#rojis room

Introduce yourself! *Jaies: Hello this is Jude S. (Jaies) and I’m the lead composer for Roji’s Room! I’ve always loved making video game music, and following indie projects, and now I get to pair that love with a really great game. It’s a dream come true! I hope everyone enjoys the music and the game (: *Spicyroll: Greetings! This is Jaeroll the game developer for Roji's Room! For now I am mostly working alone with the game along with Jude who composes the music. I am a intro/extrovert who is in love with life and its inhabitants. I am a registered nurse and a Reiki master. I love meditating , yoga, anime, JRPGs, indie games, crystals and music. I have been dabbling with rpg maker since 2006 with RPGMaker XP. Making so many projects but not completing them haha. I am grateful for the indiedev and rpgmaker community met so many awesome people through this development.

What is your project about? What inspired you to create this game initially? *Spicyroll: Roji's Room is an experiment for self discovery there will be many choices and activities that the player will be doing. It might be risky but my goal is not only to benefit the characters in the game but also the player themselves. Meditation, actions, emotions, wholesomeness. Display the rewards to practicing self love and the outcomes to not. I am a strong advocate to self love, I would love to deliver inspiration to people to practice more self love for themselves. I hope the game can invoke such emotions. But as the story its a mystery involving a boy who is a master at lucid dreaming but lost his memories. He was able to enter a dream world that is in disorder because the moderator lost it's body and is only a brain. The brain is Roji, its your quest to help retrieve the body and restore order to this special dream. While hopefully restoring the memories of Jae. Meeting many dream entities along the way your choices are really important. What inspired me is the many years of playing RPGs, and creating projects that was very surface and generic. I love art, creation and the helping of others.

How long have you been working on your project? *Spicyroll: It's been a good year (:

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *Spicyroll: Many games like Moon remix RPG, Undertale, Mother 3, Nino kuni. Artists Bryan lee O maley, Rebecca Sugar, many more. I love the aspect of alternatives to fighting in RPGs. Wholesome.

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them? *Spicyroll: Yes there were many, sometimes just like many other developers you would get dev block or whatever. Burnt out for overworking and what not. Fear of people not liking the concept. Also a big one is the the limitations of rpgmaker, however I am grateful to the engine because just as an artist its easy to use. How I worked on it was giving time to myself, self love, doing other things other than game dev where it sparked that flame. Staying positive and interacting with other game devs. Playing story driven games.

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *Spicyroll: Many aspects! It was going to be REALLY spiritual and concepts were thrown onto you to "wake you up" However I realized it would be very jarring to people who aren't open to such concepts so I thought I should make it gradual. Current one is much more simple and I feel like more organized.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *Spicyroll: Well my team is basically just me, I have many friends who produce music but most of them just wanted to chip in one song or two. I found an amazing composer online and built a cool friendship with him. I like working alone in terms of directing but I would be open to members. I just have the fear of butting heads and what not.

What is the best part of developing a game? *Spicyroll: The BEST part of developing a game is just creating something in general and to share in a interactive medium of your tastes of music and design. My most favorite is in hopes of invoking emotions for the player to release to help them in their daily lives.

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *Spicyroll: I have played many RPGMaker games most are on this list, the big ones Oneshot, Lisa, To The Moon. I realized the limitations of the engine but just remains grateful to be able to create a functional game with little knowledge of coding. Shout out to them plugin creators!

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *Spicyroll: Although majority of the characters haven't been introduced in development, I relate to the main character. The name is a self insert but the character himself is at his core wanting to empathize with entities and connect. Its up to the player who is the guide to flesh those out or go a different route.

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *Spicyroll: I actually dont have any regrets, I am just grateful to the whole process cause everything negative was a learning experience (:

Do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *Spicyroll: TAs of now I would leave it as it is and if characters are likable maybe some side stories?

What do you most look forward to now that you have finished the game? *Spicyroll: I look forward to the many smiles and emotions players give while playing the game. Also just art in general characters in many different mediums of art. I would hope that any concept or action can help the person in their waking life.

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *Spicyroll: It would have to be the engine, I know that sometimes errors will occur and hinder the process of completion. But it will work out ^^

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *Spicyroll: Practice self care for yourself, you only have one body, mind and soul. If you practice those things and better yourself you can bring your best self to work on this project. Its sometimes unavoidable due to habits but when you realize that overworking yourself doesn't do any good to yourself or the project you can evolve into higher conceptualization? Also make the game YOU want, like as a love letter to yourself (:

Question from last month's featured dev @grimmshollow: What tricks do you use to make playtesting/debugging easier? *Spicyroll: Tricks? Uhhhh keeping save points and such around? Having your friends play your game with unbias so you can get the whole picture. Which cuts out time doing final edits at the last min of release.

We mods would like to thank Spicy Roll for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Roji's Room if you haven’t already! See you next month!