u/lucienthenecroseer

Every JRPG needs flair when browsing menus and what better way than using a tattered old book for witchy vibes?

Shadowrite is a cozy horror JRPG set in a town where everyone is already dead, tackling heavy themes of loss and grief packaged in a cozy pixel art vibe.

Brew hot chocolates at Chokola's Cradle, discover the secret behind a sacrificial ritual meant to save humanity, and befriend spirits with 100 year old grudges.

As a solo dev wishlisting really helps out!

Wishlist on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4636570/Shadowrite?utm_source=reddit

Hi folks! I had a great time after realizing that shaders are useful for more than just fancy effects. I built a simple shader that swaps a source palette into a target palette in Godot making it easy to create job swapping animations for my characters. You just need to create a single row of pixels where each pixel corresponds to a color in your sprite and then a target palette you want to swap those colors into.

Shader code here: https://pastebin.com/qJn9JnJM

Shadowrite on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4636570/Shadowrite/

It's amazing what some lights, shadows, fog, and HDR / glow can do for a pixel art game. It transformed everything about the town I'm building for my cozy horror game. Use world environment in 2D and mess around!

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4636570/Shadowrite/

Messing around with fog shaders, world environment in 2D and better lights

I gave a ghostly shade my main character's face, which already feels wrong. It lives in the basement of the goddess of love, Erzulie, who by the way got ghosted by her ex and inherited all his dark cult artifact. The shade begs you to feed it spirit residues, and the more you feed it, the more it remembers who it used to be. If you stop, the "darkness spreads"...

Hey r/SoloDevelopment,

One year ago I started building Shadowrite on my own: a Voodoo-inspired retro JRPG with the rich lore of West African and Haitian traditions. Last week I announced it. I never expected it woul reach almost 500 wishlists on announce with the majority coming from Japan, and Dengeki Online (one of Japan's largest gaming outlets) picked it up, writing a comprehensive article on the game!

I'm getting DM's and emails left and right from JP gamers and curators I don't even understand without Google Translate handy.

I know 500 isn't a big number compared to bigger launches. But coming from zero following, working a full time job, building solo, it's surreal. The kind of milestone that's hard to celebrate anywhere else because everyone else thinks it's small. I just want my game to reach as many people as possible and don't care at all about the money because I know first games are hard.

A few honest reflections from year 1:

• Scope creep almost killed it three separate times. Cut so much. Sleeping better since I accepted "good and shipped" over "perfect and never" for the announcement...spent way too long playtesting the gameplay loop, the levels, and just the whole vibe of the game until I decided I needed to put my foot down
• Marketing on announce mattered more than I expected. Should have started earlier and I'm till figuring it out.
• Unit tests were SOOOO crucial to this. I know we all gloss over them when we want to move fast, but they made sure that no parts of the game broke when I added new featured. They helped me move fast with confidence
• Japanese localization was the best decision I made. Most of the 500 wishlists came from Japan. All the time I spent on JP terminology paid for itself in week 1
• Some of the best parts of the game were improvised or done without much planning, but it was handy to have the big game design doc in mind to make sure I don't veer off into crazy territory!

To everyone else in the grind: keep going. The first week post-announce is brutal emotionally. The numbers feel both too small to celebrate, but realized it's a long way to go to the real launch. For now, just need to get to a public beta / playtest as soon as possible! Reading everyone else's experiences here have inspired me to keep at it.

Shadowrite on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4636570/Shadowrite/

Yunie is headstrong and bratty, but has a kind soul. Zen showcases his intellect all the time, but lacks humility, and Ray is our mature, wise witch that puts up with the siblings' nonsense. Yunie embodies the dreamweaver job, Zen the bloodfiend school, and Ray is a plaguedoctor

Showcasing my villain for the first time

"How you'd cry! So loudly you'd wail if it slipped from your grasp, hm?". Adding more flavor to the NPCs in my game as part of the main plot beats :)

Hi r/finalfantasy! Life-long FF fan and indie game dev. I've platinumed all games in the series and for ages I wished someone would take some of the best ideas from mainline and put them into a retro-style game, so I made my own.

I took stagger/job-shifting mechanic from FF13, the retro party dynamics of FF5, the armor/weapon level ups of FF9, coupled with superbosses, and sidequests that aren't handholdy over a year to make Shadowrite: a pixel-art JRPG following two siblings, Yunie and Zen, pulled into a spirit world called The Crossroads during a botched family ritual.

To return home, the party has to clear the six elemental mausoleums, Blood, Dream, Plague, Hex, Shadow, Time, and uncover the truth behind the ritual itself.

The game also takes place in a spirit town called the Crossroads which has different districts and NPCs with unique schedules and storylines similar to Zelda, Majora's Mask

Some of the highlights:

• Six unique jobs: Bloodfiend, Dreamweaver, Plaguedoctor, Shadowmancer, Hexer, and Puppetmaster. Mid-battle paradigm swapping, no shift animation locking you in.
• No game over on party leader death. Death is an obstacle, not a wipe.
• ~100 spirit skills unlocked via weapon leveling — the FF9 way, and the way Expedition 33 just brought it back. All catalogued in a Pokédex-style Grimoire.
• Six handcrafted mausoleums + superbosses across six elemental domains.
• Set in a spirit town called The Crossroads with six districts and NPCs on full daily schedules that evolve as you progress
• No quest markers. Just a logbook and tavern gossip. Secrets in almost every corner
• Fully localized into Japanese day one with all key terms in kanji (《交界》, 《変転》, 《グリモア》).

I posted last week in r/finalfantasyxiii and the reception was amazing. Folks really want to see the paradigm shift system come back!

I just announced this on Steam as coming soon and would love to hear your thoughts:

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4636570/Shadowrite/

Hi all! I've been a die-hard fan of the paradigm shift mechanic for years. Nothing hits like commanding a party through a hard boss, layering buffs and debuffs, and finally cracking that stagger bar. For years I've said that more games need this combat, so I'm building my own, and I think many here can agree!

My unique twist is that it's a voodoo-inspired pixel art JRPG with a story about what it means for all of us to fade away one day. What do you think about the combat concept?

Key changes I made to the system:

• Six unique jobs mapped to FF13 roles: Bloodfiend (COM), Dreamweaver (RAV), Plaguedoctor (MED), Shadowmancer (SEN), Hexer (SAB), Puppetmaster (SYN)
• No shift animation locking you in
• No game over on party leader death
• No auto-battle. Customize a loadout of unique skills per job
• Skills unlock by leveling weapons and equipment (like Expedition 33 and FF9), or through quests and NPC trades. Around 100 to mix and match
• Superbosses and handcrafted dungeons across six domains: blood, dream, plague, hex, shadow, time
• Set in a spirit town called The Crossroads with six districts and NPCs on unique daily schedules, Majora's Mask style

EDIT: WOW! I'm overwhelmed by the love this got from over half the community here. SO many folks reached out wanting to stay up to date, and for now, would love for you to join the mailing list to keep you posted once Steam is up and the beta is here. Love you all

A floating hotel welcomes guests from all over, but only if you have the coin to pay for the premium beds!

What do you think about my book menu animation?