Pajenstein

While everyone else moved on to other engines such as Game Maker or even newer versions of RPG Maker, I remained with RPG Maker 2003. I couldn't make it sing because it doesn't feature script programming, but I managed to produce an Action-RPG from what it naturally offered.

And once again, a new project was born out of mockery. In Pajenstein, the entire high school decides that Pajé has the best power amongst all students, and a secretive elite manipulates everyone and everything into transforming the place into a death trap so Pajé's power can be transfered to whoever remains alive.

This time I did everyting solo. The amount of work required to make a non-RPG in a old RPG Maker is too great, and I had to dismiss people wanting to help because of how easy it would be to break anything. Even so, development started during the middle of my last year in high school and continued up to one or two years of college.

My original vision was on the likes of making a Resident Evil / Soul Reaver mashup, an survival horror game where you use axes as starting weapons and only later a shotgun with scarce ammo. You would gain spells from defeated bosses that, while also helpful in combat, would be used against specific obstacles - strength to push heavier objects, invisibility to pass through security areas, and so on. Exploration and puzzles were also included.

Strangely, while my friends would enjoy the game by a lot, they would always criticize the lack of leveling up. "It's a RPG Maker project" they would say. Eventually I cave in and started redoing the project to include leveling up, which meant having most of my systems break over and over and over again. And then, I lost interest.