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Flatwoods is a small adventure game with two endings, built in the RPG Maker MV engine. You are Lemon, a small child that feels a great need to uncover the mystery of the "shooting star" that has just flown over your home and landed somewhere in the woods nearby. Loosely based on the story of The Flatwoods Monster.

This is my first game (and only game to be released under my Visitors From Dreams animation label) designed to be a quaint experience for the player, and an educational experience for myself.

Mac OSX version requires Mac OS X 10.10 or better.

The game can also be found over on itch.io:
https://visitorsfromdreams.itch.io/flatwoods

You can follow the progress on this game over on its dedicated development blog:
http://flatwoodsgame.tumblr.com

You can also follow me on Twitter here:
https://twitter.com/visitorsdreams

Flatwoods features an original soundtrack by Jake Tracey:
https://soundcloud.com/kungfukid

Latest Blog

Flatwoods - A Post-mortem Pt01



Well, its been a little over a week since Flatwoods was released, and for the most part I couldn’t be happier with how things turned out. Things didn’t go perfectly, and I definitely had some things pointed out to me that I will take on board in future projects, but on the whole I feel like Flatwoods release (more so than its development in a lot of ways) was a great experience.

That being the case, I thought it was time to do a Post-mortem on the game, and the experience of actually making the game. This would be one hell of a huge post, so instead I will be releasing it in small chunks over the next… however many days it takes to write it…

So where to begin. Well, I guess the best place to start would be the games development itself.

DEVELOPMENT Pt01 - Seeds of an Idea
Flatwoods was originally intended to be a short film, but I think its origins go back further than that. Back in 2012 I had started work on preproduction on an animated series called “Shooty and the Catfish” for the youtube channel Happy Hour, this was eventually dropped and picked up by Cartoon Hangover who developed it for a number of months with me before the whole thing was dropped due to changes in the Youtube landscape. You might be wondering what that has to do with a game like Flatwoods, but in essence, the project had an episode dedicated to the Flatwoods Monster. Not just as a tribute to the cryptid, but it also dealt with similar themes to the sequence in The Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask which also happened to feature the Flatwoods Monster (or something very much inspired by it). I wouldn’t say it was intended to be a parody so much as a homage or tribute, as the monsters design is iconic and has been referenced in a tonne of media over the years.

Fast forward to 2015 and I am trying to work a lot of these Flatwoods Monster ideas from Shooty and the Catfish into a standalone short, and thus Flatwoods was born.

Not long after work had started on the short RPG Maker MV was announced, not only that BUT it was coming out soon, and for Mac OSX as well! I had dabbled with running RPG Maker VX Ace in wineskin but it had always been a nightmare. Now however, with MV heading to OSX I could finally make games as I had always wanted. I dabbled in RPG Maker back in 2003 when I was in high school, but had not really good the chance to experiment with it since.

The timing of starting Flatwoods as a short film and RPG Maker MV hitting at the same time was what eventually lead to a merge of the two passions of mine, animation, and game development. As I was new to game development (I spend a lot of time watching videos on breaking down gameplay and game design elements but I don’t believe that’s the same as putting that information into practice) I wanted to make something small. I know a lot of indie developers (especially in the RPG Maker community) want to start with a big Final Fantasy tribute, but having the experience of over 10 years animation behind me, I knew that scale is the key to the success of any project. Making a game was new to me, and no amount of passion would save it if I bit off more than I could chew, and so it was decided, Flatwoods would be my first game project, I would aim to make it an hour long, and I would have it out by Halloween. Its only a short game, so that would be easy right? Wrong…

Posts

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author=AeroFunk80
I wish I had that type of artistic ability. Amazing artwork and animation. Loved the video. I'll be trying your game tonight :-)


I dont know if I can call it artistic ability, its just been a lot of hard work. Ive been working in the animation industry for almost 20 years now so I have had a lot of practice. Hope you enjoy the game, feel free to leave a comment or review!
I wish I had that type of artistic ability. Amazing artwork and animation. Loved the video. I'll be trying your game tonight :-)
author=greensdream
Wow! This game was truly wonderful. I loved the animated cutscenes, and the turnip facts were excellent. The music was a pleasant surprise! It also made me do some research on the Flatwoods monster... Great work!


I'm glad you enjoyed it, i'm deep into my next project though, look out for an announcement about it on here in the coming months!
Wow! This game was truly wonderful. I loved the animated cutscenes, and the turnip facts were excellent. The music was a pleasant surprise! It also made me do some research on the Flatwoods monster... Great work!
author=Caladium
Got the feeling of a silly/funny cartoon. Nice little game.


Im glad that the feeling I was trying to create came across for you, thanks for playing! :D
Got the feeling of a silly/funny cartoon. Nice little game.

Very very good game with short but packed with great story

please make longer version.
I too am looking forward to it!
Yeah that looks cute. Looking forward to it!
author=suzy_cheesedreams
Do you mean there's a sequel to Flatwoods? Whatever your next game is, I'll be sure to check it out!


My next project is unrelated to Flatwoods but I have some prototype footage in this video at the 13:00 mark. :)

Oh, my mistake then.

Do you mean there's a sequel to Flatwoods? Whatever your next game is, I'll be sure to check it out!
author=suzy_cheesedreams
The animations were really neat!

I would've maybe sped up the walking speed a little, and I thought Lemon's sprite could've used a visible long nose. Other than that I liked wandering around learning about the area & discovering smelly beds and unfortunate books.


I am glad you liked the animated segments ^^

Lemon does have a run button, I just disabled it in doors, running in the house got me into trouble as a kid and I wanted to reflect that in the game. :P

I have fixed this nose issue in my next game as well, probably the biggest visual improvement overall, ha ha.

Thanks for taking the time to play the game, always cool to see more Australians on here as well!
The animations were really neat!

I would've maybe sped up the walking speed a little, and I thought Lemon's sprite could've used a visible long nose. Other than that I liked wandering around learning about the area & discovering smelly beds and unfortunate books.
author=Cap_H
These animations are special, visitor.
I am glad you enjoyed them. I hope to push things a lot further in my next project.
Cap_H
DIGITAL IDENTITY CRISIS
6625
These animations are special, visitor.
author=meaka
I just played through and got both endings and this was such a delight to play. The pixel graphics and sound design really add to the "child going on a self-appointed quest" type of story. I'm also stupidly excited that each of the trees gives a different reaction when you inspect them.

This was short but sweet and I can't wait to see what other games you'll make. And to echo everyone else, I'm absolutely amazed by your animation work!


Ahhhh, Thank you so much! I am glad I managed to capture that specific feeling that I was going for. I knew there wasn't a whole lot to the game so I tried to put as much silly flavor text into the game as I could, ha ha.
I just played through and got both endings and this was such a delight to play. The pixel graphics and sound design really add to the "child going on a self-appointed quest" type of story. I'm also stupidly excited that each of the trees gives a different reaction when you inspect them.

This was short but sweet and I can't wait to see what other games you'll make. And to echo everyone else, I'm absolutely amazed by your animation work!
author=Hogwash
That was really charming!! The short animated segments really help set this apart from a lot of other RPG Maker games, even if it's a bit short.

...not to mention it taught me a plethora of riveting Turnip Facts™
This was cool, awesome job!


I'm glad you enjoyed it, being my first game I wanted to make sure I kept the scope small and somewhat achievable (seen far too many developers first games go unfinished thanks to trying to make something too big). As much as im glad the animated cut-scenes separate the game from other similar games out there I feel like the time it took to make them (the game took about 2 months, animation took 6 thanks to my work load) its not something I think I will be implementing into future games, although I will still be using animation a lot of trailer's etc.

Thanks again for playing and I am glad you learnt some new things about turnips ha ha.
That was really charming!! The short animated segments really help set this apart from a lot of other RPG Maker games, even if it's a bit short.

...not to mention it taught me a plethora of riveting Turnip Facts™
This was cool, awesome job!
author=Frogge
Congrats on completion!! I'll be giving it a spin when i can :D


Hey thanks! I know its a little different to most games on here, I guess Wither would be the closest comparison, so I hope you like it. ^^
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