If someone had told me that I’d be starting my own independent game developing process back in 2005, when I was jotting down notes about different ideas I’d like to see in a game into a list using dashes, I probably would have laughed them off. Now? It’s a bit overwhelming to be honest.

As fantasy RPGs have always been a fun way to pass time for me, especially the SNES, and PSX -era ones. I thought I’d aim to make a game which combines the retro feel of older RPGs such as Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy, Secret of Mana, and Suikoden, with the storytelling style of light novels (or visual novels if that’s your cup of tea) of the East. With nostalgia out-of-the-way, I can concentrate on elaborating a bit on why I took on this project: I have always been under the impression that old games were made with the best possible resources available at that time, and for that platform. On the other hand, I feel that giving something a retro tag nowadays is an excuse for putting in bad graphics and calling it a design choice. And while I must admit that I’ve already had to scale down the scope of my vision (I also understand if the people who did these choices in the independent game market had to do so too), I’ll try to keep the overall quality as high as I can within the boundaries of my budget.

The setting of the game is set in an imaginary continent which takes influences from the South-Eastern Asian mythology, which are then mixed with Western fantasy ideas to hopefully bring a unique take on an otherwise seen setting (I’d like to call it a Western interpretation of the far East). The concept of the game revolves around a concept I had not seen used before, and which I hope to be an even remotely interesting idea: A political coup d’etat without military involvement. Now, that doesn’t sound like a lot of fighting, granted, which is why the game focuses on a wandering spirit sealer for hire (and his party), who happens to get caught in a political power struggle in the court. The game itself should allow the player to destroy different boss monsters around the map if they choose to do so, but at the same time, the game shouldn’t hinder players who wish to follow the different stories unfolding inside the game.

The idea is to create as modular as possible fantasy RPG, which is event-driven throughout the game. In a way that you have splitting choices, which bring you towards your final objective. The key concept being, that every choice should be distinctly different in a way or open different parts of the lore. Also, while they might be binary choices with no real difference towards the final ending, they provide the player with different kinds of insight to the game world.

In my future posts, I will focus on elaborating on the points I’ve made here. Hopefully you’ll stay tuned and watch the game project grow.