Hackventure was born in late 2019, and its development contiues today.

The game is planned to last about 30 hours, made of 10 chapters of 3-4 hours each. The project has changed style several times. At first I wanted it to be a classic jrpg, a mix of Earthbound and Pokémon, and I really mean this since I used Pokémon tilesets at the beginning.

Then I realized it was something more, something unique and indipendent. After playing Omori by Omocat I realized that I wanted to give a greater importance to the game's story, something that would have made the player say "Wow!" after the playthrough.

Exploring the world of RPG Maker games, especially surreal ones, such as Off, OneShot, Lisa the Painful and obviusly Omori, changed my way to see an rpg game, from "Game" to "Artistic Creation". A videogame can change a person, and this is a great power yet dangerous.

I decieded to upgrade Hackventure to an upper level and to put all my passion and love to the genre in it.

And then here it comes what I have now, a graphical restyle, no more Pokémon tlieset, all original or made by external artists under creative common license (for thing I don't have the competences to do, like music and some advanced graphic).

I should thank all the composers, the artists and the scripters who helped without knowing it, whitout you Hackventure would not have existed. A special thanks to those ones who helped me in the rpgmaker web forum. 

What is already done?

(Everything you'll read has been done in Italian, my first language. At the end of the development there will be a translation and THEN the release.)

I courrently have a work lasted 1 year and a half. 5 chapters up to 10 are done, the plot is complete in my head and written very badly on a notes app on the smartphone.  

170+ maps are completed, the main tracks are been found (battle, sound effects, victory jingle ecc) and every map music too (i find a track at the moment when I start making a new map which needs one).

The battle system is nothing extremely innovative. You can choose between attack, defend, skills, items. There are also exclusive skills for each character, the "Bar skills" from the "Party bar", a bar that increases reciving damage; you can use a bit of the collective energy to use unique skills or a powerful ultimate party attack, heal, or boost. There's also a timed button pressing thing for basic attack command.

Characters, villains and side characters are done. Some are already drawn and functioning, others are still only ideas.

I can say the same for enemies and bosses. 

Courrently a playthrough of 5 chapters lasts 10 hours.

I am courrently finishing to make the unique bar skills for each character, and they're harder than I expected to make. They're not hard to implement, they're hard to build up. Classic skills are very basic: elemental damage, heal, remove status, add buff/debuff... I want these Bar Skills to be creative and have many effects at one. For example one does damage, can't miss and reduce enemy's defense; another raises up speed and hits twice; another hits 4 random enemies with granades ecc...

After that I will start working at a demo :)

What remains to be done?

I have to complete building up all the connections in the plot and fit the characters in. 

I obviusly have to finish all the areas, which is the most long thing to do right now.

The battle system and mechanics in general are finished, at least I think. Maybe I'll have to make minigames or similar stuff, but nothing too elaborated.

5 chapters and post game are a lot, and if I spent 1 year and a half to arrive at this point, I think it will take at least the same time to finish everything.

General summary

GENERAL IDEA: 70%

STORY: 95% 

MECHANICS: 85%

MAPPING: 40%

MUSIC: 40%

ENEMIES: 40%

SCRIPTS: at least 50%

BALANCING: 60%

BUG FIXING: 0%

TRANSLATION: 0%

Hope this clearified something about the project, now you know what is Hackventure too.

If you want to support the project you can follow here, on YouTube or and/or on Instagram (Seriously, it will mean a lot :D)

Here's also a "First 20 mins of gameplay" video, it's in Italian, but it would be nice to watch anyways, i guess: