Entry 1

Back to Entry Selection.

Starting Out - March to December 2022

I started thinking about developing Selfless when I saw videos of a game called "Who's Lila?" developed by Garage Heathen.
The black and white color palette of the game captured my interest, and so I wanted to make a game that visually looked as limited as that game.
I was also watching a bunch of analogue horror videos uploaded to YouTube, with Mandela Catalogue capturing my attention,
I liked the text font and aesthetic of VHS tapes. So I began work on drawing character portraits since I had a few character types in mind, I would draw the characters on paper, then take pictures of what I drew using a camera. After that, I go into paint.net and take the digital photo and reduce the colors down to two.
I, then, corrected parts of the artwork that didn't quite transfer well with the color reduction. Finally, I resized them to fit within 640 x 480 (screen size for RMXP).
For some examples, here's what the character art looks like before and after it gets processed.

After that, it was time to name the character and decide what kind of personality they'd have.
The character above is the player character that has no name until you name him.
Their personality is pretty average, as are a lot of protagonists.
Since his memory has been practically wiped at the start of the game, you could say that he's handicapped in that
his friend has to help him with remembering things from his prior self.
I've been playing around with the idea of a potential name for him if I were to have multiple adaptations, and the name "Chuck" stuck with me.
In my files, I originally named the character "Charlie". But I will still leave his name up to player preference when playing.

After I made the protagonist, I tried drawing more character to the point where I felt I had enough to call a recurring cast.
With two of which being part of a trio with the protagonist.
I'd like to introduce who I have so far.

As you can see, a pretty wide range of character designs, ranging from normal to bizarre.
To explain each character (minus The Protagonist)...

Tucker is The Protagonist's cool, strong friend who helps him remember things he's forgotten after the incident at the research facility.
He was brought into the facility with The Protagonist as a friend to accompany him, while The Protagonist's father was giving a tour to them.
He likes listening to music (which is why he has a T-Shirt for ROCKER), partying, and being there for those with no defense.
His family gets into fights which makes him go over to The Protagonist's house to sleep.

Chemie was a victim of the incident at the research facility.
He was in a similar position to The Protagonist, where he was brought along by his father who works at the facility.
His father wanted to test a prototype of two DNA fusion pods. Chemie was told to get inside one of the pods while his father tried
to fuse him the possible spirit of a deceased dog they once owned, using what was left of the dog.
Once the incident happened, Chemie was placed in a state of suspended animation, where his body has been slowly changing to be half-man half-dog.
The Protagonist and Tucker do not meet Chemie until they make their way inside the facility, after some time has passed.

Hilbert & Nelbert are two Middle School students who bully people, take their stuff, and burn them for the sake of sport.
Nelbert is usually the one illegally getting pyrotechnic equipment, while Hilbert is practically just a henchman.
Both are afraid of being found out by Tucker, though. Tucker has usually been the cork in both of their plans,
usually resulting in both getting beaten up. The Protagonist has never met either of them before.
But his past-self, pre-incident, has heard stories of what they do to people.

Muzushi is a character I conceptualized way before I thought about developing Selfless.
She was a character that I had drawn on sketchpads back in Middle School and I never had a use for her to be in anything I created until now.
Her character is completely different now to how I thought of her back then. Instead of being a generic school-girl in a rom-com anime setting,
she is a weird oddity in Selfless's world. She suddenly appeared one day as an enrolled student that no one has met before.
Her purpose is to warn The Protagonist, and only him, about an unknown entity trying to tell him things through TVs.
She tells The Protagonist to not make the entity angry by silencing them.
She doesn't out-right say why, but my idea is that the entity is the one responsible for the disappearances,
and that it is connected in some way to The Protagonist's past-self, pre-incident.

Natsumi is an average girl who's been friends with Tucker and pre-incident Protagonist for a while.
Since the incident and the numerous amount of disappearances reported around town, she's worried about being the next victim.
Despite that, she tries her best to keep a cool-head and a positive attitude, especially when Tucker is around.
Ever since Muzushi became part of their class, Natsumi has been aiming to become friends with her, trying to learn more about her.
She has an interest in painting, so she's mostly invested in studying the beauty of the surroundings laid before her and illustrating it.

Todd is an Elementary School kid who likes playing with toy trucks and trains.
His parents are victims of the recent wave of disappearances in town, but he takes it as a good thing because he doesn't have to be told what to do.
In his mind, he thinks that his parents went on vacation somewhere. But he doesn't care because he gets to play with his toy truck.
In the game's story, Todd got his truck taken away by Hilbert and Nelbert, so it's up to Tucker and The Protagonist to take it back and return it.
Todd is another character that has met pre-incident Protagonist before, The Protagonist would help Todd swing on the swing set at the playground.

ROCKER is the mascot for a band that is popular around town.
In reality, it's the mascot I'm using for the game's soundtrack.
The older version of the soundtrack is currently able to be listened to here.
Please do not reupload the music anywhere else yet.
I won't be super strict about it, but the game doesn't have a demo yet, as of July 2023.
Please wait until the full game has released before doing anything with the music in the game.

After getting the characters, story, and main artwork for Visual Novel busts done,
I worked on Tileset Graphics, Overworld Character Graphics, and other aesthetic choices for the RPG Maker XP engine to use.
While I worked on graphics, I was also in the middle of writing the script for the first chapter, or act, of the game.
Once I finished the graphics, after coming up with ideas for the story and making graphics for those ideas,
I ended up making a few maps and some tutorial-esque objectives.
As of this entry, the script only has the first act done, with only a tutorial and a few objectives/plot elements implemented into the engine.
It will definitely take time to develop, but I think Selfless might be something I can produce, that people can play, and that I can be proud of.