Tartar

Take a staff member, add/change/delete a letter in their username... And as if through magic, they are now a new person, who are they? Amethyst -> Aimethyst: our beloved leader is now a Hydra agent, but we should probably have known considering her chaotic nature… Kurotsune -> Kubotsune: our beloved prince of evil is apparently a mangaka in his spare time. Zumi -> Bumi: our resident artist extraordinaire is now a character from Avatar ICSW -> IceScreamSandWitch: instead of whispering sweet nothings puns into our ears, she just screams now unspeakable horrors... I want the old ICSW back Jan -> Jam: twice the deliciousness, and 5 times the sugar content. Ikaru... -> Iaru... Like I don't know, he sounds like a pirate or something now if you squint your eyes for a bit???

Free you say? Then you probably can't go wrong with the undisputed masterpiece that is Cave Story. A gorgeous little platformer with great gameplay, beautifully designed levels and an emotional story with multiple endings that demands to be played several times to see them all. It is according to some among the best platformerers ever made, and a cult classic. A game everyone needs to play at least once.

Huh, I guess I must have missed that for some reason, I must've equated RPG with JRPG since she mentioned Final Fantasy.

I'd like to remind everyone that Nova is looking for JRPG's, which is all things considered a very very specific genre, and the majority of suggestions so far have been games that have taken inspiration from JRPG's but are no way to RPG's in gameplay.

First things first, don't buy any games until the steam Halloween sales starts next Friday, at which point every single game will be at least 50% off and many even 75% off. Now on to the games, I'm not exactly sure how good your PC is, but I'll try to mention some games that are good but not too demanding. - Valkyria Chronicles: a wonderful tactical JRPG game that in a World War I'esque world with a charming cast of characters, great gameplay and an intriguing and at times heartbreaking story. Overall a very good game. 20$ atm. possibly $ next week. - Final Fantasy 6+9: not much needs to be said about these 2 legendary games, both considered among the best JRPG's ever made, and by some among the best video games ever made. They'll probably be about $10 next week. Do note that Final Fantasy 6 has a slightly bad port, and is probably better played on an emulator. - Tales of Symphonia: a charming adventure story with a lovable cast of characters that quickly spirals into a deconstruction of the hero's journey, and gets incredibly dark and poignant with his messages, all wrapped around a great world, fascinating characters and a really fun action RPG combat system. Overall a ton of fun! Probably $10 next week, perhaps 5. Again there are there games like, Disgaea, Trials of Cold Steel and Hyper Dimensional Girl: Neptunia, but I consider those inferior to those 3 mentioned. edit: remember that you can always refund the game within 2 hours of playtime, if your computer isn't beefy enough to play it. So don't be afraid of buying a game, since you can always refund it.

Well there are a few major ones out there at the moment, - Firstly there's Duelyst, which compared to Hearthstone is played on a grid where units can move which adds an interesting twist to the concept. It's also much more generous with card acquisition rate with 1 legendary dropping in 1/4 packs, and within one month of starting I had gotten to the equivalent of rank 5 and a highly competetive deck. I've heard of plenty of people who reached legend within a month of playing. you also get a legendary card at the end of every month if you read rank 10. In general the barrier to entry is very low compared to Hearthstone, though it may have gotten slightly bigger in the past year since I haven't played in a while. - alternatively there are things like Gwent which I've heard great things about but haven't played myself. - In the end you could also just played Yu-Gi-Oh in one of the plethora of clients available online, Cardfight Vanguard on CF-Area or Magic the Gathering in Cockatrice. In the end I always return to Hearthstone after playing other card games, but I can definitely understand why some people may be turned off by how hard it is to keep up with the card releases these days.

That seems like a very daunting task, but I'd love to see some of the famous landmarks of Reborn re-created. It's probably not necessary to design the interior of every house as that would make a difficult task more or less impossible, but if, say, you could re-create something like Obsidia Ward, that would already be a great accomplishment. I wish you the best of luck with the task ahead.

Despite the tamer sprites looking quite badly designed, and some questionable area tile sets, the game does the generally good if it can pull off a good story with the Pokémon inspired combat system.

I'd rather not remove any of those as they are all very integral to the Pokémon competitive experience.but if I have to choose one to remove that would be the least debilitating, it would be priority moves as the rest are too important for the overall health of the competitive scene. Types, status conditions and stat modifiers are the heart and soul of the Pokémon game play and the games would be lesser for the removal of them.

Starlight Divide still only exists in a conceptual state.Amethyst sometimes post about her notes for how the game will be, the character designs and the lore. But besides that the game barely exists as a game yet. What has been the focus of development so far has been the engine, or rather the modifications Ame is doing to RPGmaker to make it suitable to function as a turn-based RPG engine which has mostly been focused on movement so far. Again, the game is still very early in development, and as this GIF shows it's still using RPG maker assets and has no implemented assets of its own. So while it's great that you have a lot of enthusiasm for the game we probably shouldn't expect it out in the next 4-5 years.

I've always been fond of Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy IX and find those to the best games in the series.

*Ahem* we have an entire post dedicated to introduce people to the game, so I recommend you go there and read that one to start off.

Yes in the sense that the winner would have his debts swapped with the loser.

That second explanation was pretty spot on, one minor detail though. Saotome does not have her $10M debt which she gained from Jun paid off by the SC, only her false debt ($310M), so she's technically only 250 million in the positive.

I wear both, and by shoes I mean slippers, and by socks I sometimes wear two pairs (i.e. a regular pair and sometimes a woolen pair over the winter). Coldness is the enemy after all.

I would say that the normal difficulty level of Rejuvenation is quite a bit easier than Reborn, while the intense difficulty level is approximately the same difficulty level as Reborn. personally, I found the intense difficulty level of rejuvenation to be just perfect and was never stuck at any point in time and never had to breed or rely on strategies from the Internet.so you're if you're up for a challenge I recommend you try it But then again there is nothing wrong with going for the normal difficulty level as it also provides an enjoyable experience.

I admire your frugality, while at the same time being slightly horrified by your financial situation and lifestyle.I sincerely hope that your financial situation will stabilize and your transition into a proper indie developer with the creation of Starlight Divide will be a smooth one. Thanks for the enlightening post, and please treat yourself to something nice once in a while…

I've been wondering about this for a while. Half a year ago Ame spoke about quitting her previous job to work full-time on Reborn and her other projects, backed up by her Patreon. As of this moment us Patreon backers are supporting her with approximately $650 a month which she says is enough to pay rent. But considering all of her other expenses and her recent PC repair costs, I have a hard time understanding how she can live off of the back of her Patreon? Perhaps it is not my place to ask for Amethysts financial situation but I am genuinely concerned how my favorite game developer, can possibly live any semblance of a normal lifestyle while working on Reborn full-time. Perhaps I misunderstanding something and she has secondary means of income or is drawing on her savings. Does anyone know anything in regards to this, or has she herself perhaps commented on this topic during her streams? @Amethyst

That entirely depends on which type of game you want to play. personally my favorite game of all time is Final Fantasy 6, it is available on steam, alternatively it also has a great port for the Game Boy advance. So if you liked Reborn because of its dark setting, great plot and wonderful characters you will definitely enjoy this one.

You should probably get yourself a dropbox account and backup all of your data on there as it is much easier and less of a hassle than what you're currently trying to do

I wonder which monster I will get... Naturally my true spirit beast is Pirika Of Gusto, but I wonder which one you will grant me? Oh and if I'm not satisfied with your choice I may just flag you for copyright! (Let's disregard the fact that ISCW created this trend with her "What I think you sound like thread")

@Amethyst Thanks for your lengthy post, I certainly do enjoy your reading your thought process in regards to game design as you seem to think things through quite a bit. My main gripe is people missing story-relevant side-quests, as it would lessen the impact of the story and several minor characters depending on how prominently you'll want to feature side-quests with story content in the future. In general I like the idea that side-quests can tie into the story since this adds more meaning to them for players like me who already have all the Pokemon they'll ever need for the rest of the game. But the thought that that story content is missable just irks me the wrong way, especially considering how obscure some of the side-quests can be. There's probably no way around this since story-related side-quests are a great tool for story-telling, and I do genuinely want more of such content. In either case, I'll trust you that you know what you're doing and will make the best possible game for us. And the 50 sidequests part was perhaps a bit unwarranted. During the development of EP16 you had a milestone progresss bar. The sidequests one said as 0/50, and you said something along the linbes of trying to finish one a day a back then. Maybe I misunderstood this as meaning EP16 had 50 sidequests.

If anyone deserves to be a mod, it's ISCW: She's a Nice Cream Sand Witch after all I wonder whether she planned for this all along? Is she an Ice Scheme Sand Witch? Needless to say, ICSW has become an Ice Cream Ban Witch, beware evil-doors. Hopefully, this is the beginning of something and not the end. Mods don't tend to be very active.

@Ice Cream Sand Witch The thing about Rejuvenation is that considering how the side-quests on the bulletin boards are so prominently featured and the nature of their content, it could be said that they're a major part of the experience, considering one would be underleveled were one to proceed without completing them.