You Are Not The Hero [now on Early Access]

[seita]

We're now on Steam Early Access​

(Illustration by Hirei)​

You Are Not The Hero is a new action platform RPG for the PC, inspired by all the people the heroes always ended up screwing over. Stupid heroes...

We ditch the battle system to focus on richer RPG gameplay elements. Instead of playing a traditional hero that saves the world, you're playing a bystander swept into the affairs of the heroes and villains alike.

You play as Petula, an unemployed, emotionally charged, ill-tempered, otherwise average young woman. With the royal army hot on their heels, the heroes have made their way to your village where they resume scavenging for supplies in everyone's homes. After confronting them for stealing your pendant, they rush off to continue their quest, giving you a quest of your own to retrieve it.

One of our aims in making YANTH was to showcase the capabilities of the RPG Maker engine. Because of the ongoing negative stigma against the engine with the flood of half-baked games onto markets such as Steam and IndieDB, both gamers and developers believe it to be a one-trick pony. We're showing the strengths of the engine by using completely custom graphics and mechanics other commercial RM games tend to bypass due to difficulty and time required to implement them.

Find the finished Kickstarter Campaign Here.​

Read my Kickstarter Post Mortem Here.
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!​

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Download Here:​

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This demo was released for the October - November 2013 Kickstarter campaign.​

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Have you ever played an RPG? Then you know that the main character is a very big deal. He or she is destined to save the world, assisted by a group of equally heroic, strong companions. You travel vast landscapes, defeating monsters and enemies with evil intent, earning money, becoming stronger, buying or finding legendary equipment to help you on your super epic quest.

Aren't you tired of that? In You Are Not The Hero, you play as Petula, a simple minded girl who lives in her little shack in Hearth Village. She's content with living her life the same dull way she has for a while now. Unfortunately for her, the heroes and villains of this world have different plans!


You Are Not The Hero is a parody on RPGs and video games in general. You'll find tons of video game references, cliche satirical events and fourth wall breaking throughout your journey as Petula. You won't find a battle system, but you'll tackle obstacles, puzzles, chase sequences, and more unique events as you run after the Heroes who have stolen your precious pendant.​

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Updates​

Spoiler

06-08-2015: Finally updated the forum post!​

06-02-2015: You Are Not The Hero Has been released onto Steam's Early Access forum!​

 
Fanart​

Spoiler

Petula illustrated by Chaos Avian!

Petula running from a ghost by amicable!

Another cute Petula drawing by I forgot >_<

The NPC Lyfe by Marian!​

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Petula:​

Your name is Petula. Don't ask why, in all likelihood your parents were drunk when you were conceived. You lead an incredibly meager life, with meager living quarters and a boring lifestyle. You hear about stories of heroism that sound more like modern folktales. You don't expect to become some legendary warrior or world renowned cleric. You just want to live. Guess what? You're gonna get exactly what you want.​

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Leon:​

This guy here. This one's the hero. He's the MAN! He's a strong swordsman taught by the legendary Knights of the Oval, or something. Or maybe not, was he the waterboy? That Panda guy looked more like a hero. Well, whatever. He isn't really your problem. He looked very serious and hard headed, as if he was from another world, transcendant. Whatever. He was kinda cute.​

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Cecilia:
Ugh that girl is so annoying! Just thinking of that hot-headed annoying little girl makes my blood boil! She thinks she's so high and mighty, getting away with such foul language. Next time I see her i'll push her off a cliff. Just watch.​

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Panda:
Haha what a name. He was so formal and nice, it seemed like he was from royalty or some prestigious order. He had a huge sword. His hair was shinier than mine, I wanted to touch it! I'll have to ask him what shampoo he uses.​

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Battle System:
Whats that? Didn't I just tell you, you're a nobody. You won't be fighting, you'll be doing what you're best at. Living. Maybe you'll solve a puzzle here and there, escape from danger and what not. But fighting? Haha. No way.​

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• Polish polish polish! I am OCD when it comes to imperfections, and I cringe whenever someone finds something wrong with my game.
• Puzzles and platforming! Jump, push, switch your way through the game! Escape rooms, trap enemies and run from danger!
• Satirical storyline and commentary! YANTH does not take itself seriously and neither should you! Expect fourth wall breaking, gaming and pop cultural references!
• Mini games! Various mini-games all created in-engine without external scripts.
• Don't worry, you won't be left wanting just because there isn't a battle system. In fact, you could say I made my own for YANTH!

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Zalerinian
Source
Victor Sant
Enelvon
Yanfly
Hime
Galv
Yami
Dekita
Khas Arcthunder
Zeus
Zeriab​

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Artists​

Xavier Merced Loubriel​

Stephanie "Hirei" Hii
Mantas "eDeus" Barcas​

Tegan "Amicable" McFadden
Meagan "CosmicKitty" Bowden​

Anne "Erlyn" Herrera​

Marko Markovic​

Celianna​

Melvin​

Kaijira
Mack​

Special Thanks​

My earliest supporters and biggest initial boost of motivation:
Cain E Wulfric
Stevie
Jarrad
Sacarious
Lustermx
Simplestchaos
Shaz

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Support You Are Not The Hero!!​

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[The Stranger]

This looks like fun, I'm downloading it now.

 

[seita]

Thanks for checking it out! I just uploaded a demo without the RTP, completely forgot the first time around.

 

[The Stranger]

The game doesn't go  beyond the heroes leaving your home... The screen goes black, and then nothing happens. I can access the menu, but that's it. 

 

[seita]

Just uploaded a new version without RTP. Sorry about that, sent you a message too.

 

[The Stranger]

Hey Seita! 

I've just finished the demo, and wow! That was a hell of a lot of fun. I was laughing right from the start, when the intro was poking fun at the game; "there's probably some grammaratical errors" hehehe. Then it goes on to mock the fact it just misspelled a word so early into the game.

The heroes actually talking like they're being controlled by players was great! Then actually seeing an NPC react to having her home broken into and robbed, whilst the heroes claim they're doing it for her own good, was very, very, funny. 

The battle mechanic (or rather escape mechanic) was entertaining, I hope you keep that in your full game. I think I failed the star challenge, I'm not sure though, nothing said I failed.

There were a few bugs, well, one I actually saw; inside the tower on some of the upper floors, you can actually see the colour of the zones you used to mark where the player would fall through the holes. It just shows up as pure red areas. 

Also, not really a bug, the menu seemed very out of place; it says you're a soldier class etc, even though I get the impression you're not.

I really, really, want to see more of this! I had a blast, shame the demo was only a few minutes long. I hope the rest of the game is filled with the same fourth-wall breaking, and self-mocking attitude as the demo.

Great work!

 

[seita]

Hey Cain thanks so much for the input! This is still a demo and some features were missing. The last 4 stars are not yet processed by the time the demo finished. I forgot to delete the red tile, it's only there to help me see where the player can fall.

You won't believe how long it took me to perfect and polish that escape minigame. I'm definitely going to use it some more later on.
It's really crazy how much time I spent polishing this demo, and how long it takes to finish it. I now know why RPGs don't often have such involved scenes like this. The path finding in particular gave me a lot of trouble, with the guards chasing you, and it's still not perfect! I can't just use a move route on them since they stop when you get caught. Spent about two weeks on that 10 second mechanic...

I'll do my best, hopefully more people will be able to try out the demo and get some enjoyment out of it.

 

[The Stranger]

It definitely looked like you put a lot of effort into this demo, especially the escape sequence and escape mechanic. It really makes your game stand out, though.

I can only imagine how long it took to create that one small section of your game, how many hours you poured into it, to then have it completed in a few minutes. Hehehe. It was a great experience, and the only downside was that it was such a short one at that.

I really do hope others will check your game out, it deserves to be noticed.

 

[seita]

Hey Cain I really appreciate the support and kind words. These kind of things are the reasons I keep making my game. Hopefully other people will try it out, since the title and descriptions seem like someone is just messing around with the program.

 

[Jarrad]

Very good game. One of the most original out there. The scripts are very good and everything runs well. When the full release comes out I will download it for sure.

 

[EFizzle]

I'm really interested in your game! I'd just like you to provide more than just 3 screenshots! It's hard to make an initial judgement of your game with only a few screenshots! I'll try out your game soon!

 

[seita]

You drive a hard bargain, sir! I've added 3 more screenies in a spoiler tag to the original post.

 

[seita]

Now that I know there is a valid future to the game because of the positive responses to the demo, I'd like to ask the people who have played it what they would like to see in the game and what direction they believe it should head.

Things to keep in mind:

The game will continue to convey the type of comedy the demo shows. It'll keep breaking the fourth wall, make fun of itself, reference gaming and popular culture.

There will not be any battle systems for this game. I want to focus more on everything that doesn't involve balancing numbers. Puzzles, Story, minigames, etc.

There will be more Kamehamehas.

 

[The Stranger]

I think that Petula should still continue her quest to retrieve her stolen necklace, that could lead to some sticky situations for her, trying to find the heroes, getting into trouble etc. It could be great fun, and hilarious. I'd like to see more of the chaos the heroes leave in their wake too, maybe more areas which they've visited, thinking they're doing good, but generally just screwing everyone's lives up. Again, could be great fun.

Perhaps Petula keeps bumping into the heroes coincidentally, we left her fleeing with a group of survivors, so there's potential for more "do-gooders" to make her life even worse. Hehehe.

 

[Jarrad]

Petula should encounter monsters at various times in her "journey" and have to sneak past them, and trigger a chase scene if she is caught, or use her average skills to kill them (ie puzzle where you drop a boulder on a goblin or something.). She definitely needs to keep searching for her necklace and the actual heroes. Maybe she can try to impede their progress on their own quest so she can catch them.

 

[Stevie]

I had so much fun playing it. I'm glad to hear you're keeping the "kamehameha" battles. They were so much fun.
 

In relation to Petula and the necklace, I sincerely hope we find out what it gives immunity to, and I'm loving the idea of the "heroes" being complete pricks.

Really, as long as the game is consistent with the tone set in the demo then it'll be absolutely brilliant. (I.E the self-referencing, fourth wall breaking etc)

Again, well done on making such a brilliant game.

 

[servantb7]

I'm not sure I would play a long RPG with no battles, but I really like the humor and emphasis on mini-games. Do you use scripts for any of your mini-games, or just use eventing?

I particularly like the "Escape" screen. Looks good and very unique.

 

[seita]

I have to say, for the three that have played it I'm glad what I have planned for the game is in line with what you'd like to see, it seems like everything you all said combines perfectly with my plans for this game.

@Cain - The idea that the villagers get in her way is very interesting and could really work out.

@Jarrad - I've been playing around with what would happen if she were to encounter monsters. A chase event could work, but that would conflict with the map and where petula/the monster she's running from will appear after the event. I'll have to think that over.

@Stevie - you seem to be hitting all the right notes, that immunity thing might play a bigger role in the future.

@servantb7 - if you play it you might be pleasantly surprised. True it doesn't have a battle system that pretty much all RPGs are iconic of, but I'm trying for a game where humor, puzzles and accomplishment outside of battles will be a gratifying experience for the player. Hope you'll try it out!

 

[seita]

Uploaded a version 1.05 of the first Chapter demo, much more polished and closer to complete.

I've tested and finished a replay system, which lets you retry the chapter and beat your old stats, earn stars you've missed and beat old times. A high score system if you will. This however isn't in the current build of the game, though you will be able to see your stats at the end of the demo.

 

[Ratty524]

Oh god this looks awesome. When I get the time I'll take a look at your demo.