I mention this briefly in the Reflection section of the Home page and in the Booklet, but Esque began as a daydream about someone trying to get over their fears for the future. Max Ratchke’s Senior Zenith presentation of his game, Cannon Fodder, helped turn the daydream into a game idea, but it was only with Jacqueline’s (my partner’s) help that I could transform Esque into a real game. The storyline is supposed to continue for about seven chapters, which is a lot of narrative and programming work. For now, Esque remains a work-in-progress, but someday I hope to complete it.
Esque would surely not have become as good as it is now without the help of my friend (Hakai) and classmates (Sebastian S. and Mikele Baugh) though. I sneakily took some fashion choices from them and incorporated their ideas into the Demo, which helped the game’s overall appearance and coherency. By the way, the Demo only covers about as far as the beginning of the conflict, but does offer 4 different endings (if you want to see them all, then scroll all the way down for the walkthrough). One particular ending shows the consequences of under-age drinking!
Below are screenshots of the process during the month of March. They do hold some spoilers so if you wanted to play the game first then, click this link to visit my Dropbox. Click into the folder for your computer system (Windows, Mac and Linux are available) and download the ‘Esque’ folder. Then double-click the file that says ‘Game’ to start (If you’re on Mac and you want to play even more RPGmaker games, try downloading Wine- it’s an application that converts Windows apps into Mac! I’ve used it a bit but please don’t ask me how it works. I still can’t get Farethere City to load).
*Some notes: The programming in this game has been thoroughly play-tested, however there are some issues with the pixel art. Jacqueline and I have not been able to remove a strange white box behind the pixel animations of the cast (we’ve spent some hours to no avail, and yet SOME of the cast don’t have the white background too… also, pay no mind to Michael not wearing a shirt. We’re not sure what happened there). The art styles of the main cast are also quite different from the background characters. That’s because the main cast were hand-drawn and time constraints prevented us from creating the background characters too (they were made using RPGmaker’s character generator). The ‘Haunted House’ which appears in the first map also looks peculiar and not at all like a house. Unfortunately figuring out how sprite animations work and completing all profile art was more time-consuming than expected, so I built it as well as I could from RPGmaker’s available tiles.
If you’re still having trouble playing the game, it could be because DropBox hasn’t finished uploading all the files yet! There’s a ton of files associated with the game and DropBox has to do this three times (once for each of the computer systems). Check back in the next day (we might be updating the Demo every now and then after playtests and fixes in pixel art).
If you would like to see more of the process for Esque, have a look at the PDF on the Consumer Product tab!
This is also my obligatory link to Tor Damian Design for his Preload Manager Script (his script helps the game run smoother and faster).
A screenshot of the first map. This is back when the ‘Haunted House’ wasn’t created yet, it basically being a large house in the corner. The darkened tiles you see are ‘events’ which set off cutscenes of the player entering this map, talking to background characters, or different endings (there are two in this map). They also set off events which transport the player to a different map and change the appearance of the map so that it appears to be night time.
A screenshot of the second map. The menu to the left that appears to hold many colorful tiles is the ’tileset’ menu, or the menu that lets you decorate the map as you please. The menu is sectioned into ‘A,’ ‘B,’ ‘C,’ and so on for easier locating. Simply click the tile you like and drag through the map. The menu below that is the ‘map’ menu and generally holds all the maps in your games.
Background music for three of the maps
A video of three of the endings, most of the cutscenes, and available dialogue of all background characters
For Ending 1: Quit While You’re Ahead, simply walk to the end of the path and select ‘Leave anyway.’
For Ending 2: The Stars Are Beautiful Tonight, walk to the front of the grassy area where 3 high school students are. Select ‘Lay Down’ and wait for a full minute (don’t worry, it’ll eventually happen).
For Bad Ending: Terrible Decision: Enter the Haunted House, walk to the drinks table near the stairs. and press Enter. Select ‘Yes.’
For Ending 4: Stayed Behind: Enter the Haunted House, walk up the stairs, and go through the door in the center of the wall in the back. Once you finish going through the dialogue, select ‘Stay.’
For the normal chapter progression, follow the above instructions and select ‘Leave.’
Thank you for playing!