Behind the Curtain: Stealth Mode and Surprise Releases

Instead of just posting here to provide updates, I figure I could talk a bit more here about Things and Stuff related to game development, since it's good to have such things posted and it might be helpful to people considering jumping in to the magical world of game development and stuff. Plus, I know I came out of nowhere, so I figure it's a good time to pull back the curtain a bit and properly introduce myself to the itch.io community and people more broadly.

Who is acktar?

I'm a 30-something dude who lives in the US. Longtime gamer (nearly my entire life at this point), and I've always loved getting lost in video games of all kinds. RPGs, adventure, strategy, puzzle, platformer...I've played a lot of them and have always enjoyed them. I have a couple other interests, like writing and cats, but we'll stick to the games side of things.

Fire Emblem as a series has been a love of mine since I played the first localized one (Blazing Sword) in December of 2003, and it's taken up a lot of my mental bandwidth over the years. The only series entries I've not played at this point are the ones locked to the Famicom and Super Famicom in Japan, which means the only major omissions are the Jugdral games, Genealogy of the Holy War and Thracia 776. Yes, I can emulate them, but I prefer to not emulate unless I have no other options.

Where the hell did this game come from, anyways?

Setting aside the snarky answer (a mix of determination, SRPG Studio, and a lot of insanity), I've been working on the game that ultimately became Chronicles of Dramarith I intermittently since December 2021. I stumbled upon SRPG Studio, saw it was on sale, and figured I'd give it a go.

I had a build of the game that was about 40% done that I abandoned around June 2022 as other projects started to appear on my plate that took up a lot more of my time. Once those finished up, I started to reexamine what I had done in November of 2022 and figured it might be best starting over, making a couple of tweaks and changes to the plot and to the pacing of the game (on top of balance).

I wound up taking a second hiatus for May 2023, returning to the project in June. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I didn't hate what I had done, and I made the call to finish the project up and see it to the end at that point, wherever it took me. I started thinking I might be ready to release about a week out from when I actually released, so it all came together pretty quickly at the end.

Where'd the art and assets come from?

I'll freely admit that I am not a good visual artist, a mix of crippling perfectionism and no real instruction. I wanted to, in a sense, prove that I could get a game across the finish line, so I settled for using SRPG Studio's default tranche of assets and supplementing them with free-use visuals and audio I found from various sites (and used, with attribution).

In a sense, when you're starting out, having limitations to work through and around isn't a bad thing. While it means you can't do everything you might like, you can still find creative ways to make elements of that come to life. I'm not great with some things, but I think I have other strengths, so I focused on the things I knew I could make good instead of worrying about my terrible skills of an artist holding me back.

How much of the scenario and dialogue did you write?

All of it. With the exception of some character names and a couple of structural things related to one of the villainous factions, the Coven of Unholy Nocturnal Terror, I came up with everything, and I was the one to write all of it up. The title of the game was technically a modification: my brother offered to make me a logo, so I gave him the name and he made a logo, and I liked the logo enough to tweak the title of the game to match it.

Why did you suddenly release the game with no hype and no pre-promotion?

Saying "I have a game coming out" has the issue of creating an expectation that you're going to release the project, and I wanted to actually have everything together before I started getting word out about it. It turns out that, when I did publicly mention the game for the first time, it was less than 24 hours before I felt it was good enough to release.

I've also always seen creative endeavors as a more private thing. It's something I'm working on quietly, trying to get right, before I spring it upon an unsuspecting world. I also tend to feel really icky about self-promotion, and I'd rather let my things speak for themselves instead of trumpeting their quality.

What's next?

I've got a couple other projects I'm starting to plan out, including a follow-up to Chronicles of Dramarith I that's in its very early planning stages. Unlike 

Besides that, I'm fully intending to keep support of Chronicles of Dramarith I coming, to make the game the best version of itself it can possibly be. I should have a patch 1.03 coming out this weekend to address a couple more issues that came up; there have thankfully ben no game-shattering issues or crashes to report, which is a relief! But there's definitely a lot more I can do and want to do before I call it good.

I think that's enough pontification for now. Feel free to ask me questions! I'm happy to answer any questions you may have about Things and Stuff.
-acktar