RPG Maker Festival is back and is only running for a few more days! All of the RPG Maker tools are now on sale with many of them at 90% off so if you’ve ever thought about getting into developing your own RPG, now is the time to get one!
If you don’t know what the RPG Maker Festival is, it's a yearly event that takes place around February 15, Maker Day. And if you don’t know what Maker Day is, then I'm in the same boat as you.
I found no records of who came up with the day or what the day actually means except that its a day designated to promote the joy of game creation. If you know more about it please let me know. But what I do know is that RPG Maker is a suite of software that many indie studios have used to make and develop some of your favorite Indie RPG Games out on the market such as Omori, Corpse Party, and Cursed Legacy.
Check out the 2024 RPG Maker Festival and sales yourself by clicking the RPG Maker image above! You can also find a link at the end of the article or click here.
Here’s a few game recommendations from the RPG Maker Festival 2024...
...that are currently on sale!
(as well as some new games from the festival that have caught my attention!)
To The Moon
If you’ve been around the Indie scene especially over the last 15 years or so you’ve probably heard of this game. This was the first indie game made through RPG Maker that I remember taking off. Let’s put it this way, Assassins Creed Black Flag is considered to be one of the best assassins creed games and it received a Very Positive rating on steam with almost 56,000 total reviews. To The Moon has a little over 56,500 reviews and its currently sitting at an Overwhelmingly Positive rating.
Unfortunately I can’t speak too much on it though as its in my library but I haven't played it yet. At Least as of the date this article came out.
To the Moon is story about a pair of doctors who give people a chance to live their life all over again. But the catch is that people die after receiving the operation so their new life is the last thing they remember before drawing their last breath.
This game follows the story of the 2 doctors attempting to piece together the reasoning behind the dying mans final wish.
Many of my friends over the years have raved about this game and I look forward to crossing it off my playlist one of these days. I hope I'll be able to have as strong of an emotional experience as they've had with it.
OneShot
OneShot calls itself a surreal puzzle adventure game with unique mechanics / capabilities. But if read any of the reviews or talk to people that have played it, you get a different story.
The story they tell you doesn't have anything to do with what this game claims to be. What you learn is that this game is not so much a game but an experience that emotionally haunts you. Don't come into this game expecting to find action and fighting. This is a story based adventure game borrowing elements of a Point & Click adventure.
I can’t say much else because even those I’ve talked to have said that to say anything else would be to spoil the experience.
Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition
Ara Fell is a game I’ve had in my steam library for a long time. I love magic in any sort of media and this game takes place in a magical world of floating islands far above the clouds. It’s imagery is what grabbed my attention.
What got me interested is how it’s description talks of combining the best parts of Japanese-style roleplaying games with the best parts of western RPGs. And I don’t really know what that means, so some day I hope to find out when I eventually play this. But from appearances it is still a true RPG with turn based combat, exploration and crazy monsters (like the giant squid in the picture below. Or is it an octopus. I don't know how to tell the difference).
And here’s a speed run...
...of all the new games I learned about from this years Game Maker Festival that I’ve added to my wishlist xD
Cthulhu Mythos ADV Lunatic Whispers
I really like the art style. That’s what drew me in. And then it started calling itself a 2D visual novel with a thrilling TRPG-based experience. I have to know how they put a tactical role-playing game experience into a visual novel. Also, why did they use such a soft and comfortable color pallet for the environments, only to deliver that hellish looking creature?
The World is Your Weapon
The name along pulled me in. A game where anything around you can be a weapon? I’d like to experience this. Because apparently any object you see in the game can be a weapon. Houses, villagers, even monsters. Sounds crazy xD I wonder what sort of crazy effects all of these different objects will have.
Re:Kuroi
One of my sisters favorite RPGs she played growing up was Eternal Sonata. And the art style of Re:Kuroi reminds of me it. And that may be what drew me to it but its gameplay reminds me of the old school dungeon crawler games like Etrian Odyssey. So I’d like to see how all of that plays together here.
Soaring Machinariae
The thumbnail for this game stood out from the pack with its bright light blue colors and that's what got me to first click on it. But then I saw it claimed to be ‘a girls adventure story’ so I’m curious what it does differently to be able to make that claim. I haven't seen that before on a games description.
Final Thoughts
RPG's and other story driven games like them are a lot of work to make. Hours of work can be put into a cutscene and dialogue and writing that's only ever seen once. So the painstaking time and effort that many of these developers go through to deliver these games to us means a lot to me. There are so many moments and events that happened in Final Fantasy 7 for example that act as the stepping stones building up to the big moments that last with us forever. And many of those moments can take a lot of painstaking time and effort to get right. But we will only see it for a brief moment and never truly know what went into it to get it to work. It's a little sad but also magical in it's own way.
If you've made it this far in the article, thank you! Let me know if any of these games also caught your interest or if you've played any of them before! I'd also love to hear what your favorite RPGs are! Share your RPG maker Festival finds or even your hidden gems in the indie RPG scene! The favorite RPG's that first jump to mind for me are Tales of Symphonia, Mass Effect and Star Wars; Knights of the Old Republic! (also if you know anything about Maker Day please let me know!) take me to the festival!
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