Rorasuketo Dev Blog

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Alpha testing this fall.

Greetings, visitors. I'm plugging away at the last few maps of Rorasuketo! I have over 200 right now, and there are 15 or fewer to go. I can see the finish line, and it looks beautiful to me. If you would be interested in alpha or beta testing this fall, please drop Tibbs-Babu Publishing a line at tibbs.babu@gmail.com. I'm looking for 15 testers for each version. You will be getting an imperfect game, possibly some bugs, but you can take pride in helping someone else's creative vision come to fruition. And you'll get a free Steam code to use upon official release. I anticipate about 4 hours of gameplay. Let us know!

Skessa!

I wanted a tribute to some of the very cool European teams out there. When I was still playing roller derby, there was beginning to be a bit of an outcry that all of the major events were being held in the United States, despite flat track derby being more and more of an international affair. This created hardships for European skaters who had to travel overseas to participate in damn near anything. That's no longer the case. But before there were Continental Cups, a lovely team from Norway visited my little corner of the States. The leagues in my area were pretty evenly matched with them. They also wanted some experience playing different teams and to get a solid footing in the rankings. (If I remember this all correctly!) They had the most adorable pre-game rituals involving traditional children's songs - think "Ring Around the Rosy" or "Duck Duck Goose." I must admit I also put A-ha's Take On Me on the jukebox at the afterparty and enjoyed watching ...

Reflections after another playthrough.

I watched my adoring husband do a 3.5 hour playtest over the weekend, and in the process filled a 2' by 4' white board with things to fix or change. It was a bit overwhelming, recognizing all the work I unexpectedly needed to do. It was also a little deflating, experiencing my game through someone else's eyes - seeing it for exactly what it is instead of the ivory tower I've worked up in my mind. I am only where I am, and can only do what I can do. (There's also only so much a player will experience. They won't find every easter egg and engage every dialogue option.) No, Rorasuketo is not going to be the most incredible video game of all time, but I would like to think I still have something special and unique. The people in my corner agree, which is nice. Though my list of fixes was long, I was able to knock out many of them quickly. (Some are anal-retentive things like "change the line break in this one piece of dialogue" and some are fundamental, ...

Getting organized.

It's been brought to my attention that I am incredibly disorganized! So I've been getting intentional about making lists and flow charts to make sure, as the game starts to come together into one long strand, that everything is accounted for. So I started a new document where I laid down the entire story, highlighted by themes and subplots, to make sure the colors were well-spaced, well-represented, and resolved. I say the game is "story-based," and I would like to think I am correct. After doing this particular activity, part of me worries that I'm trying to cram too many subplots into a 4-hour package. Then again, some of them are optional or possibly subtle enough for some of the first beats to fly under the radar. I don't see a ton of replayability in Rorasuketo for the casual player; the explorer type might want to have another go or two to try other friend or story options. So I think it will be good to intertwine a variety of threads! I'm happy to s...

Beach bums.

I'm really happy to show this one off. In general, my visual art tends to be bereft of contrast - I'm afraid of commitment. When I do try to bring in dynamic lighting, it's amateurish from lack of practice. But I think our girls turned out pretty well here. The most fun part was probably - in fact - the drink.

Sail on in my memory...

Sometimes it's nice to have a friend looking out for you! (Even if they're not perfect in their execution.) There will be a series of images over the end credits. I'm hoping they'll be really special. My work is in an as-needed service, so there is usually some degree of downtime waiting for something to happen. It's hard to say what a day will bring. Busy? Slow? There are guesses, but no guarantees. So I theoretically have time to make progress on Rora at work - but I prefer to do art instead of hashing out the actual gameplay. I feel like if I'm interrupted in the middle of programming and spend an hour or two away on another task, I'll forget what I was doing. As it stands, there's a few pieces of art left to do. So this is a fine use of my time. I'm trying to make something really magical happen, and it's a 99.99% chance it won't come to fruition. But if that 0.01% chance comes around, I will literally cry with happiness. That's all...

Arrow minigame!

I spent way too long banging my head against the wall yesterday, trying to figure out why the game wasn't receiving button inputs, only to find out that I had a switch turning on and off while an NPC was moving in the background. I can't remember what it was I was trying to do when I originally placed that NPC on the map. Did that switch do something originally, and why did I change it to do something else later? Do I have a switch doing double duty somewhere else? And that's why you need to keep your switches organized, kids. Anyway, I'm channeling a little Dance Dance Revolution with my arrows here, which I have no qualms about. You're not an ordinary fella! I'm contemplating doing another webcast soon to keep me accountable. Summer is rocketing along and I need to tap these days to the maximum.