Prior to working on Paladin Dream, I had worked on many visual novels, dating sims, and a few RPGs and rhythm games. I knew that romance in games wasn't something I found terribly interesting as a player, and I don't have time to play (or develop) a ridiculously long RPG like Square-Enix or Bethesda titles. My goal was to be short and polished rather than long and rough (or unfinished), and to focus on story, exploration, and combat (in that order of priorities). So here are some of my influences.
Dragon Warrior 4
Dragon Warrior 4 is structured with 4 smaller quests before the big main quest, with each being like a small self-contained game. The small quests are quite enjoyable, and the player characters feel unique rather than being a blank slate. Since I was initially concerned with scope, my goal was to make Paladin Dream comparable to the 4 small quests in Dragon Quest 4. I also wanted to give Josiah a distinct identity and personality. Not everybody is going to like everything about Josiah, but he has a strong sense of self and doesn't try to be everything to everyone. I wanted to do something as focused as Ragnar, Alena, Taloon, or Mara and Nara where the quest makes sense in the context of the character.
Bioshock
Being around Boston when Bioshock was popular, Ken Levine was a big influence on my design philosophy. I wanted to avoid cut scenes because they get in the way of gameplay. The dream sequence could have been a cut scene but instead, it's a playable area. Another pointer Levine used to talk about was keeping the plot easy to follow. He cited the example that in Indiana Jones: Raiders Of The Lost Ark if you pause the movie at any time and ask what Harrison Ford is doing, he's looking for the ark. Likewise, in Paladin Dream, if you stop the game at any moment and ask what Josiah is doing, he's trying to discover the meaning of his dream. Also like Bioshock (which takes place in Rapture), Paladin Dream focuses on a small countryside region rather than across a whole planet map.
Tunnels & Trolls: Crusaders Of Khazan
A relatively obscure PC game from my childhood, T&T was difficult, visually unspectacular, and deeply amazing. The world felt real because each area was filled with detailed encounters, and there were no training wheels so it was possible to get annihilated by a powerful monster even early on. Some might criticize this, but for me, it told the truth because in the real world if you're not careful and make bad choices you'll get your butt kicked too. The visuals were plain and at times barely functional, but the rich descriptions and dialog text more than made up for it. Sometimes graphics in your imagination can produce a more marvelous image than even the coolest and most detailed sprite. Some encounters modeled after these principles were the traps in the city and temple, as well as rich dialogs with the witch and the final boss.
Visual Novels
As I mentioned, prior to Paladin Dream I had worked on many VN devteams. Just because romance routes aren't my thing doesn't mean I don't enjoy anything about the genre. Dialog choices are enjoyable. Characters that feel alive rather than merely being signposts for information are critical to storytelling. One mechanic that's original to Paladin Dream (as far as I know) is the battle encounter within a book. Paladin Dream has several places where you read a book within the game, and while reading the book you're exposed to a battle as part of the book storytelling. In one case the fight is trivial and in another it provides some challenge. I wasn't comfortable writing 100,000 words in a VN, but being somewhat close to 10,000 words of the dialog was fine with me. I wanted the player to feel like they're in a believable world region, and not just focus on looking pretty.
Other Games and RPGmaker
I don't want to just list all my favorite games, but I do want to shout out to the brilliant (albeit divisive) Super Columbine Massacre RPG! Controversial subject matter aside, this game taught me that RPGmaker can be a compelling platform for many kinds of content, including something like a documentary film. Paladin Dream isn't meant to be shocking, but had I not experienced SCMRPG! I may not have been as inspired to use RPGmaker as a storytelling platform. If RPGs are a metaphor for life then RPGmaker is a powerful tool to focus on storytelling without struggling with the technical difficulties of programming. It was great to be able to cut right to the core experience without having to reinvent the wheel of building gameplay systems from scratch. If I were to develop another game with the same creative values I would consider using RPGmaker again for this reason.
Please wishlist the game! Thank you all for your ongoing support of this project! I really appreciate it. 🙏
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1592120/Paladin_Dream/
All the best,
Matthew
HitherYon Games