Antagonist
Solo Project, Steam Release
The villains in games are all actors?! Follow the script through the eyes of D'Vil, an aspiring Dark Lord actor, who soon comes to realize that his job... might not just be a job...
A short indie game made in RPG Maker with a riveting Active Time Battle system revolving around working with your teammate.
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1st Place Winner: RPG Category
Indie Game Making Contest 2014 by Degica.
Was then developed into a full game and released on Steam in 2017.
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Official Trailer by Degica
Design Process
Core Feelings I had to have in the Game
Plot with a Twist
"Bad guys think they're the good guys" I really wanted to keep that idea, while parodying the traditional "Hero VS Dark Lord" common plot.
Not an "RPG Maker Game"
Despite being an RPG Maker game, I wanted to approach in every way that wasn't the default.
I thought about the judges of IGMC2014, and how they would probably have to play through a lot of default RPG Maker games, and wanted to make an experience different from that.
Single-player Experience
Despite playing as the main character, D'Vil, I wanted the player to mechanically play and immerse themselves into only one character.
Mechanics
Linear Plot
Maximizing Play Time
As the game was initially made for a competition, I chose a visual novel style as the framework for the whole game. While RPG Maker, by default, has tilemaps and exploration, I decided to avoid all those to cut out any time spent by the judges not doing anything.
Still, there were choices involves in dialogue, which tweaked several variables behind the scene that affected teamwork with allies, making them significant.
Battle System
Few Simple Things
With only 2 party members, I wanted everything to feel measurable and significant:
A basic attack that charges up Technique Points, and skills with costs in increments of 10 to keep it simple to perceive. Some skills dealt more damage but took more time to recover, others were quick.
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All of this was rooted in how I imagined real fights to go: There's rarely an equal amount of turns. Still, without being able to create Real-Time Combat in RPG Maker with my lack of Javascript knowledge, I settled for simulating it with an Active Time Battle System.
Teammates
A party must have teamwork!
I've always felt that rather than controlling party members, having them act on their own transmitted a lot more personality. During battle, the party members aren't controlled by the player and launch their own attacks via A.I. as their turns come.
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In order to hit home the core of teamwork and friendship, themes within the story, while maintaining the player focus on only one character, I invested in Follow-Up Skills, skills that can evolve into stronger combinations when used right after certain skills. This aimed to create an awareness of what their ally is doing, and work with it.
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Also during the story, the dialogue choices affect the player's bond with their teammate, and in doing so, also affect their A.I. patterns. Do they use a lot of skills that can be combined with? Or do they simply fend for themselves with strong solo attacks?
The combination of the above mechanics didn't work as well as I had hoped at first, and doubly so because of bugs that I couldn't fix with my then lack of coding skill, but thanks to friends and other playtesters, I was able to iterate and balance values, damage, remove and add skills, and finally, it hit a sweet spot that made the battle system riveting and exciting.
Release
Development up to Release
Antagonist won 1st in the RPG Category during the Indie Game Maker Competition, hosted by DEGICA.
Still, it took 2-3 years of gradually working at it, drawing new assets, adding content, and polishing gameplay before it reached a quality worth releasing.
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It was especially hard going during those times, juggling schoolwork as well as only having weekends free during National Service, army conscription.
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I'm happy I managed to bring a game this far.
