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We have the best soundtrack in the world!

You can check out some game info and the entire Rorasuketo soundtrack by Michael Chadwick here . It's absolutely divine. When I said I wanted to pay homage to the Super Nintendo games of my youth, he went to town and grabbed some soundfonts from games like Final Fantasy IV, Earthbound, and Battletoads . I am so happy with the results. The battle tracks are head-bangers, and the emotional lows are perfectly bittersweet. I wouldn't change a thing. I've known Mike since the boom days of of LiveJournal  — which is a long time, for the kids following along at home. He's an immensely skilled guitarist and songwriter, and has a really impressive catalog of work . Originally, I was going to write the music myself, but Mike has far more experience. And in creative projects like this, doing everything yourself has the potential to turn out an inbred, constipated piece of art. Collaboration adds depth to the work that you might not have realized before. It lightens the workload....
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Another break winds down.

I played through  Rorasuketo 's linear story so far, recording commentary along the way, and it was about 2 hours. (I'm not ready to release the video to the world... yet.) I'm feeling at once proud and insecure, exhausted and energized. I've put in some long - and manic - days the last few weeks, and I'm starting a new semester. This means that progress will likely grind to a crawl until about May. A few things I noticed on this playthrough. I was extremely happy to earn some teammates' phone numbers. Affection mechanics are working nicely! However, I may have to bump up the challenge a little. Do I want the game to be crafted in a way that's it's possible "max out" affection with everyone by the end? I'm not sure. It always feels like a fun accomplishment, but there's also something hollow about it. I think being able to be besties with absolutely everyone sort of cheapens the friendships you forged first, and prioritized, and actuall...
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Plushies.

  Just some little guys. I realized that, for several reasons, purple kingpins and green dampers were not going to be good minigame fodder. So now we have these macguffins.
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A lived-in world.

I had my adoring husband Jerry do a playthrough of the approximately hour and a half of linear, uninterrupted gameplay, and one of the great compliments he gave me was that the dialogue wasn't "cookie cutter."   This pleased me. I'm working to make sure Rora  feels lived-in and fresh. I want the world to be something you  want  to explore and interact with (and a world that rewards you for doing so).  I feel a bit sheepish describing an hour and a half of gameplay. That's it? That's all I have to show right now? But I stress to myself that it is the linear component. It doesn't count minigames, dates, towns, and other elements that come down the pipeline later. See, I've just been working in chunks, building certain portions when they tickle my fancy. Maybe altogether it's more like 2 hours. The game itself will be probably about 3-4 hours, now that I take a cold, hard look at things. I read somewhere recently that approximately 100 hours of RPG Ma...
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In which our hero decides to settle (just a little bit).

Well, rollernauts, I am finally beginning to accept that my original vision for  Rorasuketo  was entirely too bold, and it's time to scale things back. I keep hearing that having an okay product done is better than having an amazing product never done. Therefore, I am taking out the battle system in  Rora . It breaks my heart, but so does having something perennially unfinished sitting on my hard drive for the rest of my life! The battle system is the last thing I was really working on during my previous academic break, and here's the thing. There was never any ability to "level grind" in  Rorasuketo . Battles were events that came and went at specific points in the story. Seemed cool. However, trying to figure out what was statistically fair and balanced, while still making some item/skill gains optional, was a huge pain in the neck. Making art has been fun. Building towns has been fun. Writing dialogue has been fun. But testing battles over and over again was ...
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Instruction manual!

Who remembers opening that crisp cardboard box - or, in many cases, that plastic clamshell from the used game store? And that instruction manual would tumble out (in the latter case: if you were lucky). I have especially fond memories of the FFIV instruction manual, which actually gave explicit directions on how to defeat one particular boss. No need for a Nintendo Power or strategy guide there, thank goodness.  "Why not give Rorasuketo a 1990s instruction manual?" I thought to myself. So I treated myself to a little side project.  I wanted to recreate that sitting-on-the-floor feeling, so we have a carpet backdrop. I debated throwing some (very tangled) black controller cables in the background, but we'll see. Rorasuketo is a weird game. My target audiences are: 1. People who love JRPGs, but probably don't know anything about roller derby. 2. People who love roller derby, but probably don't know anything abut JRPGs. There are some in-game tutorials, with addit...
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