nice! is this a custom built engine, or are you leveraging something like RPGMaker, etc.?
Sorry for potentially derailing this thread, maybe I should make a thread of my own after I launch?
I don’t have the programming expertise myself to create my own custom built engine, I’m using the latest iteration of RPG Maker at the moment. It gets a bad rap for being ‘easy to use’ and people release a lot of generic-looking RPGs with it, but if you get creative and you put a lot of effort into it, you can get something really phenomenal in return.
sounds great… 
i’ve dabbled with several systems like RPGMaker, and i agree, there is quite a bit of depth and complexity to be had from them, if you put in the requisite time…
good luck! 
Looks interesting, don’t have too much idea of what its’ like but it does look like it could be good. As for the rpgmaker issue, there is two main things I find that if done make it pretty much irrelevant, the first is to add new mechanics and the second is to make it so it takes more than a cursory glance to tell it was made with rpgmaker as that gives an initial negative impression that can be hard to dissuade for a variety of reasons which include being able to make it seem like you didn’t put much effort in. As for what I’ve seen of you in relation to the two issues, the first one you seem to have succeeded at quite well (Can I assume you’ve got some fairly decent ruby skill because of it?) the second one however you kinda failed at, the graphics look like rpg maker and I’m nearly certain I saw some of the default stuff in there, that doesn’t make the game bad but it can give an impression of that which can be an issue.
Making your own engine would be very hard though and I’d advise against it, however as a primary mac user I always prefer stuff that runs on it so that’s point against for rpg maker. Just some thoughts on stuff though.
Thanks for the input Xavion it’s greatly appreciated!
I would have to agree with all of your points. My primary goal while making the game was to make it as far away from rpg maker-looking as possible. Unfortunately, I don’t exactly have a large budget or the artistic expertise to create completely custom graphics myself. I’ve done my best by using custom tilesets along with some of the default graphics, but considering the majority of art is made to match the default style, it’s quite difficult without extra help.
As for the mechanics, I myself don’t have too much ruby experience, I did what I could with the tools given to me and I’m actually pretty happy with the result. After releasing a first alpha I managed to recruit a pretty dependable team with the promise of some crowdfunding (if successful).
Which part of the trailer would you say has the most glaringly obvious usage of the default graphics? Even if they are placeholder graphics, I would agree than just having some of the default stuff will be problematic to the rpg maker detractors.
Probably the two closest/worst looking parts in terms of rpgmaker-yness would be alot of the furnishings, particularly the drawers/cupboards out of the short trailer, the sparkle used, and the outside of the house in the short trailer. It’s actually a lot of little things though which I notice but really it seems like those are the worst, although the tower and the caves just after look to me at least like they’re pretty much entirely default stuff.