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General Development Updates

  • Blind
  • 09/22/2015 07:34 AM
  • 577 views
Hello all,

Some of you have been asking for one, so I just wanted to toss up a quick development check-in!

I've been pretty swamped with outside responsibilities this past summer (settling into a new job, vacations, etc), and thus development progress has admittedly suffered. (..Seriously, screw adulthood. xD) I've tried to be pretty inconspicuous with my updates on RMN. Tbh, will there even been any 2k3 users left by the time this comes out?!?

Just kidding, Rm2k3 lives forevah.

Despite all that, I'm proud of this project for continuing to chug along. It's overcome a lot of adversity, disapproval, a hard-drive crash, delays, lost team members, and so on. But whenever the eventual release date (it's anyone's guess xD), realizing your adolescent vision is most definitely its own reward.

So, what's actually been happening?

~ Artwork Progress

I've kept the promotional art pretty discreet, but Lily has been steadily working on new commissions every month! Since BR is such a cinematic game, her managa style has been invaluable to the project thus far, fleshing-out the nuance of the cast.

Here are a few of the pieces she's come up with this summer:

Promo Poster 2015


From top to bottom: Draco, Isolde, Alex, Crystal, Aiden, Zach & John.

John-Aiden Bromance



~ Script Rewrites

LordBlueRouge, the swell guy that he is, has been a tremendous help on the storytelling end of things. Seriously, this guy is an amazing playtester. xD

Over the summer, the two of us have combed through all of the dialogue from the old version, a very tiresome endeavor. LBR has done critiques for Rainbow Nightmare, Phantom Legacy, and other notable RM projects in the past, so I knew I was in good hands.

A lot of the reason this process had been so time-consuming, had mostly just been me obsessing on keeping the "spirit" of original, while still updating the dialogue and cut-scenes to reflect my more adult experiences (the game's relationships have changed, for example). Ultimately, in trying to reconcile that, I realized I was holding onto a lot of exposition for purely nostalgic reasons... so a lot of the fluff has been cut.

~ "Open World" Maps

It's a bit of a stretch to call anything made in RPGMaker an "open-world" (lol), but that's what I've been trying to achieve with these maps.


What I mean more specifically, is that I want to induce a sense of exploration, a further incentive to venture off the linear path, if the player so chooses. The above map for example, and dozens of others, are entirely optional.

BR is obviously story-focused, so it's easy to fall into the trap of feeling like an Adventure game at times, or even a visual novel. While I won't deny that's increasingly the game's direction from a gameplay point of view, I tried my best to include enough jRPG elements to whet the appetite of some players who wanted more interaction.


Clearly, my criteria for mapping is tediously high, so this has been time-consuming as well. xD

The game takes a page from, say, Link to the Past, in that it has a central "field" overworld, that the player can eventually traverse freely. From there, they can eventually revisit old maps, find treasures, take on Guild side-quests, grind enemies, and so on. Alternatively, they can also just proceed to the next story location without much hindrance.

~ Graphic/Map Overhaul

The game's "budget" (i.e. my pocket) is pretty much going entirely to the artwork (and some music), so unfortunately, at this time I couldn't consider adding custom tiles.

With that being said, I did want the game to have more of a singular vision, a more consistent graphic style. In the Gaming World days, I scoured rips galore (as we all did xD), but ultimately, it led to a lot of mixed resources and inconsistency.

Since I came back to the project last year, I've tried to "mesh" the resources I had, but modify them to the point that it felt natural and not jarring - as though they'd all come from the same source. Hopefully, this creates more of a believable and coherent game world.



~ Release Date (?)

Hmmm.. what~?? ^-^~

In seriousness, I apologize to any testers I may have reached out to, or anyone that's reached out to me! I don't mean to have been flaky. xD I think though, that it's in the project's best interest to not have too much conflicting input as I do these revisions and continue to develop the game.

Anyhow - I won't ramble on too long! Thanks for the continued support, everyone!
Haha tbh if I asked myself 5 or 10 years ago, I never could have imagined I'd still be churning out an Rm2k3 game.

You can also find weekly updates on BR's Facebook Page!