Desolation is an action RPG video game developed using RPG Maker VX Ace. The quickest way to describe it would be: A story heavily based on Diablo II, set in the world of Ragnarok Online with gameplay inspired by The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. It may seem like a strange combination, but I've worked hard to connect the different sources of inspiration in a way that it makes sense - especially if you have played those games. Ultimately, this game is the culmination of my experience playing video games, I wanted to make something to honour some of the fantastic games that I've played throughout my life.
Development began in 2014, at that time I did not know how to program and so I chose to use RPG Maker VX Ace, a game engine that provides a robust infrastructure to build games with no coding required. It started off as nothing serious and I just had the idea of recreating some Ragnarok Online maps, but the project kept growing as I became more and more fascinated with the game development process. My skills grew as I started using more advanced software to create maps and worked with custom scripts. Eventually the game grew into a massive project containing over 400 maps and 14+ hours of gameplay time. Due to a decrease in motivation I stopped development around 2019, but I do wish to revisit it to at least polish it enough to release it as a demo, and perhaps continue developing the rest of the game to release the final version.
The game is currently incomplete, but I am planning on releasing a Demo version of the current game (around 14 hours of playtime) once I flesh out some details (mainly story presentation). There's no current ETA but I would like to have the Demo ready for some time in 2022.
Although I'm striving to release the work I've done so far as a demo (14+ hours of content), it is yet unclear if I'll carry on further development past that point. This is a fan-made project, one which I'll not profit from, and as such it remains a hobby project which I only work on during some of my free time.
RPG Maker 2003 was my first experience creating a game, it provides a robust infrastructure for you to be able to immediately get creative and make a turn-based RPG game without having to write code. It is fairly easy to get going, once you get the hang of Switches (boolean logic) and variables the possibilities are endless. It also allows you to create and edit scripts (written in RGSS, a scripting language based on Ruby) to customise your game.
First and foremost I wanted to create a game that I would enjoy playing. I wanted to make a game that gradually got more difficult and complex but never felt overwhelming. I wanted players to be able to beat the game at a reasonable difficulty without grinding for experience or gear, just defeating the monsters you come across should be enough. In terms of boss designs, I wanted a reasonable challenge so that most will require more than one attempt to beat. An RPG should reward exploration and observation, which is something I always had in mind when developing.
The project started with a simple idea: "what if I could recreate some Ragnarok Online maps?". I had no intentions of creating a massive project, I was just bored and wanted to mess around a bit. It's easy to work with a fan-game because you don't have to worry about creating something completely original, there's a framework you can use to base your project around, and for me I found it fun to reference a bunch of different games and have them connect somehow. If I had set out to create such a big project from the start, I would have chosen to make an original, but I am glad I developed this project as it provided me with valuable game design experience and tons of entertainment.
It's difficult to measure the requirements for this game since I make use of a ton of custom scripts and
assets,
which the RPG Maker engine was not built for.
below are the specs of the machine I used to develop and test the game, where it runs fine:
The game supports USB Gamepads and allows the re-mapping of controls, I have tested it with a Wired Xbox 360 controller and it works perfectly.
The download file for the game will contain a Readme file, which will contain most information about the game, including: Controls, How to adjust settings, known issues and how to deal with them. I might add a way to report issues in the future, but there's no plans for it currently.
This game contains TONS of references to different games, movies and books. I took great pleasure in putting in references to my favourite pieces of media and weaving them together in a way that made sense. Here are some of the big ones: Diablo II, Ragnarok Online, The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy I & VII, Harry Potter, A Song of Ice and Fire, The Name of the Wind, H.P. Lovecraft.