Hoping to make your life's design a bit more dynamic!

Dunno if it's alright to post in KS projects here as if I'm promoting them. But I thought this game might attract some attention here. Perhaps some of you here might like the idea of this game.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fo ... -and-bikes

It's a game from the UK with some Secret of Mana-like gameplay elements, Earthbound exploration style (Both games according to them as some of the inspirations) and the visuals of Don't Starve. Description: "A co-op adventure about childhood, inspired by The Goonies & Earthbound, from developers on Tearaway, LittleBigPlanet, Ratchet & Clank."

Gameplay: "Knights and Bikes is an Co-op Action Adventure Game where players will explore an island on foot and on bikes, find treasure, battle through "dungeon" areas, rescue islanders and upgrade their gear in the town hub."

Looks good in both visuals and gameplay mechanics. But something about this just doesn't appeal to me much. Maybe it's an unknown quantity due to the strange shaky-effect 2.5D art-style similar to Don't Starve [which I like a lot coz of its solid visuals and interesting survival sim elements], the lite narrative-driven adventure story about two girls, weird and dark settings and strange NPC designs. Though it does contain fairly solid range-based combat gameplay and nice equipments to use. But it all looks strange as a mix. I like that the story has your characters going to an island that will be in financial ruin, LOL! However the game's inspirations [Like Secret of Mana] and its developers' pedigree are impressive. Even their music composer Daniel Pemberton have composed movies and games like Steve Jobs, The Man from UNCLE, LittleBigPlanet! Check that amazing box art mock up which looks like a SNES box! Coming for the PC and PS4. Over 2900 backers have pledged almost 80% of the £100K goal and with 8 days to go this could possibly be funded.
Still part of me feels that if they had chosen to go with an enhanced 16-bit/32-bit SNES or PSX-esque visual style then we absolutely would have bought this game on release in a heartbeat! Still you gotta hand it to them for the outstandingly unique story and characters!

EDIT: This project is now just past the funding target with over 3600 backers with 4 days to go. Pretty impressive!

it certainly looks unique, id say it looks NOTHING like secret of mana though.. the only common theme i see between the two
is the fact they are both "action rpgs", so it could also be said it's like. chrono trigger, secret of evermore, even like legend of
zelda Alttp. Earthbound? ummm.. maybe cos it's set in modern day. Other than that.. the game DOES look entertaining, i'd
defo give it a whirl, I like rpgs that are unique, thanks for bringing this to my attention.

A project for a new perfectly authentic-looking isometric strategy RPG is out on Kickstarter now. It's called Arcadian Atlas. It's trending popularly with over a third of the $90,000 goal funded by over 1000 backers with 25 days to go.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/12 ... y-classics

The visuals of it are heavily pixelated but it looks decent, although the characters have only a few colours, so the colours look bland but they are intricately detailed. It looks closer to the quality of Tactics Ogre on the SNES rather than Final Fantasy Tactics or any Suikoden game on the PSX. The animations are OK if limited. But you should check out the screenshots and see for yourself.

The small team is experienced and has built several small RPGs before this project. They put it up on KS because:

They've got interesting core class ideas such as: Ranger, Apothecary (chemist), Rogue and Warmancer (Does powerful magics) along with 2 advanced classes for each of these base classes.
EDIT (14/04/2016): Checked the KS & Youtube promotional video carefully. The game's supposed to have more other job classes such as Defender, Knight, Dragoon and Fencer! Also check near the end of the video where they showed a furry cat almost expressing like "What are ya'll looking at me for?" LOL!

Regarding the engine being used, SylarDean, they're using the GubiD's Tactical Battle System plugin in RPG Maker VX Ace, so at least it's different from your usual generic RPG Maker RPG game though it's got that undeniable kind of RPG Maker visual feeling.
They were using a different engine (OHRRPGCE) for their previous game Genesis, which had a lower technical prowess than a typical SNES RPG game but really close in feeling. Remarkably it's still being updated to this day (The O.H.R.RPG.C.E version callipygous (released April 4 2016))!

LMAO! you KNEW i'd comment about this game.. well i'm NOT one for tactical games as well as RPG Maker games but the pixillated animation looks fantastic, lots of movement in the characters.
The good old GubiD's Tactical System script, not plugin.. has been around for years, there's NOT too many rpg maker games that have used it so it will be great to see that script being used in
an official game. People are tending to go with rpg maker "RPGmaker MV" now cos of its capabilities to turn your games automatically for use on ios/android devices much easier, just a click of a few
buttons I believe so it makes it easier for the game creators to reach a broader audience and not just mac/pc gamers.

Just watched the video, the battles look okay but i'm NOT loving the flat looking fire spell that was cast at one point, looks like an animated picture on screen even though it's not, it don't look
nice at all, hopefully they will change all that. To me it looks kinda like a mix of the.. Disgaea Series and FF: Tactics.. but more pixilated, I don't see the Suikoden comparison though, other than
the pixilation.. suikoden was actually a Jrpg NOT Trpg, other than the few group battles you did later in the game.. that were more like a paper-rock-scissors format.. NOT really tactical. I WISH
they'd remake Suikoden 1 and 2 again.. those two games were classics.

Rpg Maker Plugin/Script difference is in how the end user interacts with them. Scripts end users can copy and paste into the script editor and arrange variables/switches inside of them to configure. This is the XP-VXAce way of doing things. Plugins in MV are different though. They are packaged as javascript files and are imported into the editor. Instead of having to open the script in an editor and dealing with the raw code, the user instead can edit the parameters given to them by the plugin creator in an easy to use UI that the plugin also creates for the user.

Yes, sure the Suikoden games weren't technically tactical RPGs but just looked similar in their pixelation and the isometric-view battle scenes in some of those games I think. Yes, I'd want the visual effects of the spell casting system to be improved. Of course it'll never be like the Diablo series, Divinity series and Grim Dawn, all on the PC as the lead platform. This is a mostly 16-bit constrained game after all. But I'm sure they didn't have much time to put in the detailed effects. And with the money being raised and more time to put in the work I think they can improve it further.

I hadn't been aware of how that battle system's script(s) works but now you've explained it. I think the project and the game's eventual release will be a success.

Whew! It looked like for a long time that Arcadian Atlas wouldn't have the funds it needed! When it was at the midpoint of the campaign it was tracking stubbornly at half of the requisite $90,000 goal and has been like that till about a week before the deadline date. But now in the last three days seemingly it somehow got massive boosts and finally reached ~$95,000 which means that it'll be made!

Ah, turns out that this update 7 hours before the project ended funding said that someone had made a massive donation that pushed the total amount up much higher. Obviously that would have made it easier for more people to keenly back the project and add up the fund!

* EDIT 17/08/2016: Wow, good news... The team developing Arcadian Atlas has been transferring their engine over to the Unity engine to code the game further. Fabulous & excellent all in one!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/12 ... ts/1652482

Ooh, yes! Check this game's E3 2016 trailer out. Cosmic Star Heroine, it's called. I proudly Kickstarted this one a long, (LONG) time ago! It's a nice retro SNES-style top-down RPG by a modern PC developer built on their custom, continuously iterated engine! It has been in development for a long time. It's from Zeboyd Games, the folks behind the cult PC classics 'Breath of Death VIII: The Beginning', 'Cthulhu Saves The World' and the 'Penny Arcade Adventures 3 & 4' games. But, NONE of these games as you can see on their KS description page's Resume section compare in terms of the development time taken to build this new RPG!

Oh s#&*! Has it really been that long time ago?! The GUI may not be to everybody's tastes. Nonetheless, it's looking quite good!

Ooh, cool, another authentic 16-bit 2D platformer in the making for modern systems. Not really a RPG as such like some aforementioned projects. The title is FOX n FORESTS and the game is being made in Germany. The many different German developers seem to have a fascination with the old-school adventures and platformers made in the 1990's and execute on these inspirations quite well.

The visuals in-game are beautiful and it's got a foxy ( ) character in it that is cute and seems quite the badass as well. The gameplay somewhat reminds me of the various Mickey Mouse platformers on the SNES and Mega Drive (Genesis). The story goes that an evil force is trying to mess around with the normal seasons by introducing a new nasty, deadly 5th season into the forested environments! What's more, it even allows you to switch seasons on the fly!

The very experienced devs are also gaining the assistance of a couple very famous creators of classic and recent platformers:

If you check the FAQ list it says the game has some RPG stuff in it:

It's trending at more than the halfway point in its progress towards the €95,000 goal (Just over €49,000) with 15 days to go until August 13, 2016. So I think it's likely to succeed.

* EDIT (14/08/2016): YES, there was an uncertainty as to whether it would reach the finish line as it was either trending upwards slowly or staying still at the midpoint of the funding amount needed with about 14-15 days to go and then still at 2/3rd or thereabouts with a week to go. It was getting closer and I saw it just above €80K with maybe 3 days to go, it managed to surpass the goal very well at the end of it! It managed to reach €107,875 - that's a lot higher than the quite high but needed €95K it was asking for. Very nice!

* EDIT (06/09/2016): Wow, this other brand-new puzzle-platformer called "Seasons After All" that has come out just 2 days ago on Steam is so utterly similar in the story, theme and some of the mechanics that your other foxy character can do in-game to the aforementioned upcoming 16-bit platformer "FOX n FORESTS"! Though it's got a more modern set of hand-painted 2D visuals. It is really surprising but then I realised later on that it may not have exactly been a super coincidence then... It is made by the French-based 'Swing Swing Submarine', maker of two previous decent puzzle-platformers 'Blocks That Matter' and 'Tetrobot and Co.'

Have a look at this devblog on the game dating back to early January 2014. SO perhaps the German developers of "FOX n FORESTS" DID see those dev blogs and then decided to make a similar game but in 16-bit graphics and with their own spin on the gameplay! I just checked the Comments section on the German game Kickstarter where somebody asked a similar question to the creators:

• Excerpt from the official game description on the website:
  
  Quote:
  As a wild fox you are sent on a perilous journey aided only by your ability to change the seasons at will, manipulating a gorgeous 2D world backed by an enchanting live string quartet.
  
  Summon the power of Winter to freeze a lake solid, or call upon Spring to make trees and flowers grow. The world is yours to manipulate as you travel across forests, rivers, and caves, in order to unveil the secrets of this world and complete a sacred ritual. Each season is protected by a Guardian and it is up to you to master the seasons they grant you.
• Even the Wiki says this about the Plot:
  
  Quote:
  The game will follow a Red fox as it traverses a mysterious forest in an effort to rescue the lost spirits of the four seasons


• Lots of great reviews for it:
  
  Spoiler! :

  God is a Geek (8/10)
  http://www.blotgaming.com/game-reviews/ ... ll-review/ (8.7/10)
  http://www.cgmagonline.com/reviews/seas ... pc-review/ (8.5/10)
  https://www.n3rdabl3.co.uk/2016/09/02/1 ... ll-review/ (7.8/10)
  http://culturedvultures.com/game-review ... fter-fall/ (7/10)

Oh nice, and another project I learnt of so soon after the above post (Both ends on the same day!) and a slightly different one than you would expect! This update #9 from the project above mentioned another live project, which is a development tutorial course! The engine that is being used to build a turn-based RPG game with quasi-realistic SNES graphics in this project has also been used for many commercial games like Undertale. Finally a better-looking middleware game engine that is nothing to do whatsoever with the dreaded RPG Maker line of engines. Is this something that you would wish to learn from and do, SylarDean?

The visuals in the sample game being built looks kinda like the Zelda, Dragonball Z and Ganbare Goemon games on the SFC:
Course: Make a Stunning Fantasy RPG with GameMaker Studio (Already well over the goal. Ends in 9 days on Sat, Aug 13 2016.)

And now to a couple projects from right out of left field! The first one has a very special hook that really interests me and it's also based in my city!

• Learn Japanese To Survive! Katakana War
  
  Quote:
  Learn the basics of Japanese in this interactive role-playing game! No experience needed – start reading and writing in Japanese!

This is a very nice interactive media toolset with a lovely top-down 2D JRPG 'walking simulator' adventure that teaches you in easy ways to learning Japanese! It even has a font/letter choice system in the third-person side-view battle system included within the game to tackle the enemies in the form of the Katakana fonts! It is hugely popular with almost just under 2000 people pledging a fairly modest $25K AU, more than 5 times the very tiny funding goal with 38 hours to go! Very cheap tiers to get both it and the accompanying Hiragana tutorials-based prequel. These interactive tutorials could really help me to gain an understanding of the Japanese language and likewise for other users too. As you can see so many people have chosen to back it! We can only need more fan-translators, . Who knows, what if I may eventually improve by studying it further elsewhere?

And now, to the following project which the creator of the above project backed too...

• GLITCHED
  
  Quote:
  A fourth wall breaking RPG where the hero slowly realizes that you, the player, exist.

A good, fun sci-fi story, which is a bit like the reverse of T.R.O.N the movie's storyline, although it's with two characters meeting from two different 'dimensions'. OR maybe it's more like Sliders or Quantum Break, those TV shows from around the same time in the early 1990's. The graphics look a bit like Earthbound or Mother 3. So it looks as if it may be built on the GameMaker engine, used to make 'Undertale'. However the character sprites do look poor so, it, um, looks more like a GBA game than a SNES/SFC top-down game. But the character portraits in the dialogue clouds are excellent. The project above - 'Learn Japanese to Survive! Katakana War' has backed this one. But this one has far more funding from a slightly smaller pool of backers than the aformentioned project.

* EDIT (23/08/2016): The 'Glitched' project has been funded to the tune of just over $68,500 US, about 9.15 times its very modest $7,500 minimum target, an outstanding success! The visuals look grand, the story should be very interesting. Looking forward to its release date of February 2018 - that's about 1.5 years away, that's pretty much realistic.