Looking for Some Partners in Crime! (Mystery-RPG Recruitment)

[Amysaurus]

[Tentative Title!]
​

General Information:

Engine: RPG Maker MV
Game Release(s): Commercial, English.
Genre(s): Mystery, Comedy, Adventure
Synopsis (tentative):
Taking on the role of an amateur investigator, the player will immerse themselves in a society where humans and monsters live together in peace. Tasked with investigating cases threatening that peace, the player will have to overcome a combination of mystery and puzzle elements in order to discover the secret that connects them all.
​

Spoiler: Graphics Style (subject to change)

Maps/Sprites:

Portraits:

Icons:

Position(s) Filled:

Spoiler

Lead Artist
Concept Artist
Writer(s)
Composer(s)
Sound Designer
Eventer/Programmer

Position(s) Open:

Spoiler

-> GUI/Logo Design: For this position, I'm mainly looking for people who can help with menu and title screen design. If you're not comfortable working in a pixel style, even putting together some mock-ups/concepts to work from would help a great deal.

-> Pixel Artist: This project is super heavy on pixel art, so I'm looking for people who can assist with making some of the assets (portraits, sprites, maps, etc). I'll be more than happy to give you a crash course in the drawing/shading style as needed ^^

Other:

Compensation:
Naturally, you will be fully-credited for any and all of your contributions. I can’t do much when it comes to monetary payment until after the game's release, but I'm willing to provide graphics/support for a future project of yours in exchange.

Communication:
As of right now we're using a Discord server to communicate, though messages via email the forum also work fine.​

Interested?
Feel free to send me a message on the forum, or via one of the contact methods on my profile.​

 

[Magilicous]

Nice, you got a main plot for the game! I want to help out, but the only thing I can really do is be a concept artist at the moment. Sorry I've been a lazy sausage lately, and that I can't really work on concept art until Friday night when I come back from vacation with my dad (there's no paper or Internet connection in his house), but I'll be happy to make that concept art for you. Maybe it could be a step in the "I need to organize my projects and not start like five things at a time and forget about them" direction.

 

[Zapchi]

I would be interested. I love your art style. Here are some sample tracks, they may not be what you're looking for, it's hard to compose off of unknown material. If they're not what you're looking for, you can check out my SoundCloud to see if there's something you like better there. These may be a bit to 8 bit compared to 16, but that can easily be changed. Anyhow, here you are;

 

[iblamevictoria]

I'd love to work with you on this project as a composer and possibly a character/creature designer! I sent an email to the account in your profile description with some quality sample tracks and artwork. Just as a heads up.

Here's a sample of the samples I sent, just because:

 

[Amysaurus]

Updates:
The writing positions are now filled.

@Magilicous I appreciate the offer! Feel free to send me some drawing samples sometime, and I'll get back to you!
@Zapchi Thanks for the music samples! I'll send you a PM once I get a chance to listen to more of your tracks.
@iblamevictoria Thanks for the sample/email!

 

[Magilicous]

Here is some concept art I made, if I can even load it onto this thing.
[doublepost=1483767099,1483767070][/doublepost]Oh good, the file is on there

 

[Amysaurus]

Update time!

- The writing, composing, and sound design spots have been filled.
- The character and GUI designer spots have been filled.
- The eventing/scripting spots have been filled.


The remaining positions have been updated.

@Magilicous I sent you a PM. :)

 

[Zebestian]

Damn it, Amy! I can't believe you were looking for a composer but didn't ask me! I'm so hurt right now, my heart is shattered and all that tragic cliché stuff. XD
Na,h seriously though, I wish I had seen this sooner. Ah, well, I got stuff to do regardless. So, good luck with your project I guess. Yeah. :D

 

[Shineypawn]

Hey Amysaurus,

Your project sounds very interesting to me. The funny thing is that it is similar to my project, I think we can create something beautiful if we cooperate together.

My story is that: "a human grew up between monsters and is 'evil', but in a humorous way, together with his 'slave' he finds the 'darkstone' that makes the friendly monsters into real monsters. He then runs away, and has a few misadventures". And that's how far I got with my story...

I propose that we fuse our projects together

You see, I already have 43 maps and many event conversations that would maybe, with a bit of adaptation, fit nicely into your idea of a human investigator of peace. I was running out of inspiration, and I think I can spiral my story into that direction.

I was focusing on mapping and creating events, (like the conversations, but I also enjoy creating puzzles). Actually, the mapping part is what I enjoy the most, and creating puzzles is what I enjoy most about mapping/eventing. So in addition to fusing my project to your game I would help with further mapping and creation of puzzles and conversation.

This, if you allow it to be so, so what do you say?

 

[Amysaurus]

Spoiler: Previous Updates

Spoiler: Update 1

Updates:
- The mapping positions have been filled.
- The remaining positions have been updated!

The team is pretty much full, but there's still a spot open for anyone interested in helping with GUI design.


@Kaimen I think I would've really, actually imploded if I'd heard from you earlier. I had so much trouble narrowing it down to the composers I did.

@Shineypawn Hmm.... that's an interesting proposition, though I'm not sure that the ideas would quite be able to merge smoothly. We can discuss it a bit in PM, if you'd like. ^^

Spoiler: Update 2

Update tiiiiiime~

- I'm still looking for a menu/GUI designer, if anyone's interested
- There's now a second pixel artist on the team

Aaaaand, here's some character art and a map, in case you're curious to see how things are looking:

Spoiler: Update 3

Hey guys!
It’s about time for an update, amirite? Here’s what’s new with….

The Team:

Hmmm... not too much here! I have a couple of positions open, if any of you are interested! Right now they are for another pixel artist, as well as a GUI/menu designer. Pretty much everything else is covered right now. If you have any interest, feel free to send a message my way - I'll get you some more info of what I'm looking for. ​

Development:

As of right now, pretty much all of the main mechanics have been set up and are functional, but we’re still working on having the graphics and story ready to be implemented. Placeholders. Placeholders everywhere.

Animated portraits? Check!
Travel system? Got it!
Evidence system? Checkeroonie!
Dialogue system? You betcha!
​

Writing/Story:

We’re still hammering out a lot of the specifics (writing cases is work, y’know!), but we’ve been making some decent headway on outlining the cases. Once that’s all finished up, we’ll start focusing more on the specifics (branching dialogue, presenting evidence, all that good stuff!).
​

Graphics:

Remember maps like these? Those were the days.

Spoiler: Gone, but not forgotten

As of last month-ish, they’ve been scrapped for this look:

Spoiler: Ooo, I’m all, like, shiny and new

It’s a bit of a drastic change, aye? This style is, admittedly, a bit more work, but it fits the look and gameplay we’re going for so much better. If you’re a fan of the older style - no worries! I’m still using that style for a graphics set I’m putting together, so you’ll see it again sometime!
​

Music/Sound Design:

Not too much going on in this department (we're holding off a bit until the story is further along), but we’ve got some pretty swanky tracks in progress! I'll be sure and update you guys when we have some finished ones ready to share! ​

Other:

If you made it this far.... wow! I'll try and have something more special for the end next time, but for now, here’s a look at how I put together the character art for this game:

Spoiler: WARNING. Tall image incoming!

Thanks for taking the time to check this out! I really appreciate it ​

Spoiler

IT’S UPDATE DAY! =D

Positions/The Team:
We haven’t killed each other yet! That’s an accomplishment, right?? There are still some spots open if anybody is interested in doing pixel art or menu designs ^^


Development:
We’re currently on our 10th test build. Whoop! We’ve incorporated the new sprite style successfully, we’re working on incorporating the maps and dialogue right now, and we’re hoping to have our first section playable by the end of June.


Writing/Story:
Right now we’re working on the draft for the first case, with a focus on dialogue/interactions with different characters. The outcome of conversations will vary based on your dialogue choices, as well as what evidence/topics you choose to discuss with them . ^^


Graphics:
Lately, the focus has been on developing character designs, location designs, and working on sprites for the first case. I ended up getting a walk cycle finished that I can base future character sheets off of, and it works great with the movement restricted to sideview only.

Besides that, I’m working on converting some of the concept sketches to portraits, as well as continuing to improve the portrait poses/animations

Music/Sound Design:
As of right now, we’ve got 4 tracks either finished or in progress. I’ll get some posted once they’re up on Soundcloud or another sharing platform - I'm really looking forward to seeing what you guys think! Most of the tracks have a jazzy, spooky style to them, which has been great to see (hear!) developing over time.


Other:
Once again, thanks for making it to the end of the post! I tried to not be so wordy this time, but I don’t think it worked, hehe. For a little something extra, I thought I’d share how the main character’s look has changed over time.

Spoiler

Can we talk about how blocky my drawing style back then was???

Update time!

Things are still moving forward at a decent pace, and right now my focus is on getting the environments ready to go. As much as I'm not a fan of making a lot of changes once I call something done, I did touch up a few maps for the sake of consistency.

Spoiler: Office 1

Spoiler: Office 2

Spoiler: Lobby

Besides that, here are some concepts for the phone-style menu I'm working on:

Spoiler

As an extra, here's a link to the font I made for this menu.

 

[Zebestian]

*annoys Grace*
Hot damn those offices and lobby look nice! And so does the phone menu. I mean these remind me so much of the Ace Attorney series and that's always a good thing. Well, maybe not so much the Phoenix Wright games but definitely the Edgeworth ones. Makes me sad that I don't get to compose music for this. XD

Definitely keep on awesoming! ^-^

 

[Ekamu]

Any open roles for play-testing?

 

[Amysaurus]

@Kaimen Thanks! Those games were definitely huge inspirations of mine. I'll do my best to keep it up! xD

@Ekamu None at the moment, but I'll let you know when that changes.