Ariono Devlog Months 1 and 2

Yahallo!

I've been working on a "little" (Inb4 exploding in scale...) RPG Maker project by the tag name of "Seed of the World Tree" that has been casually making it's way into becoming a real game.

January

January was mostly filled with a lot of planning such as refining the overall story, as well as theory-crafting events and my ideal combat system for the game. This project was originally going to be a mostly serious spoof on the ever elusive "Project Oronia" (Primed to truly start production in Late 2025 Early 2026, though, If Ainoro becomes enough of it's own project I might push that back. Oronia is supposed to be pretty well developed...) This idea was back in 2022, but I decided to revive it in 2024.

Ariono was heavily inspired by the adventures of a(n unfinished) duo character run of an Imperial named Sirius and an Arcanist named Ainoro back in Etrian Odyssey IV.
It was pretty intense.
There was this very interesting dynamic; A Imperial Runemaster and Arcanist Nightseeker have surprisingly decent synergy. (Now that I'm reminded of it though, I should probably try to finish it someday.)

Sirius himself was actually supposed to be this carefree nerd jock himbo, that becomes much more serious (pun not intended, but expect this joke to be made.) as the game goes on. He alongside the Mysterious girl with repressed memories character trope, "Ainoro", defeats a big scary tree devouring all energy in the universe.

The essence of the new version of the story is derived from this, but I plan to make the story a lot more of a thing, gut wrenching even, and more inline with a typical rpg.

'The Original 2022 Design of the Protagonist, Sirius, as presented for another small indie game you should totally play called Vernal Edge. (Looks an awful lot like a recolored 'Imperial 1' in Etrian doesn't he?)' Christ my guy's eyes are RED, did I always do that when drawing back then? Is he smoking fantasy weed?

The main thing I focused on this month was getting a general vibe of the game, and what I ACTUALLY wanted it to be. Would it be an open world type RPG akin to Dragon Quest or final fantasy? Would it be more akin to a dungeon crawler? Would it be more of a Zone based RPG maps more akin to levels?
I feel like I'm opting for more along the lines of a mix of the last two.

It was from here going forward that the story and our protagonist had gotten some major and in some cases, SUBSTANTIALLY better changes. For obvious reasons I won't mention the changes just yet, but the game was no longer 'Ainoro (Oronia but in reverse... Haha so funny... You get it? it's because-[no one will understand this for a while.])', It became 'Ariono: Seed of the World Tree. (Serious)'
Take note of the name change.

...Anyways.

The textbox I ended up designing at first was this terrible thing.
Ok so it's not the worst, right, but it's kind of ugly. There's this... Flower theme that's present in all of my... I guess... future works that plagues me to this day. 

The black flower watches.

I basically spent the rest of January making the game's introduction and getting the major parts of the beginning of the game laid out. January wasn't hyper productive but I feel like I got a decent enough amount done.
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February

February was plugin time.

I scoured the web for... A lot... of Plugins of things that I know I needed in my game (and a few I probably don't) and things began to come more into pace.

Shoutout to Visual Stella, Mog, Galv and others that I'll add to the credits, cause this thing would undoubtedly be far less interesting without them.

I also decided, pretty randomly mind you, to make a character portrait for Sirius in which may be my most appreciated spur of the moment drawing in a while. I just so happened to perfect his design almost immediately.

'Here's your protagonist. Sooo much better than the first design~.' (ALSO! NEWER, BETTER, TEXTBOX!✨)
What's more, Check this out.

Proof of a good character portrait is it not looking too bizarre when flipped, mission successful.

Textbox: In game. Test Portrait: In game. Character sprites: In game, for the most part...

(Though I'm probably going to rework the sprites of these later in the cycle.)

Well, guess it's time to focus combat for a while.
I want to capture the essences of 'SMT 3', 'Etrian Odyssey', and 'Granblue Fantasy' for Seed of the World Tree. The easiest thing to start with would be to have the question and answer of what the games have in common.

Aside basic rpg combat, all three share Elemental Effects. Added to the box (Though what self respecting rpg doesn't have that?)  SMT 3 re-contextualizes this into it's press turn mechanic, and since I wanted that in the game anyways, it'll be there. I just have to make it look obvious and digestible. I also want to have an elemental burst that occurs after a turn with multiple "Limit breaks" (SBAs) we'll call them. (But it'll be called something else.)

I did originally want a press turn system with followups, but I feel like at that point it might be mechanic bloating, what I currently have in store should be enough mechanics to make a pretty simple and in depth combat system. So I might as well stop here to keep within scope.

I feel like I made some serious strides considering the limited time and resources I have, motivation further bolstered by the fact that I don't have to actually have to code a game from scratch. RPG Maker is kind of OP if you just want to make games... Who knew...

Maybe I should even consider making Oronia a RPG Series instead of an Action game one~

Scary thought, really.