- Joined
- Jan 12, 2020
- Messages
- 112
- Reaction score
- 202
- First Language
- English
- Primarily Uses
- RMMV
I've posted here for a year or so--at first only for my own information and requests, but over time I've found myself interacting more, checking in regularly, getting to know some of you and your games, and trying to give back where I can. It's nice having a place to commiserate the trials of RPG development.
So, I might as well officially introduce myself.
Hello! I'm Featherbrain!
I'm a writer guy in my mid-30s living in the eastern United Fail-States. As a certified ancient gamer, some of my earliest memories are playing my dad's Atari 2600, or my uncle's NES, both of which were eventually gifted to me. I really came of age in the 16-bit era, though, when I owned both a SNES and Genesis. To me this will always represent the golden age of gaming and my own youth, so it's a big inspiration.
For the most part, I only played games, rarely dreaming of creating them. My creative efforts went toward writing instead. My only real foray into game design came in the form of DMing for Dungeons and Dragons campaigns and creating written, forum-based RPGs; I made a good one that captivated my friend group for most of our teens.
Then came a guy named Don Miguel (we are allowed to talk about this, right? XD) and a program called RPG Maker 95+. I spent hours making games, from serious projects involving my story ideas or forum RPG characters, to silly things about my pets. I remember editing a swaying belly onto the default cat sprites to more accurately reflect my own cat's chonk. Good times. Of course, all those old projects were unfinished and long-since lost... RIP.
I blinked, and years passed. Some time in 2019, on a whim, I picked up all the RPG Makers from a Humble sale and asked my wife, a fellow ancient gamer, "Want to make a game?"
Raptor Revolt
At the time, we were hooked on Ark: Survival Evolved. And I'd just finished building a chicken coop for our new backyard chickens--or "yard raptors" as we call them. These two elements formed the core inspiration for our game concept: a survival RPG about smart, talking, feathered raptors, with characters and behaviors inspired by our chickens. Something like "Watership Down" but with raptors!
I knew that our project would be a challenge. For one, almost none of the default RPG Maker resources would work for this concept, nor would the content generators--we are making dinosaurs, not humans. We made the decision early on to develop our own original resources anyway to the fullest extent possible. Thus, a lot of our time has been spent on creating everything from sprite animations to musical compositions to foley sound effects. Many of the basic systems also have taken a long time to get in place.
Over the last year, though, we've slowly built momentum on the project, to the point where things are finally coming together into something like a prototype that I could give to someone and say, "Look, it's a game, not just a collection of files or demo maps."
Anyway, this has become a bit of a ramble, so in closing I'm going to post some of the first shots of the game! Stay tuned, I'll post a bigger first look soon.
Thank you for welcoming me to this community!
So, I might as well officially introduce myself.
Hello! I'm Featherbrain!
I'm a writer guy in my mid-30s living in the eastern United Fail-States. As a certified ancient gamer, some of my earliest memories are playing my dad's Atari 2600, or my uncle's NES, both of which were eventually gifted to me. I really came of age in the 16-bit era, though, when I owned both a SNES and Genesis. To me this will always represent the golden age of gaming and my own youth, so it's a big inspiration.
For the most part, I only played games, rarely dreaming of creating them. My creative efforts went toward writing instead. My only real foray into game design came in the form of DMing for Dungeons and Dragons campaigns and creating written, forum-based RPGs; I made a good one that captivated my friend group for most of our teens.
Then came a guy named Don Miguel (we are allowed to talk about this, right? XD) and a program called RPG Maker 95+. I spent hours making games, from serious projects involving my story ideas or forum RPG characters, to silly things about my pets. I remember editing a swaying belly onto the default cat sprites to more accurately reflect my own cat's chonk. Good times. Of course, all those old projects were unfinished and long-since lost... RIP.
I blinked, and years passed. Some time in 2019, on a whim, I picked up all the RPG Makers from a Humble sale and asked my wife, a fellow ancient gamer, "Want to make a game?"
Raptor Revolt
At the time, we were hooked on Ark: Survival Evolved. And I'd just finished building a chicken coop for our new backyard chickens--or "yard raptors" as we call them. These two elements formed the core inspiration for our game concept: a survival RPG about smart, talking, feathered raptors, with characters and behaviors inspired by our chickens. Something like "Watership Down" but with raptors!
I knew that our project would be a challenge. For one, almost none of the default RPG Maker resources would work for this concept, nor would the content generators--we are making dinosaurs, not humans. We made the decision early on to develop our own original resources anyway to the fullest extent possible. Thus, a lot of our time has been spent on creating everything from sprite animations to musical compositions to foley sound effects. Many of the basic systems also have taken a long time to get in place.
Over the last year, though, we've slowly built momentum on the project, to the point where things are finally coming together into something like a prototype that I could give to someone and say, "Look, it's a game, not just a collection of files or demo maps."
Anyway, this has become a bit of a ramble, so in closing I'm going to post some of the first shots of the game! Stay tuned, I'll post a bigger first look soon.
Thank you for welcoming me to this community!
