The Square Who Killed Another Square

The Square Who Killed Another Square is a minimalist comedy RPG made of entirely original assets. Every sprite, song and sound is hand-made and all done within a couple months for the Indie Game Maker Contest 2017. The full game is freely available to download and play here.

I set out with the goal of making a complete RPG with no pre-made assets, and with only a month to do so it needed to be scaled down in any way possible. Visuals were made with deliberately miniscule 4×4 tiles in a small color palette. Music was composed with only three basic sound channels, one of which could only play a single note. Names were abbreviated under fake character limits, and dialogue was spoken in several word sentences of broken English. Combat was simplified to try and get the most value out of the least number of stats, skills and items possible.

The result was not without its challenges. The basic combat meant missing something early on was extremely unforgiving, so changes were made so no one had to suffer the indignity of dying to slimes. The art and music were similarly harsh, and though the unified aesthetic helped, not all players enjoyed that. But ultimately, I was happy with creating a unique and cohesive couple hours of gameplay in a very short time.