Very interesting concept and the artwork is very charming.
I look forward to following this.
Thanks so much! Really looking forward to your game as well!
Top-notch illustration! Very readable, and has a distinct style.
However I'm a bit worried about the gameplay as it is atm. I haven't seen the skills yet, but from the gameplay segment I've seen without the skills it looks pretty bland. It may just be a personal distaste I have against turn-based-JRPG kinds of combat systems, but I find a lot of them tedious. Like, I even had to lay down the Rick and Morty game because it was starting to feel like a chore. Interestingly, I still enjoy playing Pokemon once in a while, so I suppose there are ways to make the combat more engaging.
I wish I had actual improvements to suggest, but gawddammit I can't come up with anything. I'll think about it.
Thanks a bundle, I really appreciate that! Your work on Peasant Knight is looking great so far too, can't wait to see more updates for that
In terms of the gameplay, we have a particular mechanic that'll play a very strong pivotal role in the game both inside and outside of combat that has to do with the way Jim responds to what you're asking him to do as a player. I'll be talking about it at some point or another, but for now I'm keeping it pretty bare bones. I'm super aware of how stale RPG combat can get, so we're making moves in order to keep that from happening for Jim. Thanks so much for your concern though, can't wait to show you what we've got in mind!
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Talking About Jim - Contextual Gameplay and "Consideration"
So I'm going to get into something that I think is important to explore for any game being developed that's worth its salt:
contextual gameplay. While many games are created with the basis of exploring a
mechanic and forming ideas around it, the Jim RPG does the opposite by having the initial
idea inform the game's mechanics. There's nothing wrong with creating a game around a specific game mechanic, especially if that mechanic is inherently fun, but I feel the reverse process is the only way we could have approached a game like this, and really be able to communicate the kind of character we were wanting to display to the player.
As the creator of this character prior to the game being developed, I already had a lot of strong ideas and notions about him that I wanted to use as key fence-posts in the design of the game itself. Here's a page from the Jim book I'd mentioned briefly as an example:
Jim's character revolves heavily around the naive sense of wonder he has with the world around him, and communicating that not only through his actions but through the game's representation of the obstacles in front of him. Something as mundane as seeing a fruit fly buzzing around our kitchen is a full-fledged battle for Jim. As a player, we're going to share that moment with him, despite however ridiculous or irrelevant the memory he's experiencing might be. The drama we create in our own heads over the simplest everyday thoughts is something we shrug off as second nature, but it's very compelling to me as a storyteller. Bottling that essence in game was something I couldn't have done without.
The choice to make the game an RPG also took some heavy consideration. When the idea was first considered, I had no idea at all how it would work. The concept was already fairly abstract, even for a book. How was I going to take what I'd done and communicate it through a game? So, I started looking at games that I knew already did a terrific job at communicating their base concepts through gameplay. Around that time I was wrapping up playing games like
Lisa: The Painful RPG and
Undertale, arguably my two favorite games that came out last year (if you haven't played them, good lord, stop reading this now and pick them up). What makes these games so powerful is their ability to let the player
consider. Both games are paced and packaged in such a way that the player is really able to get a full grip on the situation at hand. However, I wasn't 100% satisfied with that conclusion, so I dug a little deeper. I went farther back into my youth to understand what it was I was wanting to explore with this project. The answer was
Earthbound.
For the uninitiated, Earthbound was an SNES game made in 1994 that told the story of a group of youngsters with inherent physic powers who had to stop an alien entity known as Giygas from destroying the planet. It was heavily rooted in American culture and aesthetic, despite being a game made in Japan, and had a massive emphasis on playful writing and the essence of youth. Despite the monolithic task Ness and his friends are struck with that could mean the destruction of the Earth as they know it if they were to fail, there's always this glaze of wonder and curiosity that the game strikes you with. There are details in this game that would often be unmentioned or be deemed as irrelevant in any other game of its kind. Most RPGs dealt with epic fantasy stories or extremely dire circumstances (that isn't to say Earthbound didn't have its fair share of those), but Earthbound focused more on the introverted aspects of these characters and the player. Enemies will often interrupt their own opportunities to attack by laughing hysterically or performing another action that forfeits their ability to strike at you, but gives the player a bigger insight into who or what they're actually fighting. Some of these enemies aren't even really enemies at all, but characters who inhabit this zany world (some of my favorites being the Unassuming Local Guy and the New Age Retro Hippie).
But what was Earthbound really doing right here? It didn't really hit me until this happened:
Ness' vulnerability as a character comes down to the fact that he's still a kid. He might be a courageous young boy with an inherent fighting spirit, but this feeling of being far away from home literally cripples him in combat. He'll skip entire fights while his teammates continue to battle because he's homesick. The only way to cure this affliction is to find one of the telephones throughout the game's different hub-towns and call your mom. There's something profound about that to me. Earthbound isn't really about saving the world, it's about the moment-to-moment oddities and adventures one can have (especially as a child) that allow us to feel things ingrained deep within us that may seem bizarre or unnecessary to bring to our attention, but really add up to what we consider to be worthwhile journeys for ourselves.
Sorry, getting slightly more off-topic than I originally wanted, but it's important to note that
Earthbound became a reflection of feelings and interior thoughts for me as a player, and that was something that helped form what direction the Jim game was going to take after taking another look at a game that I hadn't played in years but always adored for some unspoken reason until that moment of clarity arose.
Anyhow, it became clear to me that Earthbound, Lisa, and Undertale (it's no mistake that these games have heavy similarities to Earthbound) gave me the ability to
consider as a player by using the RPG framework to tell their stories and deliver their ideas. RPGs are known for their slower pacing and more thought-driven gameplay, especially in turn-based combat type games where players strategize their every move. Having the player read through dialogue and combat windows at their own pace allowed them to absorb what was happening on screen, and digest it properly. The Jim game is built on the turn-based RPG framework to illustrate that. We want you to be able to soak in each piece of dialogue. You generally aren't given the option to do this sort of thing in an action game, or a speed-based platformer, because these sorts of ideas aren't what these games are best as communicating. Every line of text in our game that appears is a canvas to that particular moment in time, and should serve to connect the player to what Jim is experiencing firsthand. It's only by highlighting these glimpses into his mind that we're able to connect with this character, and become "homesick" ourselves.
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Phew, that got a little long-winded, so thanks to anyone who's still reading this!
tl;dr - Jim: The Apartment RPG focuses on reinforcing its narrative and conceptual elements through gameplay that gives the player the ability to consider, and take in everything that's being presented to them. By doing this, we hope to give the player the means to accept the absurdity of every moment, and give them the room to understand how they feel about each minute experience they come across.I'll be expanding on these ideas later on when we present some of the games other key features that haven't already been shown.
Thanks for reading, and have a great day!
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