moralanxietystudio

[moralanxietystudio]

I heard that Roadwarden is not working well on Switch 2, even though it works just fine on Switch 1. I've got no clue how this works, but the team behind the port is going to look into it. Still, right now - the game is on sale, both here and on Steam!

[moralanxietystudio]

No joke - depending on where you live, you can pre-order ROADWARDEN on NINTENTDO SWITCH (yes!) at a discount (now or soon). And in a WEEK, it will be available for purchase!

As I know nothing about programming, Assemble Entertainment (<3), handled this port for me.

[moralanxietystudio]

It's been exactly 18 months since the first time I played roadwarden and I'm still completely obsessed with it! It's literally my favourite game ever (along with windy meadows) I can't wait to see what you make next

I'm honored, thank you! I won't take this kind of trust as granted, I promise.

[moralanxietystudio]

Despite the broken fences, collapsed trees, and devoured apples, there’s peace. The monkeys follow your steps erratically but remain quiet, as if you have entered a tomb.

[moralanxietystudio]

I used to be in love with Planescape: Torment. One of its stories that resonated with me the most belongs to Deionarra: of love, abuse, guilt - human and sincere.

It causes me grief to find a cover of Deionarra's Theme "composed" from an oblivious AI prompt, illustrated with a generic AI-perfect-face lady.

Here, we're going to stay on the human side of things.

[moralanxietystudio]

should my fatigue-healing magic potion taste more like coffee, or a monster energy "drink"?

- yes

[moralanxietystudio]

starting to think Sonreir may be a bit better at pixel art than I am

[moralanxietystudio]

The outer walls are giving way to the detritus-craving vines. The crumbling building must have seen generations, as a watchtower, refuge, prison, or a granary. The huts are young, and while most of them stand empty, a child’s laughter breaks through their silence.

[moralanxietystudio]

The ford lures you closer as your feet are craving the cold brush of water.

Still, better to avoid the coarse ferns - shaking off their spores takes you a good while.

[moralanxietystudio]

For a few more days, my obscure indie Visual Novel, Windy Meadow, is on 50% sale. A tale about the common folk living in a cozy village that sometimes feels too small for them.

I still love this tiny tribe with its many problems, and I'm proud of the story structure I tried to pull off.

[moralanxietystudio]

Hi! I really love Roadwarden, and I was wondering how you organised the event logic in the game during development? Did you have a massive flow-chart with all the events or something? I want to create my own choice-based narrative game, and I'm wondering how to best organise the story-beats and choice trees :D

Hi! To be clear, I’m just a person and what works for me, will likely not work for you, at least not fully. I advise comparing my answer with other folks who are more experienced in the field.

TO ME, at the very least, organizing storylines was not all that difficult, because the entirety of the design was coming from me. There was no communication or a need to compare notes with anyone. Every now and then I forget smaller story bits, but I can just look at the names of variables tied to specific interactions, or read the old journal entries to catch up with everything. I tend to forget smaller details after a few weeks or months and larger ideas after a year or two, but I don’t need visual aid to catch up with my ideas: the in-game tools presented to the player are meant to keep up with all the branches anyway.

And some story bits definitely ended up not working too well, or I had to rewrite them, discard them even after adding them to the game, or put extra effort to connect them to broader stories because they felt too disconnected. But this was much easier to handle with a game that looks, sounds and plays like Roadwarden: no voice acting, no sound effects, animations, and so on makes changing stuff much easier and cheaper than it would for a complex RPG with advanced presentation. Once you get good at it, 6-20 hours of just writing new descriptions or decisions for the player, as well as moving your code around to reflect these decisions, can lead to massive changes and improvements.

To underline the opposite side of things: if I was to work with a group of writers, or if every decision was to lead to massive production costs, or if I was to have severe time constraints, I couldn’t allow myself to play around with this much freedom. But at least for now, my approach embraces the more chaotic, creative side of things and I write stories with the assumption they will get better at a later stage of development, once I get a better view of the broader story I haven’t planned, but that has rather emerged from the game. 

So, to me, it’s less about planning, and more about discovering

It’s a very risky approach and not something I would advise to a person who would put their life savings and career behind their project. But for a hobbyist, or someone who has a strong safety net? It’s worth a try and see how it feels.

[moralanxietystudio]

I was wondering, what game engine did you use to make Roadwarden?

Ren’Py, a Visual Novel-oriented engine based on Python.  Once you see how the default Ren’Py game menu looks, you can’t unsee it. 

But to be clear, this engine is not really constructed for RPGs, so it took some heavy customization.

[moralanxietystudio]

When I first played your Roadwarden demo I couldn’t put it down, after finishing the demo (and not sleeping) I bought the full game and continued for six more hours until I physically couldn’t.

One of my favorite games

I'm delighted, thank you. A few months ago I was playing Keep Driving and I absolutely sunk into it, and "wasted" an entire day after that because of bad night sleep.

[moralanxietystudio]

I think the leaf border is charming! Not ambitious enough actually. Gotta do corner pieces like the entire thing is a dropcap in one of those old timey tomes. Really embed the game in vines and stone

You're most likely right - after step A, step B would be the only correct direction.

But I'm still a fan of simplicity, allows to channel the focus towards where it belongs.

[moralanxietystudio]

Every now and then, I find a discarded Roadwarden design from the early days. This "leaf" border is so bad, yet I keep thinking "what if".

Also, the game is like 4 bucks or something on Steam atm, Summer sale and all.

[moralanxietystudio]

The abundance of scents keeps you alert.

There’s a few more hours until dusk, yet the journey is starting to mark your shells with the pebbles in your boots, and the leather straps rubbing against your clothes.

Some of you are looking at the mud absently.

[moralanxietystudio]

Not a question, just wanna say I love your Roadwarden game

Not an answer, but thanks