, and hopefully I can achieve similar likability.

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them?  
*Rozel: Self-doubt. I’ve dealt with this in waves throughout development. I’ve gotten so much positive support about the visuals, but that’s just part of the game. Is playing it actually fun? Will people enjoy the story and characters, beyond the simple descriptions I’ve revealed? I won’t know for sure until I start sending the game to testers, but it isn’t quite ready for that yet.

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept?
*Rozel: Yes! It’s evolved a lot. I was originally going to make something small and more simplistic, but I gradually got more and more ideas about the characters and the world. I’m at a point where I’m satisfied with what I have and the game is sort of shrinking again as I pick out the best ideas to use.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone?
*Rozel: I’m working alone right now, though I’ve gotten great feedback and advice from friends! I prefer working alone, it’s easier for me to make things closer to how I imagine them. I tend to have weird way of organizing and plotting stuff out, too, so it would probably be tough to keep others in the loop with my mess of ideas.

What was the best part of developing the game?
*Rozel: I love seeing my ideas come to life, and it’s really satisfying to feel like I’ve finally figured something new out (even if I really haven’t)! There’s a lot involved in developing a game, so you sort of have to become a jack of all trades if you’re going to develop solo. I’ve been able to pick up new skills and improve on skills I already had, it’s been lots of fun.

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?)
*Rozel: Every character has pieces of me in them, and lots of big differences too, but the character which stands out as being the most similar is Vyn March. She’s introverted, keeps a positive attitude about things, and writing is her hobby. Much of her character is built on the experiences I’ve had in the past, but I won’t go into it further because I don’t want to spoil things!

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently?
*Rozel: Maybe I could’ve spent more time preparing, maybe I could’ve set better rules of consistency to follow when designing the game. But I needed to mess up a few times in order to learn. I think everything I did helped lead me on the right path, even if I had a shaky start. Mistakes are all a part of the process, so I don’t have any regrets.

Once you finish your project, do you plan to explore game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is?
*Rozel: There’s a really small chance I might make something that takes place in the same universe, with the same rules of magic and so on. As for the characters, their stories will have reached a conclusion at the end of the game. I don’t think I’ll have anything more to tell about them and will move on to new characters for the next project.

What do you look most forward to upon/after release?
*Rozel: I really hope that I can affect someone in a positive way, whether that be through the characters and writing or just by providing something fun to play.

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? 
*Rozel: I think the worst thing would be releasing it with glaring bugs and plot-holes I somehow didn’t notice, but that’s what testers are for. Fingers crossed that nothing is missed!

Question from last month’s featured dev: Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing?
*Rozel: I do play RPGMaker games occasionally. Getting familiar with what other devs come up with in the engine is a good way to gain inspiration.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs?
*Rozel: Critique is a useful tool, but I want to add to that. If someone is rude in their critique, it doesn’t necessarily invalidate their opinion. It definitely doesn’t mean they’re right, but there’s still a chance you can find useful information.

We mods would like to thank Rozel for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved! 

Remember to check out Land, Sea, Entropy if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum 

July’s Featured Game: SLARPG

DEVELOPER(S):Bobby “ponett” Schroeder
ENGINE: RPGMaker VX Ace 
GENRE: RPG, Fantasy
SUMMARY: SLARPG is a short, turn-based RPG following the story of Melody Amaranth, a kindhearted but meek transgender fox who’s decided to learn healing magic and become a paladin. She’s joined by her adventurous girlfriend Allison, as well as their friends Claire (a sarcastic, rule-bending witch)(she is also trans) and Jodie (a dependable, somewhat motherly knight). Over the course of the story, our inexperienced heroes will meddle with forces beyond their control and find themselves responsible for the fate of their quaint little hometown. They’ll also fight some spherical frogs, travel to a forgotten land in the sky, befriend a robot or two, and anger the local librarian. But that should go without saying. 

Introduce yourself! 
Hi! My name’s Bobby “ponett” Schroeder. I have a background mainly in visual art and writing, and I’ve been working in RPG Maker VX Ace since 2013 after being inspired to try making my own game by Splendidland’s masterpiece Megaman Sprite Game. I’d always wanted to go into game development, but this was the first time it felt like it was actually feasible for me to make something fun on my own. By the end of that year I released a much rougher freeware version of SLARPG, originally known as Super Lesbian Horse RPG.

I do most of the work myself, but I have several people helping me with some NPC and enemy design work including my boyfriend Anthony Field (@exclamationpointman on Tumblr) and my friends Thomas Landon (@schloogywoog), Gee (@fattoads), and Thom (@sidewalkwitch). My lead composer is the incredibly talented BEATR!X @neutralnewt) with more music contributed by other friends such as internet pop icon blacksquares (@blacksquares).

What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially?
*Bobby: Super Lesbian Animal RPG is primarily about a timid transgender fox named Melody. At age 22 she’s sort of coasting along on autopilot with no clear idea of what she wants to do with her life. One day, she and her girlfriend Allison get roped into a new adventuring guild founded by their friends Claire and Jodie. Melody sees this as an opportunity to impress Allison and to make herself useful by becoming a paladin and learning healing magic.

At its heart, the game is about the relationships between four girls in their early 20s. They’re all trying to define themselves as people, they all have their own personal baggage, and they all have their own motives for seeing this dinky little adventurer’s guild as a life-changing opportunity. And now, thanks to the trouble they get themselves into, they also have to figure out how to be heroes. It’s also a game where you can have an anthropomorphic rabbit with a mohawk kiss her girlfriend and then swing a sword made of zircon at a magic tumbleweed

As I said, the game was originally released in a much rougher form under the title Super Lesbian Horse RPG. It started out as a cute, goofy little game where Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic were dating (of course) and went on a bizarre adventure, but it soon turned into a genuine RPG with a more sincere story. It also got much, much more attention than I ever expected. My use of copyrighted characters made the game difficult to distribute, though, and in hindsight I was holding myself back by presenting it as a fangame. So in 2015, I decided to radically overhaul and flesh out the game with a new, expanded cast that I have full creative control over. And now here we are today, with a game that’s probably got more new material in it than old, but still hopefully has the same charm if you enjoyed the original.

How long have you been working on your project?
*Bobby: Work on the original project lasted the entirety of 2013, with me foolishly releasing the 1.0 version on Christmas 2013 (my 20th birthday—I spent most of the day frantically squashing bugs). I returned to the project in 2015 and have been working on the new version on and off for about two years now.

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project?
*Bobby: The humor is definitely inspired in part by Mother and Paper Mario, although my talkative protagonists might make it closer to something like a point-and-click adventure game. I’ve also always loved really casual comedy that skews towards normal conversation in stuff like Home Movies or Homestuck. Adventure Time has undoubtedly been a big influence, too, as one of my favorite shows, with its “anything goes” fantasy world and colorful cast of characters—but also because of its focus on grounded, introspective character moments in a surreal, fantastical setting

Gameplay-wise, early Final Fantasy titles are a big influence for sure, and I’m trying to take a page out of Zelda’s book when it comes to exploration and level design. But tabletop RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons are also having an impact on the way I design encounters. I think tabletop games are still the gold standard for RPG battles, because they’re often less about stats and repetition and doing what the designer wants you to do and more about improvising a fun story. Of course, an RPG Maker game can’t compete with having an actual DM there to run an encounter, but I’m trying to give players lots of fun little “hey, what if I tried this?” moments with unexpected consequences.

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them?  
*Bobby: Honestly, the big thing for me is always time management. As development continues and my skills improve, I often find myself polishing areas and assets I’d already worked on before. If I didn’t force myself to work on new stuff too I’d probably spend three years just polishing Greenridge to a mirror shine.

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept?
*Bobby: Developing the protagonists further has really broadened my horizons writing-wise. I always wanted the game to have a nice emotional arc on top of all the jokes and surreal dungeons, but over time I’ve fleshed out Melody, Allison, Claire, and Jodie more and more, making everyone feel less like charicatures and more like real people with relatable motivations. The graphics have also gotten a lot better after several years of pixel art practice, and the level design has gotten less linear.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone?
*Bobby: It started out as just me. Friends on Tumblr quickly showed interest in contributing designs and music to the game just because they liked the project, and before long a lot of different people were putting their own little mark on the game. Some of my favorite characters in the game have been designed by friends, and I don’t know where I’d be without the absolutely phenomenal soundtrack.

What was the best part of developing the game?
*Bobby: I love designing characters, and writing in all these little details to make them feel real, and figuring out how they talk to each other, and seeing my audience pick out their favorites. It’s a very rewarding process for me. The second best part is getting to listen to the soundtrack and realize “Wow… this is gonna be in a game that I’m making. And it’s gonna be SICK.”

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?)
*Bobby: Without a doubt, Melody. She differs from myself in a lot of major ways, so I wouldn’t call her a self-insert, but she was created to give myself the relatable fat bisexual trans girl protagonist with anxiety that no other piece media was ever going to give me. A lot of her insecurities in the game are even loosely inspired by stuff I’ve been through in real life.

I also have a ton of fun writing the villains, but they’re spoilers.

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently?
*Bobby: I wish I’d been more consistent about my work ethic in the past. I worked EXTREMELY inconsistently on SLARPG throughout 2015, and I probably could’ve gotten a lot more done back then. But hey, live and learn.

Once you finish your project, do you plan to explore game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is?
*Bobby: Oh, I’m absolutely hoping to revisit this world! Part of the reason I’m putting so much effort into revamping a game I already released is so that I can work with this new cast and setting again in the future. I’m not planning too far ahead right now, but I do have some vague ideas for more games I’d like to make in this world, possibly through the eyes of characters other than Melody.

What do you look most forward to upon/after release?
*Bobby: I’m looking forward to being able to play some longer games in my backlog without feeling guilty about it, haha. I’ve been dying to play stuff like The Witcher 3, NieR: Automata, and Final Fantasy XV, but I’m always worried it’ll just take time away from my work. It’s a wonder I managed to finish Breath of the Wild this year.

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? 
*Bobby: This answer is gonna be a bummer, but I’m worried about is the harassment I’ll have to deal with for putting out a game about LGBT characters. I’ve already dealt with this on several occasions, although thankfully it hasn’t progressed past slur-filled anonymous messages. This toxic state of the gaming community is why I’m currently planning to release the game exclusively on itch.io, rather than exposing myself to Steam’s hostile userbase. But it’s a story that I think is worth telling, and for every piece of hate mail I get 20 messages from people telling me how excited they are, which is why I haven’t given up.

Question from last month’s featured dev: Is there any portion of your development that’s gotten you outside your comfort zone?
*Bobby: I think it’s easy to say that most of it has been outside my comfort zone, actually. Working on SLARPG has really pushed the boundaries of what I previously thought I was capable of as an artist. When I first started I literally made a dungeon that was just a straight line with one 90 degree turn because I had no idea what else to do with the canvas. Now I can make dungeons that are actually slightly fun!

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs?
*Bobby: Study the games and stories you love, and find out what really makes them tick. Don’t just mimic surface level things, but study the mechanical, structural, and thematic elements that make them so memorable. Oh, and don’t put too much effort into a fangame if there’s even the slightest chance it’ll get taken down, haha. Make something original loosely inspired by the things you love instead.

We mods would like to thank Bobby for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved! 

Remember to check out SLARPG if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum