March’s Featured Game: Abigail Fortune and the Dreams of Azure
DEVELOPER(S): Fusoloid ENGINE: RPG Maker MV GENRE: Adventure, RPG SUMMARY: Abigail Fortune's adventures continue in Paris! As she obtains information about a mysterious treasure called "Azure Dreams", the gentlewoman thief is joined by her old friend, Marguerite "Maria" Montblanc. Together the ladies must discover the true identity of the treasure, find out the truth behind the treasure's owner, and avoid falling permanently into the most wonderful dream...
Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!
Introduce yourself! I am Heidi K., also known as Fusoloid. I'm a Finnish university student, and I've been in the RPG Maker community since the early 2010's. I got much more active in following the community after I started developing my own games, however. I love art, studying cultures, and all in all, I'm here to be creative and have a good time!
What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially? *Fusoloid: The Abigail Fortune series is, essentially, about the eponymous gentlewoman thief and her many adventures. I was inspired to make a story about a thief after binge-watching the first Lupin III anime series in late 2014, and after playing the demo of an RPGM game called Pumpkin Panic! around the same time, I decided to make it a game series on RPG Maker.
How long did you work on your project? *Fusoloid: I've been working on the AF series as a whole since late 2014. Proper work on Dreams of Azure started in 2017, after the release of the first game in the series, The Scarlet Fairy. Of course, even before that, I had outlined the major plot points and many of the characters, and even made some character sketches, though most of my efforts were focused on The Scarlet Fairy until it was released.
Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *Fusoloid: Lupin III is the obvious biggest inspiration behind the series; major characters like Abigail, Marguerite and the Interpol duo of Cynthia and Neil were inspired by the major characters of Lupin III. Games like Persona 5, the Sly Cooper series and even the Uncharted series have inspired me in one way or another. Of course, I've been inspired by other pixel RPGs too, like The Witch's House, Dreaming Mary, Virgo VS the Zodiac and the LiEat series.
Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them? *Fusoloid: One thing I've had challenges with Dreams of Azure is the more complex battle system I want to implement. Sometimes effects or features I wanted to include in the battle system weren't possible to implement, either due to the restrictions of the engine/plugin, or the complexity of the coding needed for it. Currently I've changed things so that these effects work differently than what I initially intended, but in a similar fashion.
Did any aspects of your project change over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *Fusoloid: The story has probably changed the most out of all other aspects! The initial story was set in France like the current one, but the characters and story progression were completely different. Some time during 2016, I realized that the story wouldn't work as an RPG-style game too well, so I rewrote it to what it is now. Of course, that original story idea isn't completely abandoned yet...
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? *Fusoloid: I've worked on the series mostly by myself, but I've had some help from a certain friend of mine. She did the playtesting for The Scarlet Fairy, and also proofread and illustrated The Scarlet Emperor spinoff novella for me. I don't have any regrets about working (mostly) alone on the series, but I sometimes think I should learn a bit more about how Javascript works... a bit.
What was the best part of developing the game? *Fusoloid: Writing the story and making the art! I love writing dialogue and just writing down ideas for interactions that could be either funny or entertaining to the player or myself. Making the various character portraits is something I enjoy most about making the game's art, and I love conveying the different characters' personalities with their expressions and reactions.
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? *Fusoloid: I often play other RPGM games to become inspired or to find new ideas, often times for puzzles and aesthetic stuff. For example, I would play Pocket Mirror or Dreaming Mary to get ideas for the aesthetic of Dreams of Azure's main location, and then play games like Ib or The Witch's House for puzzle ideas. Of course, I don't want to directly rip off anything, and I like doing my own thing and putting in my own twists as well.
Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *Fusoloid: While I do like all of my character in one way or another, my favorite overall character will probably always be Abigail. She's extremely fun to write, and it's interesting to write a character who disguises her true self under a multitude of different personas. However, at the same time, there's the same person at the core of every disguise, and I want to develop that core character with every new entry in the series. And also, I just love charming rogues with a heart of gold... ♥
Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *Fusoloid: There isn't anything I regret with The Dreams of Azure, but regarding my game development journey in general, I wish I had started with something small instead of jumping straight into a bigger project. The Scarlet Fairy feels really unpolished in retrospect, and had I known more about the engine beforehand, I think I could've probably created much more creative ways of progression, as well as more interesting puzzles.
Do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *Fusoloid: Of course! The Abigail Fortune series will certainly continue after Dreams of Azure, and I already have a multitude of ideas on how the series will continue. AF3 will definitely come one day, but there will be a bunch more stuff coming out before that.
With your current project, what do you look most forward to upon/after release? *Fusoloid: The reaction from the fans! I love seeing how people talk about my stuff and what they liked and enjoyed about it. There's also just the incredibly satisfying feeling of being able to complete something and releasing it into the wild.
Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *Fusoloid: The reaction from the fans, surprisingly. While I love seeing people enjoy my stuff, I'm also extremely terrified of releasing any big project due to my fear of being judged or unjustly critiqued. If it's something big and something I spent a lot of time on, having it be called bad or terrible would be the worst thing I could think of. I think this fear stems from years of bad experiences in my youth... I've done my best to work on this, of course, but I still notice myself getting very nervous.
Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *Fusoloid: If you're thinking about getting into game developing, start from small projects. These projects don't have to be any longer than 5 minutes, as long as you finish them and learn new things about the engine you're using. Secondly, when you start your first bigger project, WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN. From puzzles to dialogue to how the story advances, write everything down on a document of some kind so you can easily go through the progression of the plot without suffering and having to come up with things on the fly as you're making the game. And thirdly, BACK UP YOUR PROJECT FILES! Save 'em on an external hard drive, send 'em to an online cloud, send 'em to a friend; anything goes as long as your hard work will be preserved in case of disaster!!
Question from last month's featured dev @doc-saturn: What's something you learned while making this game? Is there anything you're trying to learn how to do right now? *Fusoloid: Parallax mapping! I decided to try out parallax mapping for the first time for The Dreams of Azure, and it's a lot of fun! The maps look a lot better than in The Scarlet Fairy, and it's fun to think of set pieces and decorations for the maps. However, making changes into the maps after having completed them can be a bit of a hassle...
We mods would like to thank Fusoloid 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 Abigail Fortune and the Dreams of Azureif you haven’t already! See you next month!
- Mods Gold & Platinum
