The Opening of the World - Chapter 1 Release

Welcome to my first devlog!

Posting on itch.io with my game for the first time is a fantastic experience! I must say it's also so satisfying to play a video game that I made and be like, "Yep, I made that! This is my world, my characters, and my story!" Seeing this slowly come to life after years of work is a wonderful feeling. 

This project officially started development in 2019. It took so long because I had a rapid fluctuation of ideas until I decided on a definitive theme, characters, and story in 2021.  I have been using the RPGMAKER software since I was a kid in 2011. I made a version of this game back then, but unfortunately, I lost the files. Luckily, I have a record of this as I posted my old project on the RPGMAKER Forums in 2013. I have reposted this 2024 remake as well. 

Chapter 1 should take just under one hour to complete. I wanted to build a game that was less about death by random battles and more about exploring, solving puzzles, finding items, and talking to NPCs. 

Instead of random battles, I opted for timed ones. I believe this type of combat suits the kind of game I am producing right now. I will keep the fighting as timed for ARC 1 (Chapters 1-5). Afterwards, I may go to random battles as I plan to take the exploration element beyond Catalpa or make it so the player has to interact with the enemies. However, I am not getting too carried away. Battles will remain timed for the foreseeable future!

Exploring is a massive part of my game. However, I have carefully designed the map so buildings don't seem too far away from one another. I hope when you play my game, you will not feel like they are walking miles to get from A to B. One of my side quests in chapter 1 - 'Longing for Ladders', is designed to boost connectivity between my main three maps! I also hope the map feels dense enough to feel like there is life in Catalpa and that there is still stuff to do and interact with. I have aimed to do most of my maps in a parallax style as I want to portray as much life in this world that the original RTP might not achieve by itself. 

Chapter 1 doesn't contain many puzzles. It mainly involves finding items and placing them in the correct place, like when Curran, Keeran, and Rahna are down in the Catalpa Market Cellar. In future chapters, I plan to incorporate puzzles where players may need to restart if they mess something up. I have one in mind for chapter 2! Chapter 1 serves as an introduction to this world and critical characters. However, each chapter does push the story along and will hopefully keep the player wanting more. 

NPC dialogue is paramount in my game, which has a lot of text. I readily admit to this. I feel it's needed, but I know people are not going to read an endless wall of text. I have attempted to make the text as enjoyable as possible. This is done is two ways. Firstly, I try to make each block of text two lines or less. Hopefully, this enables fast readers to skim read with little issue. I have also used a lot of different colours, boldness and sizes during dialogue to help encourage players to slow down and take in the text or keep players engaged. I hope I have achieved this goal and you can follow the dialogue comfortably. 

Please leave small or large feedback, as this would be greatly appreciated. Sharing and rating would also be a great help. Finally, if you wish to donate, the money will go to the game's development. The funds will go to purchasing plugins and game assets. In the future, I may utilise more of YANFLY'S plugins, allowing me to invent more ways of doing puzzles and easing gameplay. Most characters in the game are unique insofar as I have used the character generation tool to make them. However, investing more in this generator to purchase more art and assets would significantly improve the world I am building. 

All in all, thank you for reading my first of hopefully many devlogs. I will conclude by saying that for a smooth playthrough, I recommend downloading the game rather than opting to play on the browser. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy my game!