RMMV Knight Shift: In-Development (CHAPTER 2 NOW OUT)

[Iron_Brew]

• Download on Itch at:

https://knight-shift.itch.io/demo

• Synopsis:

Discover the secrets of the afterlife!

You play as a recently departed Human Soul, who is reborn into a mysterious high-fantasy Kingdom and discovers that the nature of the human soul is not what you had previously thought. Discover a hand-crafted world, and a plot which takes the brave knights of the Honeycomb Kingdom from heaven to hell, and everywhere in between. While this may sound like your standard-issue run-of-the-mill Isekai adventure, the netherworld you'll come to know is far from what you might think of as the norm.

You play as Charon (read: Yourself!), a newly departed human soul, shlorped up from the Styx and placed into a military-grade body, who must team up with the veteran knight Denzel. What starts out as a relatively routine training day rapidly descends into chaos, and before you know it you're on an adventure which spans the entire netherworld!

In an attempt to differentiate Knight Shift from other RPG maker games, every piece of the world which looks interesting is interactive, so be sure to interact with everything - who knows what you could find while rifling through bookshelves or looking in crates? In addition to this, the game features many hand-crafted bosses, player-housing, dozens of characters to meet, and sidequests ranging from the benign to the downright ridiculous.

A few key features:

• Hours of story!
• Terrible, pun-based gameplay!
• Sidequests upon sidequests!
• Hard-ish "Endgame" Content!
• Tons of build customization through skill books and unique abilities!
• Transformation abilities!
• Unique party characters!
• Minigame based special attacks!
• Fully functioning cosmetics system to allow you to customise your party!
• Fun puzzles!
• A fully functioning arena to hone your skills!
• Intense boss battles!
• Character relationships!
• Player Housing and Decoration!
• In-depth relationship system which changes rewards and dialogue options!
• Mega-drive inspired soundtrack by @Unthusiasm!
• Traditional JRPG nonsense!
• I uh, even made a font.

This whole thing started as a writing exercise in my spare time and has rapidly grown into something I've really loved working on. I want to extend a massive thank-you as well to everyone who helped playtest the game to get it this far! Without the balancing and bugfixing you guys helped with, I have no doubt this would be a much worse time.

Travel strange and exotic lands, meet life-long friends, fight vicious creatures and defend the Honeycomb Kingdom! It doesn't always have to suck when you're working the Knight Shift.

• Screenshots

Explore a vast world, with fully custom battlers, battlebacks, animations, and weapons

Bosses galore!

Fully custom graphics! Original Soundtrack! (Some RTP assets still in use for emote bubbles, boats, spell animations)


Tons of puzzles and dungeons!

Any and all feedback is more than welcome. Thank you for reading this far, and for being so welcoming! I look forward to playing as many of your games as I can!

 

[FighterBlade]

Sweet game!
But, the boats are still RTP.

 

[Iron_Brew]

Sweet game!
But, the boats are still RTP.

Good point; I have updated the post to better reflect the content of the game

 

[divinelight]

Refreshing graphic, this is good since I don't like RTP characters in RMVX above.
I've just downloaded your game, might check a bit later.

edited:
just a bit on the beginning. It is quite good, the graphic, the characters, even the dialogue script is interesting!

 

[QuexpRPG]

Added to my list of games to try

 

[Iron_Brew]

Hey! So a few people have the game now and I was just wondering if any of you have any feedback

 

[QuexpRPG]

I just played for about 3 hours and think you did a really nice job on Knight Shift. You have my quirky sense of humor. The only glitch I found is that the player can walk up the wall of the apt. rooftop room. Anyways, thanks for sharing. I stopped after the going to the castle for my commendation.

EDIT: I came back to it but got stuck at the Riddle 3000.

 

[Iron_Brew]

I just played for about 3 hours and think you did a really nice job on Knight Shift. You have my quirky sense of humor. The only glitch I found is that the player can walk up the wall of the apt. rooftop room. Anyways, thanks for sharing. I stopped after the going to the castle for my commendation.

Thank you so much for playing! How come you stopped at that point? It's kind of the start of the story proper haha

 

[alice_gristle]

Hi honey! I got yo game and played a bit, 'till, umm... the part where I was supposed to go to the Salad Forest. Games with wacky, punny, self-referential (even intertextual) humour are not my cup of tea, so Imma ignore that bit, but otherwise, here's my thoughts!

Soo, the MS Paint style graphics pretty nice, actually. Kinda like dank memes. The sprites for my dudes could stand to be a li'l bigger, since now they kinda look like tiny li'l fairie people, but otherwise yeah, I like it!

I absolutely hate the tutorial ghost in the beginning, 'cuz it basically telling me that I hafta fight in order to win fights, and I can figure that out myself. But, the ghost itself really cute! So mebbe just have the fight part against the ghost and axe the tutorialing part?

Spoiler

Wuz there supposed to be a strategy against the crab boss? I thought I'd hafta kill the newspaper first, so I did, but then it just resurrected? After that I just whacked the boss until it died, is that okay?

Also, the bit about interacting with errything, it wuz... I mean, it's kinda impressive, but I got tired of it after I got out of the first town. Like I said, mebbe not my cup of tea...

Other things I like: quick combat (this reaaaal nice, I love to button mash!), small world map (I love to get from place to place easy and fast), aaaaaand... cute portraits!

 

[Iron_Brew]

Hi honey! I got yo game and played a bit, 'till, umm... the part where I was supposed to go to the Salad Forest. Games with wacky, punny, self-referential (even intertextual) humour are not my cup of tea, so Imma ignore that bit, but otherwise, here's my thoughts!

Soo, the MS Paint style graphics pretty nice, actually. Kinda like dank memes. The sprites for my dudes could stand to be a li'l bigger, since now they kinda look like tiny li'l fairie people, but otherwise yeah, I like it!

I absolutely hate the tutorial ghost in the beginning, 'cuz it basically telling me that I hafta fight in order to win fights, and I can figure that out myself. But, the ghost itself really cute! So mebbe just have the fight part against the ghost and axe the tutorialing part?

Spoiler

Wuz there supposed to be a strategy against the crab boss? I thought I'd hafta kill the newspaper first, so I did, but then it just resurrected? After that I just whacked the boss until it died, is that okay?

Also, the bit about interacting with errything, it wuz... I mean, it's kinda impressive, but I got tired of it after I got out of the first town. Like I said, mebbe not my cup of tea...

Other things I like: quick combat (this reaaaal nice, I love to button mash!), small world map (I love to get from place to place easy and fast), aaaaaand... cute portraits!

Hey! Thanks so much for playing and for your feedback I really appreciate it! As far as interacting with everything goes, I think realistically most players aren't gonna do that the whole game, it's more a case of "if you do want more lore/info you can get it" than mandatory for enjoying the game

You're hate the tutorial ghost? That's good feedback! I figured that a tutorial is kind of important for players who aren't familiar with the genre, but I wanted to do it in a cuter way than like... TRAINING WITH YOUR MASTER IN THE PALACE COURTYARD, y'know? If you hate it, that's super relevant, and I really appreciate hearing this.

I'll look into increasing battler size in general, I'm currently working on an aesthetic upgrade system for them, which is part of why they're so tiny, to limit the labour overhead on me haha. I think it looks pretty slick though!



I'm really glad that you played it, and that you disclaimed the things which aren't your cup of tea! I appreciate that I'm making something which is probably a little niche, so feedback from all kinds of folks is super important and instrument. Thank you again! I'll take all of this on board

 

[alice_gristle]

I'll look into increasing battler size in general, I'm currently working on an aesthetic upgrade system for them, which is part of why they're so tiny, to limit the labour overhead on me haha. I think it looks pretty slick though!

They don't have to be tons bigger, tho! I think if ya could just increase the size a li'l bit that'd do it!

 

[thenerdmansion]

Super awesome game! Every second of it was absolutely awesome !

 

[Iron_Brew]

Super awesome game! Every second of it was absolutely awesome !

Slamming this on my TV!

Edit: massively appreciate your kind words! Watching you look for a pub you'd been into multiple times before picking up the crate both the ghost and the job journal yells you you need was hilarious

This was a great video! Thank you pal

Edit2:
Just got to your review! I really appreciate you taking the time mate! Thank you. You did mark me down as not having quality in spite of the grammar issue actually not being incorrect, and the quest you saying was glitched not being glitched haha

Basically: A huge thank you for taking the time to play the game, and for the video

 

[residntevl]

Hi Iron Brew, I wish I could I forget everything about this game I played before you added the new graphics to enjoy the story and comedy all over again because the jokes land so well to me. My favorite joke is of course

Spoiler

the "kid" who is selling beer.

Literally the best meta humor in any game ever. A better meme game than Borderlands, which with every passing day continues to age horrendously. Your game shall, however, remain eternal... because well... you know, it's the afterlife and that means their existence is eternal forever working as knights to maintain order... for now.

My other favorite joke is the names of the bushes at the port town. They're my favorite little bushes.

 

[thenerdmansion]

Slamming this on my TV!

Edit: massively appreciate your kind words! Watching you look for a pub you'd been into multiple times before picking up the crate both the ghost and the job journal yells you you need was hilarious

This was a great video! Thank you pal

Edit2:
Just got to your review! I really appreciate you taking the time mate! Thank you. You did mark me down as not having quality in spite of the grammar issue actually not being incorrect, and the quest you saying was glitched not being glitched haha

Basically: A huge thank you for taking the time to play the game, and for the video

I gave this bad boy 5 stars on itch !

 

[QuexpRPG]

Thank you so much for playing! How come you stopped at that point? It's kind of the start of the story proper haha

Just time. I'm working on some stuff but plan on coming back to it next weekend (not on PC much during the week).

 

[Iron_Brew]

I got a PM recommending me to post this in the thread, and I updated the first image to include it, but I'm so damn proud of this picture that I wanted to post it haha. I'm working on chapter 2 tonight and it's going really well; but sometimes I wish Chapter 1 had had this level of complexity and puzzling!

 

[ericv00]

I downloaded the demo and I'm only a couple of hours into it, so far. I gotta say, this got a half-dozen genuine chuckles out of me already! (That's, like, really good) I like your sense of humor.

There certainly have been a few unintended oddities I've encountered. Mostly, I think, choices that don't seem to make sense in the context of the conversation, and dialogue that skips away too fast. I think some of it is meant to be people interrupting others, but I kinda prefer a-- YOU KNOW! the text actually cut off to indicate that that someone was talked over. Having a full sentence that I can't possibly read in time kinda bothers my brain.

There was an instance, I think in the port weapons shop, where I think the wrong portrait is shown when you are talking to a patron. I know I saw a typo somewhere too. ("msyterious", I think)

I wish I could be more specific, but I was honestly enjoying my time and just kept going rather than take notes and document every oddity.

The art style is interesting and won't be to everyone's taste, but I found myself quite accepting of it very quickly. (That sounds worse than I mean it) The demo needs title screen artwork ASAP.

Clearly, the writing is the showcase, and I'm totally on-board. Good writing is sorely lacking these days. Every bit of quality is like a drop of water in the desert, haha!

 

[Iron_Brew]

Titular ability is now working
needs some aesthetic work, obviously to mask the transition
but it WORKS
it massively buffs you, upgrades all your skills

 

[Iron_Brew]

Chapter 2 has now been released!



Holy moly this has been a long time coming! Tomorrow I'll be releasing a save file compatible with this version of the game picking up where Chapter 1 left off but for now - this is a massive update to the game. Development will continue as this release ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, but the amount of new content in this is a ton.

To briefly summarise:

• Denzel, Charon and Nyangela have fled the HoneyComb kingdom!
• Explore the town of Buddy Copse!
• Hours of main story content
• New sidequests, optional dungeons and a ton of new features
• Masses of balance fixes and updates to Chapter 1 to bring it up to the higher standards Chapter 2 has
  • I appreciate that some people won't want to go through CH1 again - and that's fair enough! There is a save file included on the download page which sticks you at the end of Ch1 with all but the Ch1 Endgame content done!
• New player cosmetics system
• New animations, bosses and puzzles
• More insight into the wider world of Knight Shift!
• A new playable character with unique moves around the theme of thievery and gambling!

A big part of why Chapter 1 went so well is the fantastic feedback you guys provided, so I wanted to get 1.9 out ahead of the full ending of Chapter 2 and all the planned side content to get as much feedback as possible and make sure the full Ch2 release is all it can be!

https://knight-shift.itch.io/demo/devlog/332600/knight-shift-chapter-19-update
@mods - can I request this be moved to games in development please? I've updated the thread title etc to reflect that development is still ongoing. I would rather keep continuity with this thread to