The idea of the Penny RPG series started a few months ago when we were toying with the idea of a lightweight RPG that wasn't too expensive, but provided a healthy amount of gameplay. We toyed with many concepts and the early days of Shadows of the Lost looked completely different. We finally settled on a noir style that was basically black and white like the old Humphrey Bogart movies back in the day. However, there would be color and that color would come from the lighting and key elements we wanted to highlight. Though, the implementation isn't perfect, I think we hit the spirit of what we tried to accomplish and considering how terrible I am at art, I'm impressed it's worked out so well.
This leads us to our first ever game, Penny RPG: Shadows of the Lost- A Blood City Tale. I won't get into the details of what all of that is and means, but I want to thank everyone who has supported us along the way and those who will support us in the future. Making a game is hard work and this game was made with two people...myself and my wife. We put in so many hours and scrapped so many designs and ideas, it's mind blowing. But regardless, we made it to this point.
What does this mean to you...the player. Hopefully, a lot, because I hope you can both appreciate the amount of work that goes into making games as well as enjoying the final product. The goal of OMC Games is not just to make games we'll like, but to make games that fans of RPGs will like. We're not afraid to try some things out and to make some mistakes...just know that we do so with the goal of making something fun and engaging. And considering you're reading this now, that means the world to us.
What's In the Initial Launch Version:
In this version you'll be able to play through Chapter 1 and most of Chapter 2. There are some design decisions we have to make about the ending of Chapter 2, so we kept that out. Still, you should easily get a couple of hours of play out of what's there and we should have more to do by the end of the week.
You'll also be able to access and equip skills once you get to a certain point in the story. The process is straight forward and you should be able to play the game normally.
Also note that all future updates are free to everyone who has purchased the game. Right now there's no plan for paid DLC, but if that changes we'll be sure to inform everyone beforehand.
What's to come in the future:
There's a lot to talk about here, but here's the basic roadmap (in no particular order):
- Job/Side Jobs will be implemented properly- Side jobs are there, but there's a bug that's keeping them from functioning properly so they've been turned off. This should be fixed in the next week or so.
- More Skills to be added- There are a number of skills that will be added to the game later, but there are a few in there to get you started and that should add more ways to customize your gameplay.
- Fully featured mod system- Mods are also in the code, but I didn't like how they were implemented on the backend, so I'm going to rethink how that's done. This will happen in the next couple of weeks. I apologize for not having it in on day one, but I'd much rather have a good system that's easy to use than something hacked together.
- Chapter 2 Finale- I wanted this in on day one, but a feature needs to be ironed out before the story can continue. This will be a top priority.
- More enemies to fight- Right now there are only a few enemies to fight in the Fight Club and we'll have more in the next build for sure.
- More NPC portraits- More of a cosmetic thing, but we will be adding more portraits to the game. The goal is for all NPCs you can have a conversation with to have a portrait. Takes time to draw everything, so it hasn't been high on the priority list.
- Story Chapters 3 & 4 added- We'll be looking into adding Chapter 3 and 4 at some point in the future. We'll be focusing on making sure all systems function properly before we continue on that front.
- Making the game prettier with effects- This is probably one of the last things we'll be doing. Each zone needs a bit of love and some of them have had a little bit of a facelift already...though minor. We have the framework for adding rain, snow, birds flying around, and other ambient features already in place, it's just a matter of creating the effects. We'll get there...eventually.
- NPC animations- NPCs will be getting more life in the future with animations.
- Cutscenes- We'll be adding more cutscenes to the game as well. They take time, so we haven't been focused on them as much as other parts of the game.
- Achievements- We'll be adding these in the future.
- Cloud saves- This will also be added in the next couple of weeks.
That's a healthy list! We want to make sure we're open and honest about what's going on and how we're getting there. Have confidence that we'll be working hard to make this game the best we can in our genre.
The Final Word:
So what we want from you guys is feedback. What you like, don't like. Problems with balance. I read everything that's posted and will try my best to consider all feedback in a fair way. Can't make promises that all suggestions will be implemented, however. Having the discussion is part of the process and we intend to make sure that happens.
Over the next couple of months we'll be putting up images and gameplay video of new features and just giving more information about the game as a whole. That said, we'll be careful about not spoiling the story as that is the most important part of an RPG.
Thanks again to everyone who has decided to join us on this journey. Make sure you post your questions on the Community boards and we'll answer them the best we can. Help us make this game super awesome!
-Garv
Lead Developer
OMC Games