Hello, everyone!

I've been so busy with the holidays that I haven't had a chance to make an official post on here. I initially uploaded this game and am still running a page to promote Nick Quest on there. When I discovered itch.io I knew immediately that this was the place I always envisioned my game being.

With my first post, I wanted to talk a bit about myself, my experiences, and why I made some of the decisions that went into Nick Quest.

As you've no doubt guessed, I'm Nick. In the past, I'd always wanted to make a full-length game. I caught interest in programs like RPG Maker from a young age, but would always get burnt-out part of the way through. I put it off as I became an adult, but it always nagged at me. That life goal was always there, in the back of my mind, taunting me. Finally, I picked up RPG Maker MV on a Humble Bundle a few years back, thinking I would do something with it. Spoiler warning: I didn't.

Then, in 2018, I wanted to see the original "Nick Quest" as I went through my collection of Playstation games. The first "version" of this game was constructed over a decade ago (it was an awful game) but the data was lost. I felt a bit bummed over it, and decided to make a better version of it with today's version of RPG Maker. A hop, skip, hundreds of hours of designing and play testing later... and here we are.

As a designer, I work best within parameters. I challenged myself to see how quality of a game I could make only using what was in the base package for RPG Maker MV. There were two points, however, that I used plugins for, because I would not compromise my vision for the game: it had to have character sprites as enemies for battle (oddly, this was entirely because of the Travis tutorial) and a New Game Plus feature, because I live for that sort of thing.

Most of the game was me reading tutorials, experimenting, and honestly figuring out how to make RPG Maker do what I envisioned. There were a lot of moments of frustration, and at times I even had to settle with certain limitations. Fun fact, actually: Sumera, the first town, was essentially made twice. I did all of the events and they were so janky that by the time I finished the game I realized cleaner, easier ways to do everything. Not to mention, there were some design changes that happened as I went along. Initially, Nick and the party were approximately 18-20. By the end, I decided we should be full-blown adults and drink in some scenes. Finding bits and pieces of the old writing and correcting them proved a bit of work toward the end

Combat itself took on numerous changes. There was one iteration where I had skills assigned to gear, to create complexity with horizontal progression. Keep this sword, have a good skill. But then all of the characters felt really homogenized so I ended up discarding it. However, there were still some lingering issues that needed to be resolved even late in development as they popped up, because this was so ingrained into the progression early game. Other things, random bits of balancing, playing with skills that gave pure sustain, just resulted in hours of testing, balancing, changing... finally, I felt like I hit the hammer on the head with how things are now. Each character has their own role, multiple ways to do it, and there are multiple very viable builds for everybody.

Balancing enemies also took a lot of work. I wanted a measure of difficulty so that the game isn't something that can be steam-rolled, especially for the bonus content. However, I didn't want to make it unfair either. I put a lot of effort into designing encounters so that random encounters wear down resources appropriately, and bosses are a dangerous fight. I also tried to play with giving bosses different big attacks, but they work in different ways (turn-based, HP-based, resource-based) so that sometimes the player can quickly figure it out and disrupt the tempo of a fight,  but other times it may be harder. And some are even entirely random, so that you can always turn things around with enough strategy, but some runs are harder than others. Which leads me to...

I might as well address status effects. Yes, they're in the game and I know they're annoying to deal with. But I also made them very potent for when the player uses them as well. Even Bosses can be debilitated through clever use of status ailment to really encourage players to experiment with them. I noticed, late in development, that poison was the only one my testers felt needed to be dealt with because it lasted outside of battle. So, I made the decision to have all of them last outside of battle. Fortunately, I also made a lot of cheap methods to cure them. I was hesitant at first, but after playing some other old-school RPGs I think it's appropriate. I wanted a level of difficulty that was easier than a lot of newer turn-based RPGs I've played, but not quite as indescribably punishing as old-school... and I think I've attained it.

But what is a game without a beautiful world to explore? That, in and of itself, was an experience.

The earliest version had very simple maps, until I looked around at how detailed one could make them with enough effort. I actually got through designing Arcatia, then looked at how simple everything prior to that was. I went back and redid all of the previous maps so that the level of quality was consistent. I still remember making Green Valley one Sunday morning when my PC crashed and I had to remake it all again... It was a pain, at times.

It wasn't all bad though. So many elements of the game just sort of came together. Much of the story-telling, the tongue-in-cheek dialogue, the jokes, and the NPCs. Very little was planned initially but as the game took on its own sort of life, things came together and planning became easy. You'll notice that some of the NPCs have faces and names. They're actually based off my friends in real life. Two of my best friends, Schmidt and Rich, my wife Katie, my friend and mentor Travis, my Taekwondo instructor Master Lewis, and a spread of different friends and colleagues I've had throughout the years.

And it was more than inspiration for the cast. When asked, my closest friends really came together for me and spent hours testing the game to help me find bugs, exploits, and to give some really solid feedback. I want to give special call-outs to Brandon Schmidt (Schmidt) and Travis Holter (Travis) as they spent by far the most hours tearing apart the game, meeting up with me, and having numerous discussions for how to improve it. Without you guys in particular, Nick Quest wouldn't be as great as it is.

I had always envisioned a hilarious, self-referential tongue-in-cheek game sprinkled with a fun cast of characters that still managed to convey deep messages. Some of the quests, like the Julius quest, touch on actual life lessons I've learned. Some moments, found later in the game, draw upon actual experiences I've had. I wanted this game to be something you play to have a laugh and get to know a guy named Nick. And I really think I managed to capture that with the game. When I see it, finally finished, and people talk to me about how funny it is and how much they enjoy playing it... every one of those meetings, all those countless hours, all those sleep-deprived nights are completely worth it.

This is my quest. Nick Quest. And I hope you all enjoy it.