Games DON'T GIVE UP - Social Dysfunction and Demon Slaying in RPG Form!

Don’t Give Up is the sassy comedic tale of Tris, an anti-social, cynical game developer and his quest to confront his inner demons. Balance the hilariously dysfunctional tragedy that is your social life all while facing off with the phantoms of your inner conscious and those that would claim it.

It's a modern story focused RPG with real time battle and an original fighting system that gives both the enemy AND the player real time turns! The game is of course made in Unity.

DON'T GIVE UP and is the official name and reinvention for the title Cynical 7 I've been working on and it features a new battle system and story telling. The new demo should hopefully be along in June!











Combat

The combat is still being implemented but the idea is to have an ebb and flow between the player and the enemy, where the player has a defend phase where they can do things like earn buffs and weaken the enemy, and then an offensive phase where they have a certain amount of time to dish out combos to the enemy!



In this gif the player just executed a combo move where he leaps up, fires a missile and runs back toward the enemy in order to dish more damage.


The Main Character




Tris

An aspiring game developer who suffers from anxiety and chronic “people disliking disorder”. He moved to Threeson 4 years ago after the “incident”. An unemployed introvert with only a handful of friends, Tris desperately seeks to find some sort of fulfillment in his life before his time (and his bank account) runs dry.

Likes: Anything with pork belly in it, especially pizza, mmmm
Dislikes: Social media zombies


You might even see some familiar faces during your stay in Threeson!





Thanks for looking!

https://www.facebook.com/dontgiveupgame/
https://twitter.com/tacopizzacats

 

.Here is an early gif of the new combat for screenshot saturday! i'll be posting a more in depth breakdown of the mechanics next week have a good weekend!

 

Looks fun and hilarious.

 

I love how awesome the premise of this game is. Will keep an eye on this.

 

Thank you! I really appreciate! I write from the heart!

Thanks! Feel free to follow the game on social media also !

 

Here we go again!

My last post was a quick peek at the first instance of combat! Since then it's mostly been prepping and polishing assets for the new demo and only a handful require cleanup or adjustments.

Right now ironing out the look, feel, and balance of the turns and speed.

Since the last version we've added:

Cumulative Damage- Instead of throwing out a bunch of numbers each time an attack lands, each attack is added to the old total, as you hit higher thresholds of damage, the numbers will get bigger and more rewarding!

Combos- We added the first player turn specific move, the downward strike! More to come!




Player and Enemy Buffs, indicated by the icons, I'm glad they are implemented but are currently a bit ugly stationarily floating with the characters, I've already come up with a solution for this!




Tris has a better animation transitioning between turns




Enemy Size reduced (although now I think he looks too small, so we'll play around with it a bit more as I think to accomomdate the new format the battle area needs to be reduced as a whole)


Here is a gif of it all slowly coming together!





Well social media has eaten up more than enough time for today, time to get back to it!
If you are digging the game please show me some support on social media, I could really use it

https://twitter.com/tacopizzacats
https://www.facebook.com/dontgiveupgame/

 

Holy macaroni, this is just a beautiful concept. I haven't seen a game like this ever since toxic fantasies begun existing. Just keep working on this game and eventually, you'll get the desired result.

 

I have absolutely NO IDEA what toxic fantasies are care to explain? Thank you for all the support! I realized I have yet to really explain more of the purpose of the game and I didn't provide a combat breakdown, that will def be next on my to do list!

 

Combat Update!

So going forward with these posts I want to definitely try to show more of my process in both thought and design- I know people say you should share everything you do in your dev logs but I’ve always kind of felt that was more in a “something is better than nothing” sense and that what people really wanted to see was the final result.

I’ve sort of found that that is only true depending on your execution and people will take interest in your process if you’re captivating in its presentation, so going forward, I will try to be a bit more in depth with my milestones and such


Previous Combat System





So, in the first demo “Cynical 7” the battle system made the player feel that they were fully at the mercy of the enemy. This is usually true to some extent with most enemies in any kind of game, whether it’s the hordes of enemies in beat em ups, the power spiking bosses in RPGs, or the progressively harder AI in fighting games.

But with all of those in beat em ups you can usually combo a number of enemies at once, grind levels to becomes strong in RPGs, and master the game until the AI submits in fighting games. But in Cynical 7, all you could do was wait for the enemy to line up within your attack line and hope you got off a hit or two. That combined with the relentless enemy attacks ended up making combat more of a chore than I wanted it to (even though I didn’t feel like it was a chore- but I might be biased)





So the most important thing for me with this new demo was to completely revamp the battle system, with one major focus, giving the player more control with perks to be gained for its mastery.


The new battle system has two phases: Enemy Turn and Player Turn





Enemy Turn

During the enemy turn combat will play out a lot like it did in the first version, the player will dodge the enemy and try to land blows of their own. One major difference is this time around the player will also be able to parry attacks as well. These parries will take timing to execute but pulling them off in succession will grant the player a stackable buff


Player Turn

When the enemy turn ends the player turn begins. During the player turn Tris will get into hand to hand range with the enemy and be able to unleash and assortment of combos on the enemy triggered by the player in real time! Players will have to pull off combos in order to execute special moves like Harutaru Missile and Pogo Pounce! Different moves will have different uses and some might debuff or do more damage depending on the enemy and its status! The key to this system is knowing what combos do what and executing them without tripping up to maximize your turn!





But how do the turns flow?

The active turn is decided by the “momentum meter” which is much different than the one from Cynical 7. In Cynical 7 the momentum meter decided how quickly the player could move and dodge enemy attacks. In Don’t Give Up the momentum acts as a “timer” between turns. During the enemy turns the momentum bar depletes over time until it reaches the “break point”, once that happens the next hit the player lands will break the enemy’s guard and they enter “exhaustion” status and the player turn begins. The player can also deplete the enemy’s momentum faster by landing ranged attacks and successfully parrying.





Once the enemy goes into exhaustion the momentum meter begins to regenerate until it fills up at which point it becomes to enemy’s turn again. During that regeneration time the player can execute combos and special moves on the enemy.





The phases see-saw like this until the player or the enemy’s HP is depleted!

I also took the liberty of improving McRobberson's sprites now that i'm a little more seasoned



So what does it all look like? Well- something like this





Thanks for tuning in to this edition!

 

It's been a while since my last update and there's a good chance I'll proooobably miss a couple of things that have happen since the last post so today I'll just talk about the UI.

The UI in the last demo... wasn't much of a UI, it was a bunch of components slapped into a section of the screen and I tried to make it as minimal as possible to avoid the player needing to look at it too much!





Well, the theme for this demo was SEXY. Make. Everything. Sexy. As possible as I can.


So the UI got an update, enemy sprites got an updates, and I even stepped up some of my work with effects!


But back to UI- the 4 5 major things that needed to be addressed were:

Player Buffs/Debuffs
Enemy Buffs/Debuffs
Enemy Guard Meter
Special Meter

Originally player buffs were going to follow the player, but I found that to be cumbersome, and well- ugly!





So I carved out a little nest for them on the left side.





Next up was enemy buffs, I think often times players rather see an enemy be visually effected OR not have to look somewhere else to keep track of an enemy's ailments, ESPECIALLY with real time, so the enemy buffs will stay with them. This works because the player is FAR more mobile than the enemy's in the game.


Enemy Guard Meter is actually pretty similar to the old system, except to avoid confusion it's hanging out with the enemy on the right side of the screen.



The special meter worked okay before and remains unchanged, there's a possibility of animating the meter itself expanding the sword once its full but I have reservations about having it take up any further real estate so we'll see! (probably not though, I tend to not like making extra work for myself to flesh out an idea i'm unsure of from the jump)





So that was all sorted out, but we still have this BIG. FAT. SPACE. in the middle. Gosh, it feels like something is missing here. Trying to wrack my brain for a solution, EUREKA! It came to me! What about some fancy way to be SEXY about switching the turns?

I'd actually chosen a sound for the turn swapping which was a "dj scratch"... so... what about having a spinning disc in the middle?! Brilliant!





So what does it all look like in the end?






So there we have it, a new sexy much more legitimate looking UI for the battle system! Now let's see it in action!





With that out of the way most of the new items for the demo are finished! Some bug checking and polish remains but I'll be sure to flesh out another feature before it's done!

Thanks for reading!

 

Greetings!

MUCH has happened since the last update, what exactly do I mean by much?

Well, the demo is 99% done and the trailer is 100% done and dropping as soon as tomorrow!

I’ve been posting in depth devlogs a lot less because, as much as I’d love to write about my progress, it’s a bit deflating seeing posts I take a decent block of time to write up, sink like a cinder block without any interactions - I much rather spend those couple of hours working on some more game stuff and spreading out the updates at crucial milestones.

The last thing we talked about was the battle system, I think so far I’ve mostly covered the new mechanics but none of the new lore.





While I’m really pleased with my first attempt at writing a game script, there is always something that a game maker can never do, and that’s see the project through the eyes of someone on the outside of the project. I realized pretty quickly through let’s plays and demo testing that a lot of people thought the game was mostly a comedy, or about pizza.






Well, yes, the game is definitely meant to have humor stuffed in wherever it can, but that was originally intended to offset the darker themes in the game, my mistake was having the first demo build up to the serious turning point, and in this demo I actually lead off with it. It COMPLETELY changes the depth and perception of the game.





The last trailer I made was a blend of composited scenes and some in game footage tweaking, where as this trailer has about a minute of just straight up gameplay. I’m really pleased that the game is at a point where I can stuff that many scenes into a trailer and still not revealed all the story there to tell.





This demo has come a LOOONNNNG way,







and while most forums have certainly never fawned over my project, I certainly hope I at least have a handful of you rooting for it as it heads for Kickstarter for the 2nd and final time this August 15th

Tristan

(also, DON'T GIVE UP: A Cynical Tale is a name I love but I think DON'T GIVE UP conflicts with way too many search results, songs, books, games... basically just about everything so I think A Cynical Tale has to start taking the forefront)

 

Looks awesome dude. Love the battle mechanics

 

thanks so much!

even when one person responds it's nice to know someone out there appreciates what you're doing

 

It's that time again! I finished the official trailer a little over a day ago and released it this morning! I've been getting really good praise on it, so please be sure to give it a watch!

 

I released the demo yesterday and would love it if you could download and rate! It's probably around 40 minutes of gameplay. Yay!



You can grab the demo on Itch or Gamejolt

https://trisbee.itch.io/dont-give-up-a-cynical-tale

https://gamejolt.com/games/dontgiveup/354865

 

Hey guys! I hope by now some of you have had the chance to play the demo, my game lands on Kickstarter tomorrow so I hope to see some of you there when I launch!

 

DON'T GIVE UP is officially on Kickstarter! Show some support if you can, even if it's just a share!

I'd love to finish the full version!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1296644525/dont-give-up-a-cynical-tale

 

The PAX South Post Mortem


I’ve been working on my game DON’T GIVE UP for over 3 years. It’s crazy that it’s been so long. 6 years ago I had never made a game, and now I’ve been a producer, designer, writer, and artist for a full length RPG title.


To me PAX was always like the holy grail of indie conventions. Sure you could probably make it here if you could pony up the dough, but it wouldn’t make sense to bring anything sub par to the table with all the great games coming out to show there. And finally, I felt my minimalist pixel art game was good enough for the big time!





To sum it up, PAX was worth it. Before deciding whether attending was worth the investment, I tried to google other indie hopefuls thoughts on the experience and they are always mostly vague with a positive sentiment on the experience. To my dismay, I’m afraid I essentially leave PAX with a similar viewpoint.


There was no “single” defining moment for me at PAX (okay, there was, but not in the context of exposure or sales). The best way I can sum up attending PAX is that it is a tool to help propel your game. Just like social media, publishers, or outsourcing. Is there a chance that by attending PAX you can inspire virality? Of course, that is always possible, even from a single Tweet while sitting at home, but the truth is most media and personalities there will only get a chance to pass your booth once, or they won’t wait around if your stations have folks on them. What I know walking away from PAX, is that consumers loved my game, more people than anywhere else signed up for the newsletter to find out when they could buy the game, and even press and industry folks got a hoot out of it. And I’m not just talking about what they said to be nice, I watched them play the 15-20 minute demo, rock to the music, chuckle visibly, and chat me up for a bit afterwards.








I also made friends and got to take a break from the churn of solo game dev. I was constantly complaining about my feet while I was there (those floors are murder, get as much cushioning as you can) but already after being home for one day, I’m kind of like, wishing I could just continue to get that kind of fresh traffic for my game on a daily basis.





If you watch people play your game 3 days straight, no matter how far you’ve come, I guarantee there are things you are going to realize that you wouldn’t have at your office that you can make better.That might be worth it in itself.



I had a half pod, this was my first PAX and I got to take down the thick printed sign with me to commemorate the experience, including it being my first full game and my first PAX, another thing that doesn’t have tangible value (unless you want to be technical).





Now back home, I’m taking just a single day to recharge and go full force! I have also definitively decided to attempt Kickstarter round 2 and I’ll be sure to up the production value this time (within reason of course), so please be on the lookout for that because I know I can take this game a bit further if I had just a bit more resources!


The latest demo is now available on Steam (that was at PAX) with all new music and tunes and you can follow me on Twitter for updates!





https://store.steampowered.com/app/960710/DONT_GIVE_UP_A_Cynical_Tale/

https://twitter.com/tacopizzacats

 

Just played the demo on steam:

The art looks awesome, scenario, effects, UI, everything.
The sound effects and background music are great.
Battle system is fun and simples.
The premise of the story is quite interesting, i feel like wanting to know what's going to happen.

It felt weird walking upwards and the character still looking downwards.
I was really hyped at the beginning of the game, until the fight with the thief, the dialog and the "taunting mechanic" felt boring for me, and it kind slowed down my wish to keep going further.
The game showed up the message "saving", but when i went to continue it i had to start from the beginning.

 

Hey! Thanks for your honest feedback! I've been finishing the remainder of the game and finally finished all of the main assets an only have to do polish in my free time as I see fit.

I'm glad you liked the battle, and the music (which is especially good because all of the original music isn't in which means you'd probably love it even more). I designed all of the art myself, so again, feels very nice to hear you say all of that.

About Smak Talk, I think this falls under the category of preference- demoing the game at PAX smak talk was actually one of the parts of the game most people are into. If you're more of a classic RPG lover this might not appeal to you as much, some people just wanna hack and slash and that's fine. DON'T GIVE UP is about the story telling, there are plenty (PLENTY) of RPGs that let you just hack and slash, I decided to add some quirky more personal element to the game with smak talk, but I'm sorry it didn't work for you. All of the battles won't have it, in fact, most of them do not, so I hope that helps, the game really only starts to hit full throttle after the first hour, so maybe give it another try down the line

 

It's been a while!

After 3 long years we're finally winding down on the development. The entire story work has been implemented into the game, and now its just a matter of fleshing out a few chapters, and polishing up some of the old ones! The game is aimed for July.

Just some official stats as we move closer to release:

over 100 unique NPCs to interact with
over 130 objects to inspect
over a dozen boss fights
5-6 hours of gameplay minimum (this doesn't include exploration and inspecting)

If you haven't played the demo yet you can get it for free on Steam!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/960710/DONT_GIVE_UP_A_Cynical_Tale/

So what's new?

Well, for one, the tiled backgrounds ended up being a total success!



I'm toying around with the idea of finding new tiles throughout the course of the game that get added and also provide small stat boosts (and of course achievement purposes)


Since the original demo, certain things have needed some TLC, like phasing through the main door to the apartments, so with all the "important" stuff done, I've had time to start "sexifying" some parts of the world!




The thing at this point visually that I'm excited for most right now is our brand spanking new character portraits!
I was lucky enough to find an artist who was interested in the project, and I anticipate that the game will have around 90 facial expressions added!

Since DGU is heavy on story, this is so incredibly critical and I'm happy the characters will be getting the range they need to drive the extra emotion their pixel forms can't.



The last thing I wanna share is the results of the Kickstarter backer NPCs, a bunch of great folks went above and beyond to help me get the extra funds I needed to make the awesome soundtrack, portraits, and extra flair come to life! Here they are in their glory!




For the remainder of the dev I've also decided to start a Dev "Log" on the official site, which is not so much focused on the actual development, but more so my opinions, emotions, thoughts- basically a dev blog with a focus on the personal aspects. If you might be interested in that sort of thing you can check it out over at tacopizzacats.com !

Well that's it for now, will bring more exciting news soon and more frequently now that there's a little more spare time on my plate! I'll also try to give a break down on some of the features and reasons for doing so instead of just doing a what's new dump

Thank you for reading!
https://twitter.com/tacopizzacats

PS: How could I forgot?! New battle transitions!

 

Interesting. What gave you the concept/idea for this game? Definitely very polished!

 

Hey everyone! It's been over 2 months since my last post, and so much has happened since then!

To be honest I probably wouldn't be able to recollect every single detail but in less than 2 months development on the game will be finished!

There were a lot of things that were looking iffy but after 2 local testing sessions the game is really stable and we've been able to fit pretty much everything I wanted in the game!





The current playtime is around 6 hours or so with no random encounters (so it's all condensed content) depending on how savvy you are at battles and figuring out light puzzles, has over 100 unique NPCs, 32 tracks of original music, and over a dozen boss fights!



(the typo has since been corrected!)


One of the most awesome things that we've added to the game are the brand spanking new portraits, which really give new life to the scenes! This was on the maybe list for a long time because of budget but I'm happy to say we have the full set in the game as of today!





I've been hard at work for the past 4 or 5 days finishing the release trailer with the utmost perfection, and also happy to say that as of last night it is finished down to every fiber of my expectations I'll be release that 45 days from launch so stay tuned and expect a teaser soon!





Another thing we've been able to finally draw attention to especially with the addition of local feedback is combat balancing. When I started this game I'd never finished anything commercial let alone an RPG. Now, I have my own original combat system which I'm tweaking mechanics, attack speeds, and defeat strategies for, it seems so surreal to be responsible for pacing my players and directly deciding how arduous they're battles will be





Last but not least, in addition to actually completely finishing the game and the current bells and whistles, I put together a more suitable logo style for the game making it more distinctive and iconic!





When I have free time I plan on doing higher res redesigns of existing areas to continue improving my skills.





It's be a 3 year journey, but I think the results were well worth the wait, I know DGU isn't for everyone, but for the people who love old school quirky RPGs or fans throughout its development, it'll be just what they want





Release September 16th!
If you'd like to keep tabs in the meantime please feel free to join the Twitter or Discord family! I'll be doing a 60 days of DGU Countdown to release!

https://discord.gg/vxVCSvr
https://twitter.com/tacopizzacats

 

This is it! 3 years in the making the release demo for DON'T GIVE UP is out! Grab it at one of these fine retailers and begin the comedic fight for your sanity! Full version available 9/16/19! Thanks for your support!<3

https://gamejolt.com/games/dontgiveup/354865
https://store.steampowered.com/app/960710/DONT_GIVE_UP_A_Cynical_Tale/

 

Today, after 3 long years (I guess they aren’t long years, I mean, it’s not like they lasted 366 instead of the usual 365… okay let me start over)

After 3 REGULAR normal length years, today I’ve finally released my semi-autobiographical comedy adventure RPG about conquering mental illness, DON’T GIVE UP!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/960710/DONT_GIVE_UP_A_Cynical_Tale/
(I goofed and Valve has to approve pricing outside of the US which will likely take a few days for folks in another region ><)

Some stuff it’s got:

Over 100 Inspectable Objects
Over 100 Unique NPCs
Boss Fights / Staged Encounters only, no random encounters or grinding filler!
2 Storylines to play between
Shops to explore and a few sidequests!
The source material is all fairly kid friendly! (8+)

Thank you to everyone who’s followed me on this journey:
Please check it out! You won’t regret it ^_^

PS: here’s a gallery of convention snaps from me showing the game over a few years
https://imgur.com/gallery/u0BydXT