dev diary: let me tell you about a game i love (Patreon)

i've been struggling to get myself to work on anything lately, so instead i've been writing a bunch of ren'py tips on cohost and playing a decade-old rpgmaker game called ENCHANT FARM.

i found this game through a post someone made about it, and i downloaded it on a whim because i thought it looked interesting. i didn't actually get around to playing it until a month later, but once i did i became obsessed. i've never played a dark souls type game, but now i understand the appeal. i feel like this game was made specifically for me somehow.

two quick updates about my own games:

• i still plan on trying to finish the SAS update this month, i just don't have anything to show for it yet (sorry!) i think i'll have something next week though, it really won't take that long to make once i get going on it.
• someone linked me to a global save system script for rpgmaker, so reaching the bad ending stuff in LWT is gonna be MUCH EASIER!!! i already implemented it, so after you reach bad end theater and agree to seeing the bad ends, you can start from chapter 8 directly and mysteriously receive the anywhere pass when you try to buy a netherworld ticket. no more skipping through half the story...! OMG..... so my plan is to get to a stopping point with the bad end content and do another public update before i go on vacation in mid may. fingers crossed...!

ok so, because i didn't have that much to share this week, i wanted to spend the rest of this post talking about enchant farm instead... is it still a dev diary if i'm writing about someone else's game? idk, i think it's important to name sources of inspiration when they come up... and i have been feeling SO INSPIRED by this game.

anyway feel free to skip the rest of this if you don't care to see me gush over some random thing!! it really has its hooks in me though, i can't stop thinking about it... i must SHARE.....

WOW enchant farm rules

ok so, to explain a little more about where this game came from (a quick overview if you didn't read the post by @pig that i linked at the top). this is an rpgmaker 2000 game made with stock assets by a solo developer from a community of similar rpgmaker devs who just make a bunch of free games like this as a hobby. there's a cast of shared characters that (to me at least) gives it a little bit of a vocaloid vibe--just freeflowing creativity and people having fun making things they like! i'm probably romanticizing it too much considering i haven't played any other VIPRPGs and these things definitely have some edgy/offensive humor in them. i have more thoughts and feelings about this aspect of it, but first i wanna talk about the actual game.

the story is very minimal--there's an exposition dump up front (it's pretty funny the way it's handled), basically there was a king who shut the gates to the afterlife so that he could become immortal. this made it so no one could die anymore, but because they can't die, their souls aren't getting purified by the process of reincarnation. so the more they die, the more they turn into immoral freak monsters. it's an island of weirdos who it's morally ok to kill. great premise for an rpg where you will be killing lots of enemies.

you pick a main character whose stats/playstyle sound appealing to you, and you can run around the world collecting the other girls and (i assume) defeat the evil king to restore peace to this fucked up island and finally go home. i chose Wind I (green haired sickly girl), she's a glass canon stuck at 1HP due to her incurable illness (love it, no notes). i haven't gotten to the end, and i don't know how much farther i have to go! apparently it's like 30 hours? THIS GAME IS SO HUGE!!!

as far as gameplay goes, it's all about exploration and fun/wild discoveries. this stupid island is so full of surprises, like i've gotten into lots of battles that made me burst out laughing or cry out in fear. your move speed is pretty fast, and the battles are turnbased but not a pain because they're really fast-paced!! i mean, i DID pick the glass canon girl so thats probably why most of them finished in 1-2 turns in the beginning... i just ran around saving/reloading when i got into unlucky encounters. dying doesn't set you back too far though, it's not like you have limited lives or anything. you just lose half your souls (which you are constantly pouring into your stats anyway lol)

ok the souls thing... i think it's so genius. there is ONE currency and it's souls. you buy/sell items for souls. instead of experience points, you get souls. you can use them however you want, so i made my girl windy's magic stat absolutely broken to make sure i was one-shotting everyone as much as possible. really living on the edge. oh don't worry, she has really high dodge chance and a focus sash so you revive once if you do happen to get hit. and i have more girls now to protect her. (my little yuri squad...)

the other nice thing is that there's such a huge focus on SKILLS. characters all have their own unique skills (windy's incurable illness is a skill lol), and then there are special skills you unlock from boosting their soul level (increasing their stats). all the equipment has skills attached to it too so instead of "sword" vs "sword, but with higher attack" it's more like, "do i want the sword that has 10% stun chance or the sword that crits more often?" you can make really strong characters with the tools this game gives you... it's awesome...

like... enchant farm isn't that difficult, there's just A LOT OF IT. i keep finding new places and going "WTF THERE'S A WHOLE NEW DUNGEON IN HERE???" i want to explore it all. i want to find every girl. please view one of my favorites, who i found in prison:

(she's just like me for real...)

you can upgrade your weapons with the different elemental shards/gems you find, and it gives them EVEN MORE bonuses and lets you cast new spells and whatever. there's a whole type-effectiveness chart (like in pokemon) but you don't have to memorize it, the game just tells you how effective the attack will be... it's so streamlined.....

it's REALLY REALLY exciting to pick up a gem from a chest knowing i'll get to make a cool new weapon with it. i think this game is extremely well-balanced, like even when encounters feel unfair it's just part of the fun!!! again, dying is not a huge deal--you can save wherever you want and there's a ton of warp points. it's not random encounters either, enemies run around on the map, and they're different colors depending on how they move and whether it's a boss. if you run through weaker enemies, they disappear without fighting (just like mother 3 now that i think of it). because of all this, backtracking is never a slog, and there's a ton of hidden passages so i actually LOVE exploring previous areas!!

why is this game so well-designed...? idk, to me it feels like kind of the ideal rpg??? it's very customizable and you can go wherever you want... i love that the characters basically have evilities (like disgaea), i love to walk into a new place and go "WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?????" it's all just so good.... if you've played fromsoft games before i probably sound ridiculous, i think i'm naming a lot of the things that appeal to dark souls fans (i haven't played them so i'm not entirely sure)--but i don't like action games, so i was never interested! i don't want elden ring, i want enchant farm!!! it's my new favorite thing!!!!!!

a few more thoughts and feelings and then i'm done i swear

if any of this has got you interested but not enough to actually play it, there IS a let's play on youtube--it's in japanese, but there's english cc on most of the vids! the game was translated to english about a year ago (which is what i'm playing), but i'm going to watch this lp anyway to make sure i didn't miss stuff during my playthrough. i don't know if there's an english guide somewhere for it, but i found a japanese walkthrough at least.

to expand on what i said earlier, about how there's some offensive humor in VIPRPGs... i regret to inform you my fave is problematic. so far i haven't run anything so egregious that i would caution someone against playing it (although there have definitely been a few things i could do without). but because the cutscenes are only really a few lines of dialogue at the time, none of it left a bad taste in my mouth? i think i also just have a weird nostalgia for edgelord bullshit, because it reminds me of middle school when i was friends with nerdy guys who hung out on 4chan. i think the distance helps (the fact that this game was made a decade ago). it's not a cult hit, it's just this random hidden gem that happens to appeal to me specifically.

but the other thing is... it's not like it was made with ill-intent or hate? it's full of love! there was actually this exchange that had me screaming, when you find another elemental and he's just like, locked himself in this cabin in the woods to be miserable and tells you he won't help on your quest because he's such a pessimistic nihilist.

i just love this so much. "OH, YOUR LIFE IS HARD? TRY BEING DISABLED." it's so good... after this he literally tells her no one like that could possibly exist, and windy has to show him her stats to prove it. it's amazing. windy is a fan-favorite character in this community and i can see why. i'm glad i picked her as my protagonist...

but yeah, this is why i feel like i can forgive any other weird jokes that come up. and i don't think art should be wholly discarded based on whether it has distasteful elements... i mean, it's definitely a case-by-case thing (this is such a touchy subject omg) but overall, like... i just think this game rules...... honestly there have been more offensive things in modern games that go completely unquestioned, so i much prefer this experience to any of those.

and i think the thing about a game like this is that it's so RAW. because it just gets to be whatever the creator wants without anything holding them back, there's some messed up shit (positive) that i'm like... GOD I WANNA HARNESS THAT ENERGY.....

like... sorry, more spoilers, but i got to the HIKARI Dominion the other day. there's a bunch of cultish women who have imprisoned all the men, and they're doing "research" on them, turning them into... WELL, IT'S SOMETHING!! HOW CAN I EVEN DESCRIBE!!!!! i just walked into a secret lab with organs everywhere and they were draining the life from all these dudes and like having tea or something, so chipper about these horrible crimes against nature they're commiting. i love it. i love these women, i love how messed up this island gets to be.

so yeah, uh, great game! i'm an enchant farm evangelist now, even though i haven't finished it yet. it feels like i'm pretty close to the end now at least, so maybe i'll calm down soon. but this same developer made another game before this one that i'm planning to play next, so... maybe i'm cursed to think about it forever. (don't worry i won't write another big long post about that one when i do play it hahaha)

sorry for the weird update this week!

i hope i can make a game as unhinged as enchant farm one day. in the meantime i'll settle for making the treat bad ends however i want :) thank u for reading <3