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September’s Featured Game: Turovero: The Celestial Tower

DEVELOPER(S): Queenie ENGINE: RPG Maker VX Ace GENRE: RPG, Adventure, Psychological, Dark Fantasy WARNINGS: Violence, Light Horror Elements, Sensitive Themes SUMMARY: Turovero: The Celestial Tower is a freeware, dark fantasy role-playing game created with RPG Maker VX Ace. Players take on the role of four young adventurers - Sigurd, a brave and kind-hearted knight, Leilia, a gentle and motherly cleric, Edric, a gifted yet sharp-tongued mage, and Ruby, a cheeky, fun-loving thief - who have no recollection of their lives prior to meeting one another. Determined to free their world from the influence of an ancient evil, the Dark One, the group sets forth on their most perilous journey yet as they climb the mysterious divine tower, Turovero. However, as the heroes ascend the Celestial Tower, they begin to realize that not everything is as it seems. Just what is the Dark One that plagues their world so, and what truly happened to the Four Gods of legend? The answers to these questions lie in wait for them at the top of the tower… but do they truly want to discover them?

Play the game here! Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! I'm Queenie and this is my second game that I've developed, written, and composed for (my first game was Prom Dreams: A High School Love Story, a horror / dating sim game available whever you can download Turovero from). I've been making games in earnest for about 4 years now, but I did use to muck around in the old bootleg version of RPG Maker 2000 when I was a kid I guess. Because one of the main complaints about my first game was the artwork, and because I, er, can't draw very well, I also enlisted the help of @genkaiko, @caffeineandcarpaltunnel, @pleasedrawmore, and @meakersneakers to draw the character artwork, title and ending artwork, enemy artwork, and cutscene artwork respectively. Check them out too if you've got the chance!

What is your project about? What inspired you to create this game initially? *Queenie: I've always enjoyed horror games and games that started out normal / cute / cliched but slowly turned into something darker as they went on. I also really love RPGs and adventure games. So, naturally, I figured I'd combine the two at some point, and thus the initial concept for Turovero was born!

How long have you been working on your project? *Queenie: Total development time was around 2.5 years.

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *Queenie: Considering every games I've made so far is essentially cobbling together various ideas from games and anime I love, you bet your ass it did LOL. Gameplay involves a mix of classic Final Fantasy-esque battles and Zelda-style field puzzles, whereas the story and atmosphere takes inspiration from other RPG Horror games and anime such as Madoka Magica and Higurashi. Essentially, dark psychological drama wrapped up in a nice little JRPG shell. Or something like that.

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them? *Queenie: Besides my complete and utter lack of art skills (which I thankfully had my team to help me with!), I also really struggled with the field skills due to RPG Maker's admittedly shoddy collision detection. I was eventually able to make the mechanic work around 90% of the time (and if it doesn't, protip: push up against the object before activating the field skill), so it's thankfully playable, but it sure was a pain to work with :T

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *Queenie: I actually try to fully create a solid outline of my games and then stick to it, for the most part, so that I don't lose track during development. So, to be honest, not a whole lot changed besides some minor details, such as names, battle skills, and combat balance adjustments. Although, I did originally envision the theme and look of the final "dungeon" a bit differently (which I obviously won't go into details about), and only went with the current design because I couldn't get the sprites to cooperate with me and I was like "well, eh, this is the next best thing I guess". :P

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *Queenie: I did about 80% of the game myself, but I did have an interview/portfolio submission process for artists. I knew many of them previously, and the title artist I'd already had a working relationship and internet friendship with, so that made things easier as well. It also helped that I could share my ideas (and memes. lots of memes.) during the development process so I didn't have to keep the game 100% secret, haha.

What is the best part of developing a game? *Queenie: The music!! I freakin' love composing okay. I also love writing emotional or comedic scenes, then see other people's reactions to them as they play. Speaking of which, my jar of Player Tears seems to be running a little empty lately... :3c

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *Queenie: I usually just go with the kind of gameplay my story needs and that my developer's skills will allow; sometimes I see another game and go "oh, that's possible?", and might keep that knowledge in handy, but I don't actively seek out gameplay inspiration or anything.

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *Queenie: My boy Edric and his grumpy yet adorable tsundere ways LOL. I have a thing for characters with love problems okay ;;

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *Queenie: I do kind of wish the game had a way to do something like unison attacks from the Tales series, since it'd be thematically consistent with the game's ideas of friendship and unity, but at the time I wasn't willing to fudge around with the battle engine too much, so I shelved the idea.

Do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *Queenie: I have ideas for some prequel stories (in an e-book or even a visual novel format) that expand upon the characters and world a bit, but I'm waiting to gauge interest in them.

What do you most look forward to upon/after the release of a project? *Queenie: Player reactions and Let's Plays, definitely. I feed off of player reactions. I crave them like a zombie craves brains. If you play my games please tell me how much you suffered - er, enjoyed it, it really makes my day!

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *Queenie: Honestly, only that it'd attract the wrong kind of fan - you know, the ones who harass people over fictional characters and over a work not being 100% to their particular standards. Thankfully that hasn't seemed to happen yet, and most people who've played my games are super chill and awesome.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *Queenie: Use outlines and try not to shovel features into your game just because you can! Figure out what kind of game you want and then focus your energy on making it the best version of that image that you can. Sure, my games may not take advantage of everything RPG Maker can do, but I don't think they need to - I only needs the elements that will help me tell my story the way I want to.

Question from last month's featured dev @Teal Crown: If you're working on a team, how do you manage to keep organized? (Otherwise: If you could meet your favourite dev, the one that inspires you the most, what would you ask them?) *Queenie: My artists and I kept up via Tumblr messenger and Discord mostly. I also made a beta testing server when the game reached the testing phase, which was very helpful and also loads of fun. :)

We mods would like to thank Queenie for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Turovero: The Celestial Tower if you haven’t already! See you next month!

- Mods Gold & Platinum

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