Template finished, lots of rules

So I have finaly finished working on the template for the RPG I am working on. Boy it took ages,  and I was only tracing someone's pixel art template to get a nice vector one! I think it is quite good and am very proud of it. After I have filled in a few more of my character sheets I will start vector spriting my characters.

The sprite to the left is an example of what a character may look like. It is my first attempt at drawing the lead character. His likeness will probably change quite a bit but this should give a gist of the style of graphics I am going for.

I finaly got round to reading the rules and boy are there a lot of them! Many of them I would expect but I was suprised to learn that I would have to include a splash screen at the start of the game (and they are strict about its presentation, very!). Not only that but there is a file size limit. Not overly suprising and It realy just presents a bit more of a self limiting challenge but I hadn't even concidered it. It looks like some of the fancyer looking sections I have been planning are out. The limit is moderate, 50MB, not tiny but not cutscene and audio friendly. I was planing to include some of my "dream scenes" set to songs that I love and that have inspired me over the years to make games/ other art but now it would be a true challenge to fit them in. Hopefully I will get to keep a couple of them. 

Well I have a lot of planning left to do. I cant start map design untill I have the story cemented so I will begin on cementing tomorrow. I also need my list of items, attacks, baddies and party members so I can finish designing the battle system.

Retro Remakes, a game for Helen

So right when I am working on my ultra fun high octane fighter I hear about this competition run by retro-remakes. It is a bog-standard game creation comp except for one entry category "A game for Helen". Basically it is a competition to create a game that can be played by the mobility impaired.

Obviously if I were to just create a game following these guidelines getting it to the right people would be a tricky task, that is why I have decided that I will put the game I'm working on currently on ice (always a bad choice) and enter the competition to support the cause. I was unable to come up with a way to make the full version of my game compatible with the constraints put upon me by the mobility impaired controls (mouse and left click) so I have decided to work on an RPG... could Final Fantasy be influencing me? I have never wanted to work on an RPG before...

Anyway I have the basic movement engine up and running (in game maker) and I am now going to begin working on battle systems and character design. The entirety of my source material will be released free to encourage others to mod and edit it. The thinking behind this is that more of these RPGs will spring up that are fun to play for everyone, disabled or not.

The way I hope to avoid falling into a trap of developing for only the niche is that I will go about creating an RPG and only the controls will be affected by the constrictions.

Here is hoping it is a success