Matsumori Days

On the 27th of Feburary, this game will be a year old. While the game hasn't existed on RMN for that long, the most recent bout of changes to the game have been because of RMN. In light of the game's age, and my current lockdown, I've decided to play the game that inspired me to make this in the first place: Shin Megami Tensei Persona 4. I'm not sure if the answer to my lockdown can be found there or not, but perhaps if I look at the original material, as it were, I may yet come up with something.

I'm not sure where I was in SMTP4 when I first said, "Geeze, there's a little too much karmatic backlash for my taste. If only there was some way to avoid it!" Whenever it was, that was the initial spark of inspiration to make Matsumori Days. Ideas morphed, skewed, and changed over time. The resulting project that you see now became something not quite what I had in mind, but still the same game in spirit.

In certain senses, this game was completed at least three times. In it's original XP format, the game was totally and completely unbalanced. Critters in the first dungeon were arguably harder to beat than critters in the last dungeon. And the mapping? It would not be appreciated at all, to say the least. When it was initially rebuilt in VX, practically nothing was fixed. I wasn't aware that there could have been problems to fix. Then, I came to RMN, and played Averice. At that point, I knew the game needed to have some serious work done. I re-worked it a bit, but I somehow got the sensation that whatever I was doing, I was still doing it wrong. That, and I wasn't happy with the game's ending.

This brings us to the current incarnation of the game. I'm still getting the sensation that critter balance might still be a tad off, and character development is still on the weak side. As far as my mapping skills are concerned, I haven't moved one iota. Sure, I can make a map with proper walls now, but the devil is in the details. Placing details on a map was always been among my weakest of points. It's why some have suggested to me to use a random map generator for creating details (keep in mind that this advice is for games like Heroes of Might and Magic III, not an RM game). I'm not sure what game to study on this point, since... I don't really notice mapping.

Maybe I was over my head in attempting to make this game in the first place? But that's a rant for another blog.