7/13/2022 - Retrospective

This project was pretty interesting because, like Rosie, it was made specifically just to learn more about the program. As a result I tried to keep the story simple and stick to the assets that came preloaded to the program (I've been putting it off but I still need to look into it, thanks again to whoever originally designed the assets that come with the Wolf RPG Editor)! I think unlike Rosie, I had a better handle on making RPGs as a whole.

If I ever decide to release it, it's obvious that even though familiar is leagues shorter, it feels a lot better to play through than a game I was working on called H I D E. I think so far I've been struggling to incorporate more interaction in RPGs, and I think this peeked in H I D E where there is actually very little interaction and real "gameplay" and even that I made more or less optional. I focused very much on the assets and the story, which the assets I'm really proud of (the story could use some polishing ;-;). But by the time I was done, honestly besides moving around it played no different than a visual novel. Actually, it wouldn't be a bad idea to remake it as a visual novel instead, now that I think about it.

familiar was my first RPG directly after working on that project. It was made after I found out that Wolf RPG Editor was free (and I'm a sucker for free stuff) and that a pretty recent translation was floating around the internet (thanks to Velella Himmel (vgperson) and Jeffrey Casey (Widderune) !). I snagged myself a copy and began experimenting. I really wanted to improve from my mistakes made in H I D E, so I intentionally avoided working on the assets and focused mostly on the gameplay, supplementing story where I thought it fit. I think I'm still unused to writing narratives for games, so it may come across as a bit clunky especially in the end, but I am proud of it in my own way!

Of course I hit a lot of obstacles during development. Mainly that Wolf RPG Editor LOOKS rather clunky compared to RPGMaker MV, at least at first, but the more basic aesthetics actually hide a program that has much more flexibility than RPGMaker MV. I don't know how it compares to other RPGMakers, especially the older ones like 2003 and XP, but at least compared to RPGMaker MV it let me do things that normally are either frusterating or downright impossible- even basic things like controlling how big the visual assets are (16x16, 32x32, 0r 40x40 as opposed to MV's 48x48) or how many directions the character can turn in (4-D or even 8-D, something I believe is possible with MV but that I was never able to figure out outside of plugins). I wasn't able to do as much as I liked, partially because it took me a while just to get used to the new program (you would not believe how long it took me to change how much of an item the player has, and how simple it is to do!) as well I think Wolf RPG has a similar thing to MV with plugins, in their case they have a database of Common Events which you can plug in to the program... unfortunately most of that database is in Japanese, so unlike plugins with MV it is hard to figure out how to implement them. Still, if you have a bit of a knack for coding it makes it a lot easier to figure out how to implement the Common Events or even to write your own, whereas implementing plugins always felt like a fight with the program, and don't even get me started on if some of the plugins had redundant coding that overwrote each other... 

It's a shame that I don't currently know much Japanese, and will be limited in my understanding of Wolf, as at first glance it seems to have even more potential than RPGMaker in terms of implementing interesting mechanics and unique coding. I also am not sure if I want to stick with RPGs as well- I've been thinking about branching out to programs like Unity and Godot instead, and have even begun working on a short 3D exploration game in Unity. It's difficult though, because I still have so many ideas about different top-down RPGs I could make!

We'll see how it goes. It's funny that lately I've been so drawn to horror RPGs, when in the past they were often hard to stomach for me. People change, I guess? But, I also want to know how people think of my games too. As much as I love making this stuff, it's hard to put a lot of time into something that no one will ever see... well, it happens I guess. Like everything else, I think I'll just play it by ear.

Either way, thanks for all who took the time to read through this postmortem, and hope you enjoy playing familar and any more of my games to come!