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We live in a time of racial injustice, inequality, and police brutality against black people. We hope that everyone takes a stand in any way that they can. We’ve partnered with creators from all across our platform to support organizations that are working directly with those affected.

We reached out to our community and an unprecedented number of creators donated over 740 projects to be part of what we believe is the largest bundle ever. Over $3,400 of paid works are available Pay-what-you-want with a minimum donation amount of $5.

All proceeds will be donated to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational FundandCommunity Bail Fund split 50/50.

If you have the means, we encourage you to help them reach their $5,000,000.00 goal! The bundle ends at midnight (PDT) on June 16, 2020.

- The Moderators of RPGMGames

May’s Featured Game: Verloren

DEVELOPER(S):Choko
ENGINE: RPG Maker VX Ace
GENRE: Horror, Adventure
WARNINGS: Flashing images, loud sounds, sudden sounds/images, full list (contains spoilers).
SUMMARY:Chris Winter, find himself alone and lost in a black void filled with nothing but coldness. The only warmth you feel comes from your breath. In this void the young boy sees a door filled with light, trying to reach the door only leads to the boy to fall deep into a world filled with nothing but nonsense.

Only when you find the key, then you’ll be able to leave.

Download the demo here!

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself!
*Choko: Hello, I’m Choko! I’m the developer, artist, and writer for Verloren. I’ve been messing around with rpg maker since 2013 but finished my first finished game in 2016 which is Desolate Village. I’ve also made other games since then. Those being Demon Tea, Friend Hunt, and Star Detective. So Verloren isn’t my first rodeo in the whole game development stuff, but it is the biggest project I’ve ever work on so far.

Besides game dev stuff, I’m a huge rpg maker games, horror games, rhythm games, and just games with a interesting style to them.

What is your project about? What inspired you to create this game initially?
*Choko: Verloren is a horror adventure game that focuses on Chris Winter, a young boy who finds himself alone and far away from home because of this he won’t stop for anything to find a way home and learn why did he arrive here. During the course of the game Chris would meet others who have their own goals.

What inspired me to make Verloren is a bit hard to say from what I first started to work on it back in 2017, I was mostly trying to work on another project after finishing Desolate Village. It could have been something else but I really forgot.

But since I took a huge hiatus year break during 2018, I would personally say the time I actually initially started to work on Verloren was in February of 2019. Since everything was rework with a fresh outlook on everything, so the whole head space with Verloren is totally different from 2017-2018.

What inspired me when I went back to rebuild/fix the game was friends, since their support made me feel I could go back to work on the game. During 2018 I would say I wasn’t in the best mood while working on the game, so the support my friends gave me really helped a lot and encouraged me.

How long did you work on your project?
*Choko: I’ve been working on Verloren for three years now.
But will say 2019 to now is when actually development started/actually got going. 2018 I took the whole year off to cool down/chill. So the Verloren of 2017-2018 is very different from the Verloren of 2019 to now. If that makes sense….

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project?
*Choko: Oh boy, this section might be very long since there’s a lot of games and media which inspired/ influences Verloren, though for many different reasons.

Will say the two rpg maker games that inspire me a whole lot when it comes to everything they do is Mare and Akademia (I know it’s just a demo still at the time writing but it’s very good. Good demo, like the characters are great!! Everything is very nice!)
Other rpg maker games do inspire me, mainly friend stuff but Mare and Akademia are two games I really love and wish I can make Verloren a game which has characters which feel realistic in a way they do. Like please go play them.

Besides rpg maker games will say that NieR Automata, Okage: Shadow King, RE 1/RE 0, Deemo, Rule of Rose, Smile For Me, and the Kirby series are games that just really inspire me with Verloren, there’s just certain aspects of them which I hope I can capture in Verloren.

Other than video games, I do get a bunch of inspiration from artist I follow, comics/manga, and anime though if I mention all of them it would just lead me to ramble away, but will say Pandora Hearts and Death Parade are two series I really love and both. I just enjoy series that shows character interaction and bonds, because that’s a main part in Verloren.
I really just get inspire by character development if you couldn’t tell….. ^^;

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept?
*Choko: There’s been soooooo many changes to this game. The biggest change I would say is the characters, they had a lot of design changes and personality/motivation changes.

But other than that, I would say the mood of the game change a lot, also how scenes play it, originally it just felt like stuff happen to happen. Now it makes a lot more sense and isn’t just some random thing I added. Sadly I can’t list everything that change because that’s spoilers but trust me everything change for the better.

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?
*Choko: At the beginning there wasn’t a team, since I wanted to do everything solo. I mostly enjoy doing art, writing, and eventing the game.

Though currently now there is a team, mostly with people I know, it’s more so just a critique/feedback team + voice actors. Currently there are only two VAs since I didn’t want to focus on voice acting before I had most of the game done, in the far future I may make a post about it.

But so far the whole team is more so just a chilling area then anything else and I enjoy all the fun talk that happen there.

What is the best part of developing a game?
*Choko: The best part of creating a game is to see the characters you created come to life. I just really enjoy seeing everything come together. Idk I just find it cool that when making a game all starts out as concepts/ ideas and then after days/weeks/months of work it becomes a actually thing you can look at and show others. Most cutscenes in Verloren I get super happy when I finish them up, because I can see them as a real thing rather than a bunch of ideas of “this is what I’m going to do”.

Also the joke/shitpost memes….they are also the best part of making a game.

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?
*Choko: Yep!!!
I play a lot of rpg maker games, I really enjoy seeing what other people do.
I just find it cool that anyone can pick up the engine and learn how to use it.

Also it’s a fun way to find inspiration, just seeing other rpg maker games and being like “>:O I didn’t know you can do that!!!”.

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?)
*Choko: This question is very hard, mainly because I relate to because a lot of characters in the game I relate to in tiny levels.

For my favorite character it’s Vladimir….I do like every other character in game. Chris is my second favorite I have to say (kinda a lie since ties with another character) but Vladimir number one, he’s just soo much fun to write. He’s maybe the one character who has a lot of scenes which gets a huge smile from me.

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently?
*Choko: Not really, mainly since I was lucky to be able to take a huge hiatus which help me in 2019 to rework everything. So every problem I had with the game I fixed.

Do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is?
*Choko: I would just leave the game alone after I finish Verloren, it’s a game that doesn’t need any follow ups because I feel it would just take away from the impact when you get to the end.

There really isn’t anything I would need to explore, since Verloren is meant to be a single game and that’s it.

What do you most look forward to upon finishing the game?
*Choko: I look forward seeing how people react to the full game, I am low key shock on how people are reacting towards the demo and all the tiny predictions/speculations. Also the warm positive feedback towards Vladimir is shocking, since I thought no one would like him because of all those jokes/puns.

I hope the final game has the same positive reaction, also that other characters get a warm positive feedback towards them.

Was there something you were afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game?
*Choko: The only thing that worries me is that if I mess up and people can’t understand reasons why x character did that. Since one of the main things with Verloren is that characters have their own way if viewing stuff.

Like morality is pretty gray because I don’t want to write a black and white story.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs?
*Choko: Main advice I’ll give out is placeholders are your friend.
Don’t spend time making assets for a system you didn’t test and you test it and it doesn’t work. Just have a placeholder graphic which helps you test it and when it’s done you can always slap on the asset.

Following up with this, create a debug room. It would come in handy to test systems/ events than having to play through your game to test it and learn you need to fix it.

Question from last month’s featured dev @cheesesteak-horror: Do you have creative processes you practice before starting development?
*Choko: No, not really. I often just jump right into development and go from there.
Most of my practice come from when I work on small stuff or just when I’m bored I often just mess around with things.

We mods would like to thank Choko 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 Verloren if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum

The Other: Rosie’s Road of Love is released!

Art by Shencao

Now it has a 15% release discount. Hope you enjoy the game!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1509790/The_Other_Rosies_Road_of_Love/

——————

◇ About ◇

It’s a casual, story-driven JRPG, developed by the solo dev RabbitonBooks. This is the 4th Rabbiton game.

It follows the previous RPG The Other: Airi’s Adventure but can be enjoyed as an independent story.

(You can have a bit more extra contents in the first run if you have cleared the True Ending of AA, For details please see the game’s news!).

——————

◇ Other news! ◇

1) The new official website is online now!

Thanks to Vilja (who’s also the programmer of T&TR)! You can check all the news, game information, walkthroughs on the website, and more contents are planning to be updated.

2)The 3rd Popularity Vote!

It’s an event to celebrate RRoL’s release and T&T’s 5 year(!) anniversary. The 1st & 2nd results can be found in the blog or the news of the previous games.

* You don’t have to play all the games to vote.

* End Date is to be announced, but at least it’ll be the end of August. Please take your time playing!

3) Art Book making and Fan Art Event!

An Art Book is also going to be made this time, in the following weeks. Here we have the old fan art event again!
~Read the detailed rules here~


That’s another step of my RPG journey. Thank you very much for your support!
It’s not easy for a small solo dev. I do appreciate it. I’d be grateful if you stay around for my future plans!
Please take care and have fun playing!

~ Official Website~
For regular news and dev progress (and to support the dev):
Dev blog|Twitter|Patreon

More NPCs and the title screen…finally made the title screens! (There are five scenes, like Airi’s Adventure).

I also decide to add an item book and an enemy book. It looks cute. I always love collection books…

——————–

Updated the dev logsandCharacters in Rosie’s Road of Love!

Weebly:

https://rabbitongames.weebly.com/devlog.html

https://rabbitongames.weebly.com/-rrl.html

(Hope you enjoy the updates!

Ren has seen TRUNDL.corp at its worst. Can she help make it its best?

See how she got here, here.

2nd comic in the 2nd series: Ren joins the TRUNDL.corp team. Watch out for the dirtword! The story so far: http://spite.house/comic/

Comic #5, match cut to: flashback. Also, earlier issues now have a permanent home here. 

Obligatory: What’s he building in there?

In this installment, TRUNDL’s erstwhile creator learns that the path to dystopia is paved with good intentions. They Live glasses sold separately.

Speaking of promotion, you can test-drive TRUNDL.buddy at Power of Play, this Friday and Saturday (May 20 and 21) in Bellevue, WA. 

PREVIOUSLY:Part one.Part two.Part three.

Three deep in the prequel-verse! Did you know this is a video game that is in alpha? It is, and you can be among the first to play it. We’ll be at iFest in Seattle this Saturday, May 14, then Power of Play in Bellevue (Seattle-adjacent) May 20-21! More info soon…

PREVIOUSLY:Part one.Part two.

Prequel comic #2! Follow on the tumbles or check blog.spite.house for weekly updates.

First installment of our comic prequel toTrundl.buddy and the Ghostly Wi-Filactery! Check back at blog.spite.house and follow for weekly updates.

FINDING A TONE THAT ISN’T

Our tactical roadtripper, TRUNDL.buddy and the Ghostly Wi-filactery, flings you through a gauntlet of environments, each with their own distinct color palette and style. Between each one, you’ll guide TRUNDL.buddy through decisions, shaping both mind and journey.

IT IS HARD

Early on, I wanted the music to branch alongside the narrative, incorporating different genres to reflect the changing personality of the player’s character. Violent or aggressive choices might transition to death metal or the militaristic styling of Battlestar Galactica. Pacifistic choices might swing more acoustic, Appalachian. Aside from the obvious challenges of producing such a wide variety of cues for every level in the game, there was another less obvious problem. The baseline song would need a neutral tone.

Creating music without emotion has been incredibly challenging for me. I’ve always felt the two are inextricable. But over the last couple of weeks, I’ve discovered an interesting approach. Percussion and rhythm don’t carry much emotion by themselves, just a sense of energy and movement. I stripped out the melodic instruments entirely; built an underscore with just rhythmic textures and a single (tonic) pitch. When the player takes dramatic action, I comment by introducing melody and harmony – emotion.

Another issue I discovered is how quickly the “mix” fills up in-game; ambient sounds, engine sounds, enemies attacking you, obstacles whizzing by and music all playing at the same time. This buries the ambience completely – wind, insects, animal sounds. Ambience serves almost no gameplay purpose, except to ground you in the world. But having grown up with adventure games like MystandIco, I value these sounds highly and don’t want them lost.

PROBLEM + PROBLEM = SOLUTION

I needed neutral music and I’ve got buried ambience. The answer to both, musical ambience. I’ve incorporated environmental sounds into the rhythmic texture for each level’s backing theme. The music now feels connected to the place it’s scoring, still serves the gameplay, and provides a neutral base that pivots harmonically with the player’s actions. And I don’t have to worry about the mix as much. That, friends, is how I murdered two avian friend-beasts in the most primal way imaginable. I don’t even know where this rock came from… I… hello?

Check out the video you probably already watched for some quick examples!

Soren Laulainen
Music Composer and Sound Designer
sorenlaulainen.com