#ATttMaN

[pulsetower]

ATttMaN Devlog 3/11/2023

A saloon where the party can rest after a long journey.

Hello Everybody, despite my lack of updates, I’ve been hard at work on A Trip to the Mall at Night. I’ll be honest, I went into this thinking I’d be able to get all this done really fast, like in the span of a year, I released ATttSaN like a week after I started work on it, though that game was very different. Game Dev is tough, but I truly believe that when this game is finished it will all have been worth it. I’d like to give an estimated release date, but I can’t do that quite yet, although, hopefully before the end of 2024. 

The entrance to the Museum, what lies beyond the threshold?

As of today I have finished mapping and story sequencing the third floor of the mall. I know it seems a bit strange that I’ve spent so much time on the third floor, but that’s because this Museum is about as big and dense as the first two floors combined. The Museum is guarded by a mysterious curator who, unlike the other guardians does not wish to fight you,as for the past year he’s been trapped in his office by his own security system. He’ll let you through as long as you can flip the 4 override switches to his security system, each one being somewhere inside of one of the 4 sectors of the Museum. Each sector can be tackled in any order you wish, which means each person will have a slightly different experience with this museum. 

Guy is the last to enter this magical painting of a bridge.

The most straightforward section would probably be the Art Gallery. This sector contains several magic paintings by an unknown artist. Guy and friends will have to blue skidoo into these paintings to navigate through this gallery and track down the override switch.

Inside is a massive highway, where the Five Eyed Fella has set up shop.

While the Art Sector is straightforward the space sector is the exact opposite.

The entryway to a space odyssey.

The space sector takes the party on an odyssey through “realistic” models each planet (except earth, because you’re already on earth). Strangely the terrain of the planets seems to be based on ancient mage legend rather than science for some reason.

What is this building doing on Uranus?

The famous Jupiter docks don’t offer much shelter from the rain.

Out of the sectors in the mall I must admit my favorite to work on was definitely the aquarium sector, (although I enjoyed all of them quite a bit.) 

The central well of the underwater village Little Depita.

The standard crab blacksmith of every underwater village.

The aquarium is an underwater village built by many sea creatures who have ended up in the mall under their own circumstances. Over time they’ve developed their own form of government and economy. It’s a peaceful village, but it just so happens that when the party arrives an awful crime has occurred and an innocent man will be sentenced to death if he’s found guilty. This sector is a break from the typical gameplay, instead switching to an adventure game style, but I don’t want to give too much away. 

The geology sector has its own balcony.

Last, but definitely not least is the Geology sector of the Museum. A massive journey where you’ll see all kinds of things, like rocks, stones, boulders, and even pieces of earth. 

An elevator with a rather dated interior.

Along with the 3rd floor I’ve also made general improvements to the game at large. Graphically you probably noticed that the character sprites have slightly more detail, Guy and Alma have smiles, Clerk has dark circles under his eyes, and Witch has a lazy eye. Also the lighting of the game has been improved, certain areas may be tweaked slightly, but the script I’m using adds a lot more atmosphere to the game overall. There’s also the addition of footstep sounds in every area of the game. Different floors have slightly different sound effects when walked on which is something I really like in games, so I had to add it. There’s also the addition of an elevator which is unlocked in the third floor. It’s a sort of fast travel mechanic, which will come in handy for backtracking and/or sidequests.

Conclusion:

As I said before I’ve been doing a lot of work and I don’t think the game will be out any time soon that being said, it will come out, unless I die in a sudden awful accident, but even then I’ll have my co-developer finish it for me. Even though it seems like I’m the only one really excited for this I want to see it through because making this shit is really fun. I love my little characters in their wacky world and I want to share them with everyone. (Honestly I’m worried about finding something else to fill my life with when I’m done.)

The story that I have written is nearly finalized, and there are many twists and turns that I doubt many people will see coming, and that’s where I get into the bad news. I don’t think I will do any devlogs from this point until I’m in phase 2 of development, where I add sidequests (of which there will be many) and focus more on battle scenarios. Because after this point we get into some major story spoilers that I really do not want to ruin before the game is even out. The next floor will be the shortest, but most story dense segment and after that is the final area of the game which typing that out is getting me really excited actually. 

Until then you’ll probably only hear from me through random bullshit I post here when I think about it, so for now.

Goodnight,

-Worm

[pulsetower]

I made an album. Just a little side project I made, not really sure what genre it is, but I think it's kinda neat. It helped with musical creative block. Sometimes when I'm trying to make music for ATttMaN I get stuck in FL Studio doing random shit that goes nowhere and or doesn't fit the vibe of the game, so making something else for a change expanded my horizons. Still working on the game, obviously. But if you're interested in checking out this album, here you go, let me know if you like it.

[pulsetower]

Was looking through old toys and found an old classic, the inspiration for the Pizza Guy. A lot of the characters in ATttMaN were inspired by the strange toys I had as a child. With a world full of bizarre and unique characters, I take inspirations from all sorts of different things when designing. There was actually a whole box of these guys. For some reason my brothers used to refer to them as a species known as "decorations." They look more like bacteria to me, but I'm still not sure what exactly they're intended to be.

[pulsetower]

Demo out for my new game A Trip to the Mall at Night, a surreal RPG maker sequel to the surreal visual novel I made before. You don't need to play the other one first to understand this one though.

[pulsetower]

ATttMaN Devlog 11/2/2022

Hey, it's been a while, but I've been hard at work on A Trip to the Mall at Night. In the few months since I released the demo I've made a pretty good amount of progress.

When it comes to main story content the script of the game has been 100% completed and revised, and the game itself has reached around 30-35% completion of main story. The game will have a lot of sidequests and stuff to do other than the main story however those will be added after finishing the main story content to make sure development doesn't get sidetracked. I have no ballpark release date. I'm very busy, as I've just started college and this is a project I make in my spare time, but rest assured I will complete it. One day. To make the process smoother I am no longer the only developer of the game. It's now a two person job. I do the story, art, maps, scenes, and music and the other guy does the more gameplay side of things, fights, balancing, items, skills etc. He's a smart guy, and it's a hell of a lot more efficient than having to stop in my tracks completely and do trial and error game balancing.

So with all that out of the way, what have we done so far? Well the game obviously majority takes place in a mall so I suppose I'll tell you a little bit about that.

The Mall is a superstructure, a giant building the size of a city. It was created by a man named Seymour Bangks, the richest man to ever live. Originally it was just a massive hub for entertainment, but one day that all changed. When a major event occurred 2 years ago the mall went into lockdown. People can come in, but no one can leave. Inside this mall there are 5 floors and each floor is guarded by one of Bangks' appointed guardians. When Guy and the gang arrive they decide that they will team up and reach the top of the mall where they will confront Bangks and convince him to set everyone free. On this quest to the top they'll learn a lot about the world, the past, and themselves meeting some wacky characters along the way.

The first floor of the mall, most of the stores have shuttered by now

On the first floor we have your typical shopping mall, with stores, a food court, and access to the mall's exclusive sewer system. This floor's guardian is a disgruntled minimum wage pizza delivery guy who doesn't really care who gets through. He'd let you through if it weren't for the fact that a certain someone has decided to take over the food court and locked all the enterances. You'll have to go into the sewers to find the key to get past this floor.

The entrance to the sewer, it's a surprisingly nice place other than the smell.

The sewer is a very populated place, filled with all sorts of creatures. Rats, Alligators, Banana Peels, even Cockroaches. Most of them are friendly, but every once in a while some might attack. The sewer is a non linear dungeon, eventually you'll have to explore both sides, but they can be done in either order.

The Rat operated restaurant, Ratstaurant if you will

After navigating the sewer and helping out the people of the first floor you gain access to floor 2: The Park

A mysterious tent secluded from the rest of the park, nested atop the artificial mountain

The Park is an artificial environment created to simulate the feeling of the outdoors. People have setup tents all around the park, better living conditions than the first floor, but only marginally. The park is guarded by the mysterious T4. A man who operates the park's entertainment hub, The Night Club. The only way to reach the 3rd floor is through the notoriously difficult to navigate Funhouse and T4 is the only person who can grant someone access to the Funhouse. So the gang will have to travel to The Night Club to meet T4.

Radiohead has some hot takes on the music of the club.

The Night Club is a popular spot and in this section of the game we slow down and get to know our characters a little bit better. There's a bit of action as well, but I'll let you discover that yourself when you play the game.

Conclusion:

So I don't really know where else to put this stuff so I guess these are some closing thoughts. I don't really know how I want to do devlogs for this game. I suppose I'll do another for the 3rd floor but after that we get into some major spoiler territory so there will be another gap in updates, however I will try to give a little bit of content to people who are interested in the form of some world buildy posts. Those will not be on the itch.io page though. They'll be here on my tumblr blog which you’re on right now. It makes it easier so that people who only care about progress can stay there and people who want some extra fun little windows into the world and characters to tide them over until the game is actually out can stay here.

This game overall is very different from ATttSaN, obviously there's the factor of gameplay, but it also has a more focused plot with conflict and more developed characters. That might be a bit of a disappointment to the 2 ATttSaN fans out there, but I think if you liked that game you'll really like this one.

Also I've uploaded a few of the songs from the soundtrack to my youtube channel in a playlist, so if you want to hear some of those here you go:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCGPZBdmn1E-Be0R-9dr8c-R7aBB5vesg

Anyway, until next time,

Goodnight,

-Worm

Also my asks are open, so if you have any questions, ask away.