Rorasuketo Dev Blog

It has been a strange week. There was a death in my family, and it's a complicated one, so loss is on my mind. There is a sort of "empty chair" exercise at the front end of the game where you have the opportunity to talk to someone who has hurt you. Now that the person I envisioned in that exercise is gone, I decided to tag a graveyard on the back end so the player can speak to someone they've lost - whether it's someone with whom they had a good or not-so-good relationship. I'm all about the catharsis. I've considered both a setting from my childhood and a graveyard for other projects - but added them to  Rorasuketo . Maybe I will get around to those other projects someday, but the areas are nice to have in here, too, just in case they don't manifest otherwise. I've been canvassing my city, and one of the themes I'm advertising is that it's a game about mental health recovery. There are times I've wondered if that's a good idea. I ...

 We have been busy doing this weird thing they call "promotion," and our friends at Bardertown Video are helping us out. We've got a display right at the checkout counter! We love Bardertown. Where else in Grand Rapids can you rent VHS tapes? They are also passionate about supporting local artists like yours truly. Totally give them a visit at the corner of Byron Center and Porter in Wyoming, MI. Look for Suite K. Grab yourself a Rorasuketo 3 by 5 and treasure it forever! Then rent or buy some videos.

Cam here! I was interviewed by Matt and Mike of the Hacking the Grepson podcast. They're two hoopy froods who know where their towels are, and do a lot of programming - and a lot of talking about it! They have well over 100 episodes you can listen to. So go check them out! I even got a special version of the intro song in Super Nintendo soundfonts! It was so fun and cool to do a podcast, especially with these fine gents. Some of the things we talked about were: The process of starting and finishing projects, and the "juicy" in-between How roller derby is played My experience with coding The importance of limitations in the creative process What I use to make the game portion of  Rorasuketo,  as well as the art I give a lot of unsolicited advice Thanks so much for having me on the show! And tonight is the night for the big webcast ! Join the chat at 8 pm E/5 pm P/midnight GMT to ask questions of Cam, Mike, and Tiffany, and see how  Rorasuketo  is made. We'll be takin...

  It's official! Yours truly (Cam), co-writer Tiffany, and composer Mike (of Hacking the Grepson ) will be streaming on YouTube on the evening of March 20 for the US (8E/5P), and the wee hours of March 21st for those in and beyond Greenwich Mean Time. I'll boot up RPG Maker MZ, make some maps and NPCs, and do whatever other tasks come up. We three will answer questions as we go! The webcast will be on YouTube. Save the link!

I have purchased a webcam (apparently Linus Tech Tips says it is good) and created an OBS setup that is looking fairly decent. Once the Tibbs-Babu Publishing YouTube channel has all its permissions set, I will start thinking about a date for a webcast. I will probably do things like make pixel art or even build a few remaining RPG Maker maps while answering questions from chat. Thrill! As you observe the great shower curtain (from PONY ) we mounted on the wall that cats have  definitely  not been climbing on for years, plus some other clutter. Also, my keyboard is greasy and I have to remedy that. But we're keeping it real around here. That's how we roll. Also, I will be appearing as a guest on the podcast  Hacking the Grepson  (yes, that is a play on a Hackers reference), which is co-hosted by our very own soundtrack composer Michael Chadwick. Release date TBA, but we'll be recording the episode soon. Matt and Mike are working on their own video game right now, so w...

One of the first things Steam has you do as a developer is tag your game. Here's my first go-around. Note that these tags are selected from a list:   The risk with using the "dating sim" tag is that my game may be miscategorized as pornographic, either mechanically by Steam, or by human passersby.  Rorasuketo  is not pornographic in any way. But affection is a core mechanic, and I want people who like affection mechanics to be able to find and enjoy that aspect. No one's taking off their pants, but you do choose who you take on 1:1 social outings to get to know them better. In the gaming world, you call those "dates." And while my game has sports as a backdrop, I'm not totally comfortable calling it "a sports game." I would reserve that kind of thing for an actual simulator where you have more control over plays and so on. There is no "roller derby" or "roller skating" tag. Just "skating." Similarly, there is a lon...

This is the post where someone says, "Wow, this person made this  way  too difficult for themselves, even for a rookie solo dev with a garbage workflow." Or even: "That is a lot of stuff I'm definitely not going to read." Well, what can I say? I'm trying to use as few plugins as possible. Plugins are code inserted by a third party on "top" of the preexisting RPG Maker structure. Don't get me wrong: Plugins are amazing. There are a lot of incredible programmers out there doing even more incredible things with the RPG Maker framework. I think I've paid for 3 or so plugins and used several other free ones. The two big ones are Hakuen Studio's font manager and the  Heads-Up Display Maker from Some Random Dude (no, that's his name). But what I'm afraid of is stacking 100 plugins on top of each other and getting to the dreaded point of "something's broken, and I have no idea where or why." This is something that  does ...