Ashlaran's Den

Ninelives is the most beautiful RPG that was never completed, but can still be experienced as it was left. As part of my video on the game (now up for early access on Nebula), I also interviewed Tota of SmokymonkeyS on its inspirations and development before its suspension in 2016.

What would you say are your main inspirations for the art style in Ninelives? E.g. other artists, film, games, literature, history etc.!

I was a huge fan of Adventure Gamebook when I was a kid. Well, maybe you don't know what that is. Please read the wiki if you need: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamebook. I was reading (playing) translated oversea gamebooks well, and love the inner artwork especially what draw by monochrome. I had never seen pictures like that before, and had a strong impact on me. So, I wanted to make a gamebook by my self. When I started making my own gamebooks, I learned a lot about how games are made. That's because a gamebook is a medium in which the player can see all the source code. At first I started making gamebooks because I was attracted by the artwork, but my interest eventually shifted to making the game itself.

Related to the above, do you take a lot of inspiration from real world cultures and places? Are there any that you particularly gravitate towards?

I like the mixed culture, like Chinoiserie in France at the 17 century. Plus, since I'm Japanese and this country has always been greatly influenced by China. So I'm not limited to any one of these cultures, but trying to create as I am influenced by all of them. Sometimes people say that what I create looks Japanese, Chinese, or Asian, which is neither correct nor incorrect. I try not to be only of a certain culture when I create. That's because I want to create an imaginary world that is somewhat like reality, but slightly different.

Why did you want to make Ninelives?

Ninelives was the first game I ever thought of making, I think when I was about 17.

Do you think Ninelives being in an unfinished state provides a different atmosphere when playing the game and exploring the world?

I don't particularly think so. The atmosphere of the game is still complete. I wanted the game to be a relaxed, free-roamed adventure for players.

I wasn't certain during my research, so I wanted to confirm if Tomomi Sakuba was involved in Ninelives in any way?

Yeah, Sakuba was involved in Ninelives lots of ways. As you said, he did some of the texture pictures for flowers, plants and tree leaves. He also drawn the world map and area maps of the game like below: http://www.smokymonkeys.com/kyrill/index.asp?direct=138 He actually walked around the world by himself to make this. He was one of the most earliest game tester of the game. Oh, and I have to tell you this. He's a voice actor of male Nightbreed and Elf! In addition, his wife did some of creature voices. Her voice is also used on Triglav too!

What are your own personal thoughts on Ninelives? Is there anything you would drastically change looking back on it? Or any big changes you would want to make if you were to continue development at any point?

Ninelives was too much for me in many ways. It was a world I had been thinking about since I was young, but there were too many things to actually create to handle, and in that sense it's exactly the dream a child thinks about. We are a team of two in SmokymonkeyS, but one of us is in charge of programming and system engineering, and the game itself was created completely by myself. I had to create all the pictures, models, terrain, music, and story by myself. Now if I'm going to make something, I don't make it on such a large scale anymore.

Apart from the Switch release for Garage and occasional updates on Triglav that you mentioned before, is there anything that SmokymonkeyS are working on for the future?

Not yet so far.

I noticed your banner on the official website (http://www.smokymonkeys.com/kyrill/index.asp) has a character on a train platform, I wondered if that might be a future game?

Once it was. It was a previous project of Triglav for mobile. But it was going to be on a larger scale again, so we decided to port Triglav before that. There are no plans to make that game now. But I may make another game with that worldview and atmosphere. For example, as a mobile game.

A big thank you to Tota for taking the time to answer my questions! You can find SmokymonkeyS and their games here:

Celebrations of Jare Gody (Slavic feast of spring equinox) in Poland

Jare Gody belongs to a series of rites and feasts dedicated to the invocation and welcoming of spring, celebrated by Rodnovers (Slavic Native Faith believers) in Poland. 

The spring celebrations could last even up to a few days or weeks, but the main event - the feast of Jare Gody - is marked by the evening of the spring equinox. It is a part of the yearly rites acknowledging the natural cycles regulating the life on the Mother Earth, where this feast is a stage of transition between the winter hibernation towards the spring ‘rebirth’.

Name of Jare Gody could be translated into English as a ‘Vigorious Feast’. Meaning of it comes from old-Polish language: ‘gody’ meaning a feast and ‘jary’ meaning vigorious, strong, energetic.

During these celebrations certain food offerings are prepared for the gods and ancestors, particularly for the god of fertility and vegetation, known as Jarowit among the West Slavs and Jaryło / Jarilo among the East Slavs. The offerings include for example pisanki - decorated eggs (ancient symbol of life and rebirth, covered in symbols with wishes of life, fertility, fortune, health and love), fresh ritual bread and salt (a symbolic greeting gesture), meat, milk, fruits (e.g. apples), alcohol.

At the beginning of the feast a rite of burning and drowning of Marzanna, the Slavic goddess of winter, is performed. It’s a symbolic departure of winter for the invocation of spring and the Earth’s rebirth.

Preparing of the Marzanna’s effigy and later drowning it is a unique case when the old-Slavic ‘pagan’ rituals have survived in rural customs of Poland almost untouched over the centuries, and is performed around the spring equinox even nowadays by the regular people in Poland.

Slavic people were refusing to abandon the old traditions and many elements of the Jare Gody feast were being subsequently incorporated into the Easter customs over the past centuries. For instance, the tradition of preparing the food offerings is present nowadays in a form of Easter baskets commonly blessed in churches on the Holy Saturday across Poland. The tradition of preparing pisanki survived almost unchanged and nowadays they are put into the mentioned Easter baskets by the Christians as well.

Sources of pictures: 'Kołomir’ Native Faith Association, Native Polish Church, Watra.

My general list of sources / book recommendations - in Polish only

Moodboard for the name "Anna" 🌱

(All images from Pinterest)