[In Development] Working on LIFEBIT MONSTERS, a new monster-raising battle game for the Famicom

Hello, this is Nishino from Ryuheidou.
I'm currently making a new game, LIFEBIT MONSTERS,
with the Famicom development tool NESmaker.

This time I'd like to tell you about LIFEBIT MONSTERS,
what the game is like, its features, and how I'm making it.

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What Is LIFEBIT MONSTERS?

LIFEBIT MONSTERS is a monster-raising battle game
where you raise a monster and take it on adventures and battles.

My references are Tamagotchi and Digimon,
mixed into a chimera with a dash of Pokémon and Monster Rancher.

Players look after a monster hatched from an egg,
build up its abilities through meals and training,
and take on all sorts of adventures and battles.

What I value most in this game
is raising one monster that's all your own within a limited time.

You can raise a monster for 10 days.
Within that period, every choice matters:
which abilities to build up,
what adventures to send it on, and how to raise it.

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Monster Growth and Raising

Monsters hatch from eggs
and go through the following growth stages.

Egg → Baby → Child → Adult → Perfect

Monsters have stats such as HP, Attack, Defense, Sp. Attack, Sp. Defense and Speed,
and you grow them through meals and training.
Managing their condition also matters, including fullness and motivation,
so it's not just about raising numbers.
Their abilities and personality change depending on how you raise them,
and I'm aiming for a game where every player ends up with a different monster.

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Adventures with Your Monster

You can send your monster on adventures into a variety of dungeons.
Dungeons do have difficulty levels, of course,
but I don't plan to strictly restrict where you can go based on growth stage.
In other words, even a monster that's still growing
can take on a tough dungeon.

Depending on how cleverly you raise your monster, you might discover an unexpected way to beat a dungeon.
Monsters also have elements such as fire, water and nature,
and I'm planning hidden monsters and special legendary monsters too.

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Retirement, and On to the Next Generation

In this game, when the 10-day raising period ends, your monster retires.
A retired monster can go one of two ways:
“Inheritance” or “Hall of Fame.”
If you choose “Inheritance,”
the monster's stats and moves can be passed on to the next-generation monster.

With “Hall of Fame,” on the other hand,
I'm considering a system that records your monster's data in a form like a “revival password,”
so you can use it in LIFEBIT MONSTERS STADIUM, a 3D battle game planned for release on Steam.
It's not about raising one monster and being done;
it's about raising generation after generation of monsters
and building up a record that's all your own.

That's the kind of game I want to make.

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The Romance of Making a Famicom Game Now

I grew up with the Famicom and Super Famicom,
so of course part of it is the dream of “I wanna make a game for the console I always admired!”
but the Famicom also has a charm that's different from modern games.
With Unity you can make games with relatively great freedom,
but on the Famicom there are all kinds of constraints: the number of usable colors, the extremely tiny size of the game itself,
memory, the number of characters you can display, how music can be expressed, and more.

How do you make a game work within those constraints?
I think piling up clever tricks within limited means of expression
is part of what makes game development fun.

For this game I'm using NESmaker, a game development tool for the Famicom.
On top of that,
I'm setting up my own development environment as I go,
with a system to convert MIDI data into Famicom music data,
a system to use PNGs made in Aseprite as sprites,
and a system to run the finished ROM data as a PC application that can be distributed on Steam.
It's an old console, but I'm not just recreating games from the past;
I'm using Famicom hardware to make the game I want to make now.

Man, it's romantic, isn't it?

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What's Next

LIFEBIT MONSTERS is still in development.
I'm working on it by combining many elements,
such as raising and growing monsters, adventures and battles.
Note that what I've shown here is from the development stage,
and the specs may change with future adjustments.
I'm aiming to make something enjoyable both for people who have loved the Famicom for years
and for people who have never played one.
I'd be happy if you'd keep an eye on it until it's finished!
See you next time!