next »

[DuskedSky]

A rough gameplay preview

Download on Itch.io
Download on GameJolt

I've wanted to do this for SO long! Rise started out as a simple yet ambitious "book" (if you will) in 2011. I was really inspired to get into writing after playing Mother 3 for the first time. The idea eventually formed into a game, but I didn't know how it would play nor did I have the experience to code it. I didn't want the battle system to be like Mother 3's (Even though I love the rhythm based combat). A year later I played The Thousand Year Door. I immediately knew that's the kind of game I wanted to make. I still didn't have the experience to create a game like that though. I tried my hand at it a year later, but eventually scrapped the project. 2.5 years later (late 2015) after I finished my previous project I felt like I was finally ready. I've been fleshing out the base of the game since then, but I haven't made nearly as much progress as I'd expected. I started this forum post in hopes that it would help me be more consistent with my work.

I'm doing the art, music, writing, and programming. I'm not particularly good at any of these things, but I can get by. Though I do hope to hire/outsource the workload in the coming future.

Everything below is subject to change.


In this fantastical world full of mysteries, monsters and creatures, one in a million are said to be attuned to the frequencies of the world. Those who are attuned usually inherit odd abilities ranging from manipulation of fire, turning solids into rubber, object size alteration, to freezing lakes over with the mind. The conditions of tuning are still shrouded in mystery, leaving these abilities taboo to many. Those with them are often outcast or judged, even by those who rely on them.

A group of young individuals, drawn together by the looming oppression and corruption of the land rise up and journey to the capital, demanding change. Many trials and challenges lie in wait.


You'll get a team of 6, but only 3 can be used in battle at a time. So you'll have to choose wisely. The overworld gameplay is like your average RPG, though the dashing/running system is more akin to Mother 3. I'm considering giving every team member their own overworld skill, something like a quick dash to reach inaccessible areas, bombs to trigger switches, etc.

Upon touching an enemy in the overworld you'll be pulled into battle. The battles are turn-based and action influenced. After choosing an attack the player will perform a move prompting a little minigame.

Name: Kurtis
Town/City: Anagale
Age: 12

Kurtis is the kind-hearted boy hailing from the village of Anagale.




Name: Jenn
Age: 14
Town/City: Horkwed

The city of Horkwed's toughened Jenn soul, bringing along a crabby personality.





Name: Brett
Age: 16
Town/City: Vale

The feeling that his presence to those around him is a curse it's made Brett grow up reserved and timid, a shell of who he'd hoped to be.


These are just a few of many from the vast cast. I'll be introducing more as time goes on.

Embark
Embark is breaking away from its roots and branching out on a journey anew.



Antsy
Antsy is always super uncomfortable and anxious in its everyday life. Keep your distance or things will get ugly.

As I stated earlier, I'm not particularly good at making music. So some of the songs might come off as bland and the mixing might be off. These songs are likely going to be tweaked later down the line.


Battle Against A Psychic Foe (temp title)
https://soundcloud.com/kip-riusaki/rise-battle-against-a-phychic-foe

Happiest Days
https://soundcloud.com/kip-riusaki/rise-happiest-days

They Came From The Woods
https://soundcloud.com/kip-riusaki/rise-they-came-from-the-woods

Show Me "You"
https://soundcloud.com/kip-riusaki/rise-show-me-you

Beauty In The Beholder
https://soundcloud.com/kip-riusaki/rise-beauty-in-the-beholder-sam-n-ella


These were just a fraction of what the I've made/hope to make. The style of music changes throughout the game to give a different feel for every chapter.

Logs
Entry #1 - https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=65127.msg1383667#msg1383667
Entry #2 - https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=65127.msg1385238#msg1385238
Entry #3 - https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=65127.msg1391474#msg1391474
Entry #4 - https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=65127.msg1393119#msg1393119

[Biijii]

Anything inspired by Mother 3 has me intrigued.

Show Me "You" sounds pretty cool btw.

[DuskedSky]

Thank you! Glad it didn't melt your ears.

[TacoBell_Lord]

KEEPING AN EYE ON THIS! Always excited for anything Mother related.

[DuskedSky]

Awesome!


I've spent the last week making major progress. I tackled some of the most intimidating things on my to-do list

I've implemented saving. It's still got a little ways to go, but it's extremely powerful and effective. This was a major priority of mine as I'm looking to release a demo in the coming months.



I also finished the main menu earlier this week. It's on the simpler side, but I think it does the job nicely. I have yet to program the "options" option, but I already have one made in game, so all I have to do now is splice them together.





Introducing some enemies!

Embark
Embark is breaking away from its roots and branching out on a journey anew.



Antsy
Antsy is always super uncomfortable and anxious in its everyday life. Keep your distance or things will get ugly.

[DuskedSky]

Entry #2

I haven't updated recently, though with good reason. I've been working on more technical things so there really wasn't much to show off. But BOY have I been putting in some work. I've been finishing up some menus in game. The coding in them is quite complex (imo). I mapped/stored a crap ton of variables to a ds_map and have a bunch of accessors and other variables constantly pulling from them. My bind would poof out quite frequently trying to keep up with everything. Though this has helped me come up with and evolve more solid ideas for the rest of the game.

There's still a lot of room for improvement and finishing touches but the meat of the system is up and running.



Now for something I didn't go into too much detail with last time. Saving. In this game there won't be any autosave, you'll have to find save points which are pretty easy to spot. They range from notebooks, diaries, journals, notes, blogs, etc. The thing, is even though you're writing in them, none of them are owned by you, so you'll be prompted with a little entry upon opening them.

Introducing!...

Name: Candy
Town/City: Syruspook
Age: 12

Candy's the shortest in both the temperament and height department when it comes to the sweet sisters trio.

I think I've showed off candy awhile back on some of my social medias. She's like the main reoccurring antagonist in this game.   I don't want to give too much away at this point, so I'm going to withhold some details on her. Anyway that's all for this update! I hope to have a ton of progress made by the next one. Starting this log has really helped me stay consistent, I'm hope it continues that way.

[DuskedSky]

Entry #3

Gosh, an update is LONG overdue. I've been working tirelessly, but haven't made as much progress as I'd hoped. It's been bugs galore on my end. As soon as I squash one another 10 appear. It almost feels endless at this point. That being said, I do have some stuff to show.

Battle
I've finalized the battle system. I wasn't sure how I was going to do it but what I came up with is pretty satisfying!

After entering a battle enemies spawn anywhere on a 3x3 grid. The characters have moves that can attack a an entire row or a column. Different moves have different reaches within the grid, so if you land an attack on a line of enemies they'll all take damage.







Flashy Moves

If you pull off an Amazing move you open up the option to make it flashy if you time the button prompt(s) correctly. Flashy moves boost your adrenaline points (aka AP) which can be spent on special moves.



I'll go more in depth with this at a later point.

Forest Life
https://soundcloud.com/kip-riusaki/rise-forest-life

This is the latest track in the game. It starts off a little light but grows over time, so I'd suggest listening to all of it.  






And finally, I've finally captured a video showing the game in motion.





The video quality is pretty poor with frame drops and discoloration. OBS was not cooperating with me so it turned out sub par.

[NowSayPillow]

This looks great, and the puns in the enemy names and descriptions are !@#$ing glorious.

[afilionComposer]

Loving all of this so far!! :D

[DuskedSky]

This looks great, and the puns in the enemy names and descriptions are !@#$ing glorious.

Thanks dude. There are several more where that came from! I will be introducing them over time.

Loving all of this so far!! :D

Awesome to hear! 

[DuskedSky]

Hello once again! I've got some fantastic news (and some not so fantastic). I've spent the past several weeks getting the demo ready, and now it's finally available for anyone interested in trying out the game!

Download on Itch.io
Download on GameJolt

I've also got a massive ton of work done on a large new location in the game! Took me roughly a week to get it yo where it is surprisingly. I poured hours into it with that constant grind.

But guess what? I have to reconstruct the ENTIRE city. Every nook and cranny. Just for a small mistake on my end. I had to increase the overall texture size limit for the tileset to function properly. But it took me awhile to realize it was lagging the game. So now if I resize the tileset instead of the texture size every tile's index gets swapped, leaving the game looking like a child left a pile of paper and legos in his wake.

That added on top of spending several days fixing hundreds of bugs has made me greatly concerned for my mental health, so I'll be taking a couples weeks away from game development, and hopefully recuperate from this mess.

[XianXian]

Super cute! I'm really into Motheresque games (who isn't?). Your art's very smooth and calming to the eyes. Which I notice makes it stand out compared to a lot of the other games. I notice many of them use very stark like palettes. I totally love the city artwork the most. I notice a lot of ppl tend to just sort of copy the Mother art style instead of doing something a little different, I guess it's bc that's the art style that tends to fit best with the minimal, cutesy sprite style of the Mother games. Also the fighting system is also a breathe of fresh air and adds more difficulty. I can't wait to see more progress on this!

[DuskedSky]

Aw thank you! That's some high praise! Really appreciate it I while my art/style is simple I try to make it stand out as much as possible so in this case I'm glad it shows! Glad the city sticks out the most to you I wasn't sure if people would be fond of the darker grays and browns. At least that's one thing I don't have to redo. Your comment gives me motivation to get out of the rut I've been in recently.

[TacoBell_Lord]

Really great to see a new update, been following this project for awhile & it great to see progress! Great work dude, never got to post how lo-fi & chill the art style looks! Keeping my eye on this til it's 100%!! Hope you cross the finish line dude 

[DuskedSky]

Thanks a lot man! I haven't had any updates for awhile since I've been really busy. I also took some time to reassess how I'm going to approach this project in hopes that I can eventually finish it. If things keep up I should have an update sometime soon!