Inspiration/boredom has struck once again and I have begun work on a new game. I’ve actually been working on it for a couple of weeks, but I wanted to make sure what I wanted to do was possible before posting about it here so I’ve been doing a lot of the setup work. I can now confirm that it should probably be possible ;). It is my first RPGMaker game though, so it’ll be somewhat limited in scope.
So what is the game? Well, it’s a little RPGMaker (VX Ace) game where you run a store in a town. The premise is that you saved up money as an adventurer so you could follow your dreams and own a bakery/food shop/cafe. You’ll start off small but will be able to upgrade both the food you can offer and the shop itself.
For the most part you won’t be actively pushing people to gain, you’ll be more of a facilitator. Each day you’ll be able to choose from a series of actions, such as working at the shop, making deliveries and training your staff. You’ll make passive income from sales which you can spend on the shop upgrades. Keep some saved up though, you won’t want to miss out on the random events!
The Characters
A grand total of 17 characters will be able to gain weight. Most will gain based on the price and unhealthiness of your food as they come and buy it. Some you will have to deliver food to yourself, and a couple only gain if their event is successful. Your character, Sophie, will not gain weight but you’re more than welcome to feed up the rest of the staff.
As a little taster I’ll introduce some of the characters here, and others will be introduced if and when I feel like it.
This is the town priestess. She holds regular ceremonies, although they haven’t been all that popular recently.
This is Sophie, your character. A retired, fairly successful adventurer excited to finally make people happy with her food.
This lady is the richest woman in town. It’ll be tough to get her to come down to your bakery, but her maid may be easier to convince.
Development Status
I have like 75% of the characters and maps done, and I have planned out all the game mechanics. I still need to code them, which will take some time, but it’s all entirely possible. The main thing that is slowing me down is the goddamn sprites. 17 fattenable characters sounds great until you realise that with an average of five stages that means I have to make roughly 70 sets of sprites. Each animation set has 12 individual sprites to simulate movement, for a total of 840 individual sprites. I actually only need to make like 750 because I already have their base stages and a couple of first gain stages done, but that’s still so much work. It doesn’t help that I have the artistic skills of a rock.
What could I use from y'all?
I’ll need help to bugtest and make sure the game works later on in development. For now, I would really love if some of you could volunteer to help me with making sprites. You don’t need to be particularly artistically talented (lord knows I’m not) or have experience, you just need to be willing to do somewhat repetitive pixel art.
If you’re interested, let me know and I can give you a list of characters that need sprites. Honestly, if you’re willing to do a few characters’ worth of sprites I’m happy to let you make one of the sprites look like you want (within reason) and pick their name.
Edit: Similarity notes
I recognise that the game may seem a little similar to other games that are or have been on here. Misekoya might be the most similar but there are a couple of major differences. 1) The focus in my game is on the shop and passive gain, where Misekoya was about feeding your employees. 2) My game doesn’t sexualise children…
There are other games that’ll have similar aspects. In some ways it’s a bit like Coven of Calahree or even Apostles. My game is nowhere near as good as either of those, but yeah in some ways it’ll be similar. Oh well…
I hope this is enough to get people excited for what I hope will be a pretty fun game. I’m also open to advice, since I’m very new to RPGM.
