BLANKSWORD - A turn-based RPG about trying to put yourself back together.

[quinnkdev]

Hey, everyone. First post on this forum and first post on forums in general in… half a decade?
(Gosh, this format brings back memories.)

I’m Quinn. I’ve done a few games over the pandemic (which you can find here), and because I apparently have no regard for my physical and mental well-being, nor for my free time, I’ve decided my next project after many RPG Maker 2003-created games would be a turn-based RPG made in Game Maker Studio 2. Here’s how that looks at the moment:

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Introduction:

The gist of this game is that you’re a small being living in a place named “His Country”, and get attacked and grievously wounded by an unknown assailant in the dark.

The wound they deal you entirely removes your brain from your body- but miraculously, you’re not dead. You get up. You don’t know what name you had previously, but now, the game calls you “BLANK”.

The pull that keeps you going is finding out who you were, who tried to kill you, and what this odd world you’re in even is.

What is it?

A roguelite JRPG (yes, really). It has a big focus on narrative and immersion in a sizable world with many different paths, while also carrying the threat of considerable loss of progress. There’s some mechanics that make overworld traversal quick and interesting, and turn-based combat with a (soon-to-be) intricate system of character and move-customisation. BLANK’s lack of brain and personality makes him an interesting canvas for that.

Development:

EDIT: at time of creation
Development on this game has been difficult thus far. Actively, it’s been in progress for one year now, and there’s definitely a lot of challenges still left to tackle. The move-customisation system, the dialogue system, the battle system’s intricacies with regard to status effects etc. etc. We spent about a half-year in development hell because, simply put, I was overworking myself and not sufficiently well-versed in programming to put this on its feet with as little assistance as I was seeking.

EDIT: now
all the above-mentioned systems are now in the game. we have a working vertical slice that we are going around seeking support with. wish us luck!

The team:

What I do is pixel art for portraits and enemies, programming, writing and production. Even so, I’m only one half of BLANKSWORD’s game design team; The other half is Leaf Let, who also writes the majority of the music for it and designs the sound. Other people on the team aside from us are:

• kroolnunusual: Programming
• Kitet Frog: Concept art, visual development, battle character art
• June Flower: Environment art, sprite animation
• Mottley: Overworld sprite art and animations, environment art
• Bowser: [not that one] Overworld sprite art, sprite animations
• Lady Saytenn: Music
• Phoebe Crowley: NPC writing, assistence writing
• Folgers: NPC writing, battle bark writing
• Mibyle: Marketing, sensitivity reading
• John Mulcahey: NPC and paratextual writing
• Shannon Strucci: Voice acting

We have a website to visit too!

And: A Substack Newsletter!! Woah!

Do follow those two, if you’d like! :>

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I’ll be keeping this devlog updated as much as I possibly can- things are advancing at a rapid pace (EDIT: case in point!) at this stage, so expect fairly frequent posts for a bit. (EDIT: haw haw. well, still, lots of cool things to show i suppose.)

Thanks for taking a look! Feel free to ask any questions you got. I think this game is still at a stage where being asked questions and poked on some of the systems could lead to a lot of positive change, so- your help is appreciated!

-Quinn

[quinnkdev]

so, i dont like bumping this thread after it got no replies, but for what its worth, BLANKSWORD now has a public presence:

https://blanksword.carrd.co/

we got a newsletter that people can sign up to if they want to and everything. nice!

since i last i posted about the game, theres been a bunch of improvements to it, too! the battle screen looks snazzier, and weve got a bunch of neat new screen transitions.

also, the dialogue system is far more involved now! woaw. >:)

BLANKSWORD’s future looks pretty nifty, now! im really excited

[kitet]

aough i hope our game gets a trophy!! for best game about a bug with a swoard. casting spell of silksong prematurely defeated forever!!!

[victoria]

oh this looks awesome. i had seen posts about this from sadie sometimes, not quite enough to grasp what it actually is, you know how it is with learning about things from one-off posts. but hot damn. this looks great, very exciting stuff.

[quinnkdev]

thank you so much! it’s so nice to see these forums being resuscitated :]

but, you know - the funny thing is that, since the last update, the game honestly looks way better than any of those screenshots above? many of them still had incredibly temporary assets.
in fact, two weeks ago, we finished our vertical slice prototype that we’re now using to seek funding via any means necessary. (EDIT: i keep typoing “now” as “not”. i hate it.)

here are some new little scenes from BLANKSWORD!

if i could, i’d update the first post with a few new screenshots, too, but it seems i cant… thank you for your interest! ;u;

[quinnkdev]

apologies for double-posting - i just realised that a video i posted a while ago on my patreon is now more publicly visible:

BLANKSWORD - Pissing off shopkeepers

some of BLANKSWORD in motion - specifically, what happens when you attack a shopkeeper…

i also updated the first post in this thread a lot! take a look! :>

[Antiquity]

Looks great so far. What roguelite elements does it have?

[quinnkdev]

whole bunch of them!

a major element of the game is that, due to BLANK’s nature as a tabula rasa, his entire moveset is fully customizable. so essentially, you start every run with 2 moves, and expand that moveset with moves you’ve found as battle rewards, in chests, or on move scrolls (floating items in the world that only have moves to choose from, where the others have items and stat-boosts, too). these are always choices between 2-3 picks, as displayed in one of the screenshots above.

there’s a number of resources in the game that are temporary, too - you are reset to level 1 on death, your (main) currency, Possessions, is fully drained, you lose any non-key items you were holding. However, some of your experience does remain, and can be spent in the game between runs. this resource’s temporary name is “Fractions” (we’re still debating it).

finally, there’s level randomization, of course. the array of maps that are put into sequence by the game is randomised about 95% of the time (barring any story-critical, small environments), and we’re using some (maybe too complicated ) procgen code to make sure things such as screen-direction are maintained in the process. enemy placement, chest-placement, challenges in the overworld, and other stuff are also part of that random generation.

our procgen does not fully generate levels (that would be too hands-off for a game that’s supposed to feel like it has a coherent world), but it does pick from a pool of maps for a level to arrange in a sequence between the beginning of the area, to its end-point (the “dungeon exit”, in a sense). In-between, you’ll occasionally find maps that recur every run - these exist as “landmarks” to keep the world feeling like it has anchors even as its constellation changes, and to make sure certain parts of the area design can be visited no matter what seed you get.

i hope that helps answer the question :] if i went off-track, feel free to say so, eheh.

[hawky]

Wow this is looking REALLY pretty and impressive. Has this felt like a really big step up production-wise from An Outcry or does it feel like a natural progression of what you’re aiming to do with your games? Can’t wait to see more!

[quinnkdev]

it’s a major step up, definitely. the fact that An Outcry was made in a “no-code” engine like RM2k3 sped the production process up considerably vis-à-vis this game. there’s also the challenges of sharing game design duties with somebody else (which is a good thing, but definitely causes occasional clashes that weren’t there on An Outcry).

i’ve been finding a decent rhythm with it, but have definitely had to take much more frequent breaks to not go mad, or burn out.