May’s Featured Game: TRÄUMEREI

DEVELOPER(S): Veynn
ENGINE: RPGMaker VX Ace  
GENRE: Horror, Exploration
WARNINGS:  Suicide
SUMMARY: One day, a young boy wanders into the woods with only the twisted, mangled remnants of dreary branches obscuring the bleak horizon. As the sun starts to set beneath ruby-red clouds, the boy, Noël, happens upon a desolate cross-bridge atop a river of blood. Upon crossing over it, he finds himself standing by a gate wrought from stone.
Confronted by the fantasies his beloved grandmother read to him as a child, the boy finds himself lost in a dark ‘Wonderland.’ However, all is not that it seems.
While exploring, Noël must gather the memories of those forsaken souls who roam lest their hearts shatter.

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! 
*Hiya everyone! I’m Veynn; the developer of Träumerei and Kinderszenen. I’ve been in the RPG Maker fandom for about two years now. I absolutely love the horror genre and wanted to try creating something immersive!

What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially?
*Veynn: Essentially, Träumerei is a horror game with dark fairytale elements that starts off with the protagonist, Noël, 'wandering’ off into the woods one dreary day. In-order to save himself, he must continues to explore the twisted world he stumbles upon….
I was inspired to create my game after my dreams and nightmares. I thought they were interesting so I felt like putting them to paper. Also, when I first started working on this game I wanted it to be much shorter and have a creepy, whimsical 'woodland’ atmosphere like that of Little Red Riding Hood. Though in the end it wound up much differently.

How long have you been working on your project?
*Veynn: I started working on this project around June 2015, but after the demo I ended up revamping everything. So, all-in-all I’ve been working on this for about a year and a half.

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project?
*Veynn: Yes; I was influenced by Little Red Riding Hood, folklores, and myths in terms of atmosphere!

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them?  
*Veynn: Progress has been going quite swell but I’d say my biggest challenges occurred right when I first started working on this project. Since I was new to RPG Maker it took me a bit of time to figure out how to use it and exactly what style I should use. I kept switching between pixel-based art and alternative styles before settling on a 'painted’ 2D sidescroller.

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept?
*Veynn: Minus the style change, not much has changed over time. Though, I’d say it was originally going to be slightly shorter and less detailed in terms of character backstory.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team?
*Veynn: I’ve always been the only developer of the game, but I recruited voice actors for the primary characters.

What was the best part of developing the game?
*Veynn: Could I say…everything? Hahahaha, it’s been such a fun experience. But if I had to choose I’d say I enjoy character and background designing the most!

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently?
*Veynn: I regret making the demo so short, but as it’s not actually 'canon’ I don’t find this to be too big a problem. If anything, I wish I had settled on a particular style much sooner–there are a lot of old maps that I did like but I can’t quite use them in the game anymore due to the conflicting art styles.

Once you finish your project, do you plan to explore game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is?
*Veynn: As for this game and its characters, I most likely will not do anything with them as I feel there would be no necessity. However, I am working on a small side game that take place in the same universe.

What do you look most forward to upon/after release?
*Veynn: I look forward on hopefully bettering my other projects after garnering experience from working on this one!

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? 
*Veynn: Not really, no.

Question from last month’s featured dev: At what point in development do you start making the game? Do you write out the story/dialogue/events in its entirety before programming? Or do you just have general concepts planned and flesh things out as you go along?
*Veynn: I actually did write a very, very basic outline for a 90 chapter webcomic months before I decided to make Träumerei a game project. So, I’d say I started development a few months after drafting the first basic plot synopsis. After that, I started to work on both dialogue and eventing before saving programming for last.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs?
*Veynn: Make sure to plan ahead, but more importantly, have fun! If you want to make anything, go for it! Do whatever makes you happy. And, even if things may seem daunting at first it does get the easier as more time goes on. Don’t be afraid to ask for advice and help or to work alone or with a team–in the end just rely on your judgement and feelings.
It really does seem difficult at first, but it’s absolutely well worth it to try. All you need is patience and enthusiasm!

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

- Mods Gold & Platinum 

April’s Featured Game: ARCADEA

DEVELOPER(S): Aishin
ENGINE: RPGMaker VX Ace  
GENRE: Fantasy, Adventure, Puzzle
WARNINGS:  N/A
SUMMARY: In the world of Arcadea, people can accomplish their dreams. How? Through video games of course! Everybody who lives in Arcadea has a special arcade machine they can visit in their dreams that lets them fulfill their strongest wishes. Whether it’s to go on an adventure, or make friends, or fall in love, or solve a mystery, or completely start a new life, there’s a game made just for them..
The game follows Maisie, a new arrival to Arcadea. She’s not very interested in all this gaming stuff; her only goal is to find an important person. But along the way, she can’t help but be roped into other people’s problems. She also can’t help that the arcade machines seem to glitch around her. A lot.

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! 
*Hello everyone! My name is Aishin and I’m the developer of ARCADEA! I have been in the community for about 8 years. I started working with RPGMaker in 2014 and played around with some horror game concepts that never came to fruition. I realized that drawing dark or creepy things and trying to scare people wasn’t really up my alley. After failing to make a horror game, I attempted a more happy and relaxing concept and was much more satisfied with the results.

What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially?
*Aishin: ARCADEA is a fantasy story that mainly involves adventuring through different strange lands, solving puzzles, and doing quests. In between the adventuring segments, the player plays little mini-games on arcade machines that act as foreshadowing as well as introspective character explorations. It’s a game about the safety as well as the troubles of escapism. It’s also games within a game and that’s always fun right?
My initial inspiration was from seeing other RPG Maker games. Being in the community and seeing other games being developed made me strive to make one of my own!

How long have you been working on your project?
*Aishin: A little less than one year so far. The story and characters have been through many revisions and changes. I’m happy to say that I am fully satisfied at the final revision and I will be bringing the world to life as best as I can~

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project?
*Aishin: My game was influenced by fairy tales, mainly Peter Pan and The Little Mermaid. I also was heavily inspired by the MOTHER series and its quirky humor, as well as very meta games such as OneShot, Libretta, and Undertale. Also To the Moon, as it was the first RPG Maker game I have played that was not horror. Games that, after playing them, makes you kind of sit there… in wonder.

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them?  
*Aishin: The biggest challenge was actually finding time to sit down and work on the game. I’m about to finish my third year of pharmacy school and the workload leaves me too tired to even pick up my tablet pen sometimes. However, every moment I actually do spend on the game is very satisfying and I am getting faster and more efficient with everything: spriting, mapping, drawing, eventing, checking for bugs, etc. I’m just waiting for school to be over so I can start putting my all into this game!
Oh and also debugging. Oh man do I hate script conflicts.

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept?
*Aishin: Many many MANY aspects. Originally, the game wasn’t even going to have arcade machines! Crazy stuff.
After the addition of the mini-games, everything just…happened. The characters all got fleshed out backstories, the main character actually became a CHARACTER rather than a player’s avatar, more games and puzzles were made, the world became more dense with ‘stuff’….
The story became simpler. But the actual themes and concepts around the story became more real.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team?
*Aishin: I’m the sole developer of the game. I have a couple of friends that act as my beta testers. They also help with edits, proofreading, and ideas. I am planning on finding a composer in the future for music compositions (the one thing I can’t do by myself :c).

What was the best part of developing the game?
*Aishin: For me, it’s seeing everything coming together in action! Seeing my character sprites moving around on a map I made, saying dialogue that I wrote is such a fulfilling feeling. And making the maps as beautiful as I can is pretty fun!
And then a bug happens and you just sit in a corner and cry.
loljk

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently?
*Aishin: I wish I learned Ruby before starting this project. I had to learn as I go but unfortunately that lead to random script issues. I had to request a friend’s help to solve them and luckily it was nothing too bad. The good news is, I am now able to resolve script conflicts on my own! (And with google)

Once you finish your project, do you plan to explore game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is?
*Aishin: This will probably be a stand-alone game. The story and characters have a definite beginning and end. I feel like there’s no need to expand on this world any further.

What do you look most forward to upon/after release?
*Aishin: I would like to see people play it. Whether they like it or not, I hope I get some critique on the game. It would be nice if people really enjoyed playing it c:
Of course, more sleep is another thing to look forward to.

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? 
*Aishin: GAME BREAKING BUGS. Also I really hope there aren’t any weird story plot holes…

Question from last month’s featured dev: What are some practical tricks you’ve learned in RPG Maker that novice (or even advanced) developers might not know?
*Aishin: - If you want to make the screen pan, make your character transparent and have them walk where it’s needed (have a dummy sprite act as your character in the meantime).
- Take advantage of the addition and subtract effects of pictures when doing lighting for maps (especially parallax maps). Also you can have the light or shadows fade in and out by using the 'Move Picture’ event and adjusting opacity.
- USE THE ’\!’ BEFORE ANY DIALOGUE CHOICES THE PLAYER HAS TO MAKE. This prevents the player from accidentally clicking through too fast and picking an answer that they don’t want! I can’t tell you how many endings I messed up on getting because of this.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs?
*Aishin: Definitely try! I would start with a free program like RPGMaker Lite and play around with it. I think what turns most people away is feeling that the RPG Maker program is very complex. But it’s actually pretty easy to pick up on!
Also, starting small is very helpful. Making a ginormous, long game immediately is pretty daunting, especially if you’re inexperienced (although some people have managed to do it). I would at least know a little bit about events and scripts before jumping into a huge project.
And if in the end, you feel that making games isn’t for you, you at least get some experience and knowledge out of it. As well as a greater appreciation for games and the work/process that goes into game development!

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

- Mods Gold & Platinum 

March’s Featured Game: Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass

DEVELOPER(S): Kasey
ENGINE: RPGMaker VX Ace  
GENRE: RPG, Exploration, Comedy
WARNINGS:  Blood
SUMMARY: Jimmy dreams of the most fantastic things. He dreams of big yellow fields of sunflowers. He dreams of living woodwinds and talking mice. He dreams of his mom. He dreams of his dad. He dreams of all the video games he’s played with his uncle. He dreams of his brother standing beside him like a ten-foot giant. Sometimes he has nightmares, too. Jimmy’s about to go on the adventure of his lifetime - and no one’s going to know about it but him.

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! 
*Howdy! My name’s Kasey, and I’m the lone dude working on Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass. You might also know me as Housekeeping on rpgmaker.net. I’ve been working with RPG Maker seriously for about six/seven years now, I think. I was also the developer of A Very Long Rope to the Top of the Sky, The God of Crawling Eyes, and The Heart Pumps Clay; I was also one of the developers that worked on Born Under the Rain (I mainly did the script and the music on it). Before that I played with RPG Maker on and off for years; I even made a 5-10 hour game on the Playstation version of RPG Maker in high school, which is clear and indisputable proof that I was the most popular guy in school. I also have played guitar for fourteen years, have an MA in English with an emphasis on creative writing, and if you put a dog in front of me I will pet it until it gets tired of me.

What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially?
*Kasey: Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass is about a lot of stuff, but I think that what it’s most about is depicting what it’s like to be a shy, introverted kid. It’s also about success and the pressure Americans put on themselves to be successful, the importance of empathy, imagination, video games, fear, family, etc. Basically, these are all things important in childhood, so I think that’s the umbrella theme that works best.
For Jimmy’s subject matter, I was inspired by several things, so it’s hard to pin it down. But, in a more practical sense, I’d been wanting to move forward and make a commercial project since I first started seriously working with RPG Maker, but I always thought that I would have to find a team. So, I think what inspired me the most to actually get on this path by myself was seeing in-development screenshots of Lisa. I said, “Hey, this guy’s doing everything by himself, and his art style might be simplistic, but it looks great, so why can’t you do that?”

How long have you been working on your project?
*Kasey: I’ve been working on Jimmy for about two-and-a-half years. Before that, I was working on a shorter version of this game for a half a year or so, so let’s call it an even three.

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project?
*Kasey: Oh yeah! Earthbound is the first and most obvious influence; there’s some tonal similarities, but I mainly used it as visual inspiration. I was also inspired by Yume Nikki’s approach to using setting as a form of characterization; that opened up a whole new world of storytelling for me, which is pretty exciting. Jimmy essentially has a “class system” in that he can imagine different monsters and change his abilities; this was heavily influenced by Final Fantasy 5’s class system. The field actions are somewhere between Breath of Fire and Lufia 2/Wild Arms’s tools; they give Jimmy new ways to interact with the environment, including solving some basic puzzles, but the game isn’t puzzle-heavy like Lufia 2.

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them?  
*Kasey: Yeah; in a game this size, you run into all sorts of things. I think the biggest challenges for me tend to be with drawing. I’ve got a lot of experience writing, composing, and eventing, but I’m a middling-to-poor artist, so I’ve had a major learning curve there. There’s not much of a story towards overcoming my artistic deficiencies; I just keep at it. The cool thing is that I can see some clear progress from when I started, and that keeps me on task.

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept?
*Kasey: Here’s a boring answer: basically, no, my initial concept is the same. Well, that’s not entirely true; like I mentioned earlier, Jimmy was originally a much shorter game that wasn’t going to be commercial (it was also drawn with crayons and looked like garbage), but, once I committed to making a full-length RPG, it’s been the same. This is probably because this isn’t my first rodeo, so I knew what I could do and planned within the boundaries of the engine.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team?
*Kasey: I am…utterly alone. Boohoohoohoohoo!

What was the best part of developing the game?
*Kasey: I like writing/eventing scenes the most, which sucks, because it’s a relatively short part of the process, and it’s one of the last things I do.

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently?
*Kasey: There are things I learned–mainly about drawing–that I would have liked to know when I first started. Like, I wish that I would have known what saturation was; yeah, that’s how clueless I was. My early work was super saturated and is an eyesore; I had to go back and lower the saturation a bit. I would have liked to know I could hold ctrl when using the select tool in Graphics Gale and push the arrow keys to test to make sure that tiles looped correctly. I would have liked to know that you can create a picture file that’s the same size as the resolution of your game, place images on that, and use the x/y coordinates to determine where your pictures using the move/show picture commands will end up. That’s the kind of stuff I wish I knew–would have saved me so much time early on.

Once you finish your project, do you plan to explore game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is?
*Kasey: It’s going to be a standalone game. I have a very rough idea for another game in the same universe, but I’ve got a lifetime of ideas, so I would need a very good reason (inspirationally) to pursue that.

What do you look most forward to upon/after release?
*Kasey: I just want to see people enjoying it!

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? 
*Kasey: Yeah: I’m scared to death of marketing. That’s why I’ve been dragging my feet on getting a promotional video together (don’t worry, I’ll get to it this summer). I’m afraid I won’t be able to reach enough people and not many people will play it. I’m afraid that the coolest thing I’ve ever done will be overlooked.

Question from last month’s featured dev: Which character from your game do you relate to the most? Why?
*Kasey: This is an easy one: Jimmy. I’m still a fairly quiet adult when I’m with a large group of people, but when I was a kid, I was so, so shy. I remember when I was a kid at church camp (don’t laugh, I’m from Texas; this was inescapable), we were doing some exercise in compliments, and the camp counselor said that I was quiet, but he could tell that “the wheels were always turning,” and I think that was a pretty accurate description of me–now to a degree, but especially then–and that’s what I’m trying to depict with Jimmy–all those wheels.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs?
*Kasey: The best advice I can give you is to get into every aspect of game development. Make a short project–maybe an hour or so–and do EVERYTHING. Make all the graphics, make all the music, experiment with every single eventing command, make little puzzles, change the window skin–do it all. Some of it’s going to feel like cleaning the gutters, but you’re going to get so much perspective. Even if you end up working on a team later where all you do is draw character cut-ins, you’ll at least know to an extent what your other team members are going through, and that’s IMPORTANT. Also, play lots of games with a critical eye; think about why things are engaging and how they could be improved. Culture is built off of itself, so learn from the past and make it better.

We mods would like to thank Kasey 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 Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum 

February’s Featured Game: Aria’s Story

DEVELOPER(S): Lydia
ENGINE: RPGMaker VX Ace  
GENRE: Horror, Puzzle, Exploration
WARNINGS:  Blood, minor jumpscares
SUMMARY: Aria is a bookworm who loves adventure stories and always spends her free time in the library. One day she falls asleep while reading a book and when she wakes up the library is closed. Believing that they forgot to wake her up, she tries to find a way out… In that moment she becomes the protagonist of her own story.

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! 
*Hi! I’m Lydia, the developer and artist of Aria’s Story. This is my first time developing a game but I’ve been in the RPG Maker fandom for almost 4 years!

What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially?
*Lydia: Aria’s Story is a horror game about the adventures of a girl trapped in a library. She will interact with many books while trying to find a way out! One of the main characteristics of the game is the contrast between cute and creepy.

How long have you been working on your project?
*Lydia: Almost 2 years, I started working on this game on March 2015.

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project?
*Lydia: Basically other horror games like Ib, The Witch’s House and Dreaming Mary. Also, many tales and books influenced maps of the game. Madoka Magica and Harry Potter also influenced some aspects of the game!

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them?  
*Lydia: I think the biggest challenge was the beginning. I didn’t know how to use RPG Maker so I spent a whole month trying to learn how to use it! Sometimes it was a bit frustrating because some events didn’t work how I wanted.

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept?
*Lydia: It doesn’t differ much from the initial concept, I always wanted this to be a game about a girl trapped in a library. I think the biggest change was the true ending of the game, but this happened before the game was announced.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team?
*Lydia: It was just me and two friends (Kali and MerúM) that helped me with character designs and sprites. Before the release of the demo I recruited the voice actors (Rindre, HonorPress, Adox) and the composer (Adam). Rindre, Aria’s voice actress, also made the english translation of the demo!

What was the best part of developing the game?
*Lydia: Programming cutscenes and making maps! I love when I see what I had in mind turned into a part of the game and the characters interact with each other, I feel like all the effort was worth it. Also, another important part of developing a game is that it allowed me to meet wonderful people!

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently?
*Lydia: When I was planning the game I decided that different actions and decisions would affect the ending the player would receive.

Once you finish your project, do you plan to explore game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is?
*This game doesn’t need a sequel or a prequel. If I decide to make another game, it will be something new.

What do you look most forward to upon/after release?
*Lydia: I hope people who aren’t very interested in books will find them more appealing after playing the game!

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? 
*Yes! I hope the game doesn’t have bugs when I release it, or at least not a bug that will crash the game or something like that.

Question from last month’s featured dev: Is there anything you’ve added to your game for no other reason than because you’re hoping fans will get a kick out of it?
*Lydia: Yes, the game has a lot of jokes and interesting dialogues related to books that I hope the players will enjoy! I thought about making references to other games when the player interacts with some bookshelves, but I decided to discard the idea.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs?
*Lydia: Just do it, don’t be afraid!

We mods would like to thank Lydia 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 Aria’s Story if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum 

January’s Featured Game: Wishbone

DEVELOPER(S): Skitty,Kwillow,Ellie,Natasha
ENGINE: RPGMaker VX Ace  
GENRE: Western, Drama, Farming Simulation
WARNINGS:  N/A
SUMMARY: Wishbone is a character drama-slash-farming sim game that takes place in a wild west-inspired setting. The player takes the role of a farmer, fresh off the wagon in a new town and tasked with building a successful ranch. Wishbone might seem sleepy and mundane at first, but there’s trouble brewing on the horizon: a fierce, prolonged standoff between the lawmen and the outlaws that will decide the fate of the town itself.

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! 
*Skitty: Hello! I’m Skitty, a scruffy weirdo whose hobbies include drawing, programming, and cooking. I also happen to be the coder, project manager, and one of the main artists. In 2014, I released my first game, Theo’s Big Adventure, but actually haven’t really been involved in the community… I’m a bit of a hermit.

What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially?
*Skitty: It’s kind of a funny story. Several years ago, I used to be part of the Fallout: New Vegas roleplay community on tumblr. Just for fun, a few of my friends and I came up with an alternate universe where instead of living in the post-apocalyptic desert, all the characters lived in the wild west instead. We ended up having a lot of fun with the idea! My friend, Ellie (who is also working on this project as a writer), suggested the idea of an Animal Crossing-esque game based on that setting… and I, having coding knowledge and having made a game before, volunteered to make it. The struggle between the four central characters remains the same as the initial concept, but the project and the people of the town have evolved a lot since then.

How long have you been working on your project?
*Skitty: I started it around April 2015, so it’s a few months short of two years old. Progress has been slow because I’m also juggling a job and other obligations, but even during busy times, I typically manage to work on Wishbone every week. Every couple weeks, new features get done and updates are posted to the dev blog.

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project?
*Skitty: The three biggest ones are Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, and Red Dead Redemption. From Animal Crossing, we have have befriending townspeople and decorating your house. From Harvest Moon, we have the farming mechanics and romance. From Red Dead Redemption, we have hunting, foraging, and outlaw bounties. And I suppose Fallout: New Vegas deserves a shoutout for kicking the whole project off, albeit indirectly.

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them?  
*Skitty: Honestly, we’ve been fighting against RPG Maker’s limitations since the beginning, since the game we’re making is quite unlike a top-down RPG.

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept?
*Skitty: It actually hasn’t changed a whole lot. In the beginning, we had this core concept, basically just Animal Crossing plus Harvest Moon. But even back then we knew we wanted a big plot and minigames and sidequests and stuff… it was just a matter of figuring out if those were feasible to program.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team?
*Skitty: It’s pretty much the same as it always was–me as the programmer/project manager/spriter, Katie as the portrait artist and other spriter, Ellie, Dax, Jester, and Reuben as character/plot contributors. Oh! I guess the big difference now is that we are in the process of hiring a composer?

What was the best part of developing the game?
*Skitty: Seeing it all come together into something finished and cool. Sometimes I like to just lovingly look at the maps and videos and such I’m proudest of and think “wow, I did that! And it turned out almost exactly how I’d imagined!”

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently?
*Skitty: Man, I’d definitely be craftier about how I handled the code for the animals. I didn’t know a lot about scripting at first, MONTHS worth of headache could have been avoided if I’d known how to use script calls.

Once you finish your project, do you plan to explore game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is?
*Skitty: We definitely have plans to use the characters again, but when they’re revisited, it’s going to be in different contexts. You won’t see the desert of Wishbone again, but the characters will absolutely be popping up in future projects.

What do you look most forward to upon/after release?
*Skitty: Gosh, it would be amazing if people liked the game enough to call themselves a fan! I’m definitely looking forward to people’s reactions to discovering plot twists and easter eggs and such. I hope people like the characters, too.

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? 
*Skitty: I hope there aren’t too many bugs in it when I release it! I mean, I’m testing it as I go, but it’s a really big and complex game… there are going to be things I don’t catch. I’d be really disappointed if I released it with a glitch that broke people’s save files.

Question from last month’s featured dev: What’s the biggest turn off you can get on an RPG maker game?
*Skitty: Hmm… honestly, using the default sprites tends to be a pretty big turnoff. As an artist, it is very important to me that the game have an “aesthetic”, a sense of atmosphere, that the characters feel like individuals… that’s what really catches my eye and makes me want to learn more. I know not everybody is an artist, but like, a simple 8-bit sort of style, or even a “shitpunk” style like Space Funeral is more eye-catching than the default tiles.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs?
*Skitty: Try to set realistic goals for your first (or second, or third…) project. It’s so tempting to want to tell your magnum opus immediately, but that’s usually a recipe for ending up frustrated, disappointed, and quitting. My first project, Theo’s Big Adventure, was fairly short, used mostly ripped sprites from Mother 3 and ripped music from other video games, and still took a year and three months to complete.

We mods would like to thank SkittyandKatie 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 Wishbone 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 

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June’s Featured Game: Living Playground: The Witch’s Puppets

DEVELOPER(S):Meaka
ENGINE: RPGMaker XP 
GENRE: Supernatural, Puzzle
WARNINGS:   Both implied and shown violence to the children, Emotional abuse, Blood
SUMMARY: With what starts as a simple day at the park, siblings Tony, Pablo, and Octavio are once again caught up in a series of strange circumstances such as strange pocket dimensions, coordinated monsters, and more geese than anyone could ever want to see in their lives. Stranded with them are Haze and Seal, two witches who seem to be connected with whatever nonsense is going down. As witches tend to be.In the simplest of terms, this game is about friendship and relating to others, both the good and the bad. With an unfortunate focus on the bad. It will be mostly straightforward with only one ending. 

Download the demo here!

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! 
*Hi hello I’m Meaka. I’ve been kicking around the RPG Maker scene since like 2012 with my first game release in 2014. Whether that makes me but a wee RPGM baby or a seasoned veteran is probably dependent on how “long” you’d consider that h-haha. I’m an animator and illustrator, so visual development is my strong suit.

What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially?
*Meaka: The Witch’s Puppets is best summed up as “a game about friendship.” Part of my motivation for creating it was simply personal catharsis: it deals heavily with circumstances that impacted my own life greatly and affects how I interact with people to this very day. Beyond real-life experiences, a big inspiration is Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star in terms of how emotionally raw and powerful it is while also carrying on its sense of humor.

How long have you been working on your project?
*Meaka: Far too long oh man. As a reference, my first game took me maybe six to eight months on and off to complete. I’m. almost 3 years into The Witch’s Puppets and while I can probably hope for the best in terms of my completion rate, it’s been a wild ride. (Did you know I thought it’d only take a year? 2014 me, how innocent you were…)

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project?
*Meaka: I say this like everywhere and I’m sorry if I’m repeating myself, but a huge inspiration for my art in general is the Kirby series. It has such a flawless blend of cute-to-macabre that I absolutely love and hope to capture that same feeling in my own work!
Living Playground was inspired by the usual “RPG Maker/ Wolf RPG Editor” games (mostly Ib and Alice_mare) which led to it’s “kind of horror but not really” flavor.

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them?  
*Meaka: In all honesty, just staying motivated three years into a project is difficult. I’m absolutely ecstatic to be making this game and bring it to people for them to play, but it’s so easy to be excited about the cool parts and hit a wall production-wise when it comes to the mundane and tedious parts, particularly programming events that tend to be made up of a ton of conditional branches, variables, and occasionally will crash RMXP. So I give myself breaks on occasion and try to switch it up between whether I work on visual assets or RPG Maker programming, and sometimes I flip over to side projects (be it jam games or just other art).

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept?
*Meaka: From my initial concept, beyond certain themes and characters, they’re two entirely different storylines. I actually gutted the entire script and started over at least twice during the course of production because of things not flowing well, weird writing choices by me, or just ideas that I slowly realized weren’t that good.
In particular, a very big part of some rewriting came from having some friends look over my script + game doc and pointing out some flaws that were from too much personal investment. If you’re ever in a tight spot and not sure if stuff reads right, get some friends to beta read for you!

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?
*Meaka: In my first game it was just me until I threw it at some people to beta test. That was an interesting experience.
For the Witch’s Puppets, I commissioned music from the absolutely amazing ProjectTrinity and needing to consolidate my ideas and express them in a way for someone to create music for it helped me commit to my ideas and also helped me put into words what I couldn’t really describe well beforehand.
I haven’t really had the chance to work fully on a team. I’d sure love to, but I fear my hectic life schedule would hold back whatever team I would want to join.

What was the best part of developing the game?
*Meaka: I may be an animator and used to this by now, but there’s something really magical about making your characters and putting them into a thing and then they move around. It just feels really nice.
Also for me, I love telling stories and entertaining people, so I hope that my games allow me to do that! Whenever someone offhand mentions they enjoy something I make, it fills me with the warm fuzzies. (And don’t even get me started on fanart. I literally cry.)

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently?
*Meaka: I absolutely want to 100% go back and remake Living Playground one day. It was the best I could do at the time, but now that I know so much more about what RPG Maker can and can’t do, I want to go back and fix all those little things and make it more of what I wanted it to be.
… Also cut back on the ham-fisted attempts to be scary, maybe.

Once you finish your project, do you plan to explore game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is?
*Meaka: I’ve already kind of done that! The Witch’s Puppets is a sequel-but-not-really. And also Retail Hell, my Horror Funhouse jam project, is set in the same universe. As for the future, I can’t say for sure that I’ll make another game with the same characters, but I love the playground kids so I would never rule out the possibility of making something containing them again. Whether it’s a game or not, that’s a problem for Future Meaka to figure out.

What do you look most forward to upon/after release?
*Meaka: It might be conceited of me, but I hope to see it give some sort of positive impact on people, even if just a little! I’d like to hope my little Friendship Game helps someone out if they’re in a rough patch and at least makes them smile for a bit.
Also I cannot wait to shitpost with wild abandon. Bad memes, here I come.

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? 
*Meaka: I always low-key fear my files corrupting and losing everything, but since I am paranoid and keep a ton of back-up copies, I don’t think that’s going to be an issue.
There’s also a small part of me that is worried about people completely missing the point, but at that point I guess it would fall on my writing…!

Question from last month’s featured dev: Which of your characters do you feel like you’d get along with the most?
*Meaka: Strong Pickle. There is no other answer.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs?
*Meaka: Google Drive, Dropbox, and Mediafire are good friends and back up your stuff!
Also, there will be days when making your game will not be fun. You will open your version of RPG Maker and look at it with dread. Keep going. Even if it’s just one event a day, one spriteset at a time, keep on poking at that game. It just seems daunting because you know what you want it to be and you’re looking at the beginning of the beginning. You can do it!!!

We mods would like to thank Meaka 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 Living Playground: The Witch’s Puppets if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum 

Sibily from qui domibyThekatlady123

Still going strong >:0

Follow updates on the Kickstarter page

By cupcakepotatoqueen on Instagram

Updated art! I’ve been doing a lot of pixel art and I’ve definitely gotten better, so I figured it was time to let the old art match the newer stuff.

I probably won’t update the demo with the new art and instead save it for its official release, unless I find some kind of bug that I need to patch.

Skully has been scrapped, and here is his replacement, same name. She’s a potion master and Albie’s best friend. Original design by James Cross.

Meet Kitty! Designed by backer Mary Borsellino.

Next step, the story of the game. I have everything in my head but this step will cost me because my first game was an adaptation of a book. Besides that I need it to do the dialogues and the events.

Here is a sample of the tilesets and the mapping that will be seen in the game, there is still a lot but little by little.