Overstory of Übermorgen
Controls
Move - Arrow Keys
Interact - Collide w/ Tile
Open Inventory (open-world) - (X)/[X]
Close Inventory - (O)/[Z]/[C]
Scroll Inventory - Up & Down Keys
Change Item/Spell View - Left & Right Keys
Activate Item/Spell - (X)/[X]
Progress Dialogue - (O)/[Z]/[C]
Select Action (tcomba) - Left & Right Keys
Act Action (tcomba) - (X)/[X]
What Is This??
Overstory of Übermorgen is an RPG game, initially started as a school project. It is heavily inspired by Undertale and The Legend of Zelda, and it takes place in my world-building project, aptly named "Project Krëshkia" after the main continent.
In Overstory of Übermorgen, you play as Sinja Tantoezoe, a plezdrakon born from a family of heroes, historians, and scholars. Sinja is summoned by the Queen of Logdore for a mission that only a Tantoezoe can complete. A powerful dragon by the name of Yteixna threatens to take advantage of the peaceful plezdrakons in a classic conquest of world domination. After hundreds of years of peace, Krëshkia is brought back to the tides of war's oceans, bringing back bad memories... and stirring old graves. It's almost like a dream.
Overstory of Übermorgen - Trailer
Attribution (Credits)
Dialogue Text Boxes
The dialogue text box library comes from Dialogue Demo by Oli414. Their library plays a crucial role in the function of OÜ and was one of the many fortunate things that kept me from getting overwhelmed making OÜ.
Open-world State
Watching Dylan Bennett's YouTube tutorial series, PICO-8 Top-Down Adventure Game Tutorial, gave me the initial idea to make an RPG in PICO-8. Though this project deviates greatly from the tutorial, the core functionality still remains; Overstory of Übermorgen probably would've been another failed project if I hadn't seen his tutorial.
Particles
Something that really intrigued me about some other PICO-8 games was the particles they implemented. Many game engines have particle systems, but PICO-8 does not, so it was an added feature to have particles, and to me it is a symbol of true polish. Watching SpaceCat's tutorial/guide on particles, Particles in Pico-8 - The Ultimate Guide, helped make my game feel so much more exciting, just having some particles goin' nuts during some of the non-gameplay scenes.
Sprites
Though I'd consider myself artistic, I wouldn't call myself good-at-drawing-characters. So I leaned on my sibling, Kai, to help me draw up the designs for the large character sprites and the label. I did a lot of the formatting and final artistic decisions, but the shapes come from my wonderful sibling.
About Development
On January 19th this year, I published a post, My First RPG: Overstory of Übermorgen, discussing the early development of Overstory of Übermorgen (OÜ/OU) and some of the technical questions I was confronting as I planned to make a full RPG in a single PICO-8 cart. I will be building off of what I already wrote in that post here.
Size Limitations & How I Managed Not To Exceed Limits
I expressed worry about not having enough space for a whole RPG, but now that the game is finished, I am pleased to say that I'm not even at 90% compression. I even have space for three more 8x8 tiles in the spritesheet! Everything I wanted in the game was achieved, and I never had to reduce my scope. I didn't ever cut content to save space, I didn't simplify functions, and there's a lot of repeated parts--cough particles cough. There's music, there's full dialogue, the entire map is filled, the story and plot has a start AND end, and I was even able to get a bunch of fancy particles in. I understand though that it's just a fortunate coincidence that I was able to program as messily with any other game engine as I did with PICO-8. I was prepared to do some funky tricks to make an RPG possible in PICO-8.
Artistic Design
Once I got a lot of the main features down, most of the work I did after my first post in January was just adding more content. More dialogue, more areas to go to, and more items to use. And of course I refined a lot of the existing features, adding a highlight to items being selected in the inventory, and getting tcomba (a game state; turn-based combat) to play nice with gold rewards, music, and the inventory system.
February was characterized by sound and music design. I ended up redoing the sounds I added in the really early versions of OÜ, and I spent weeks trying to compose music that sounded good in PICO-8's limits. I used a software called LMMS to plan out the melodies, limiting myself to three instruments max at a time, and using only a piano soundfont so I wouldn't be tempted to create something NOT possible in PICO-8. Every measure I'd create a new piano roll, imitating PICO-8's SFX system, and I gave each roll a number, which got paired with an SFX number in the cart. I focused on trying to create versatile loops that can be used multiple times, which fortunately is a style of music I'm very familiar with making. In the end, I only had to make a few small changes between the PICO-8 and piano versions of the themes.
This Game Personally
Overstory of Übermorgen is a really important project to me, not just because it took me nearly three months (started 10 Dec 2024) to make, but because it is a game development project that I actually finished. OÜ is my first PICO-8 game, my first completed, non-school-project game, and the first depiction of Krëshkia shown public for the world to see. I poured a lot of my soul into this little project.
I really hope you enjoy this game as much as I did making it.
Will there be a sequel?
I made OÜ with the possibility of maybe making a sequel or more PICO-8 RPGs, but as of right now there is no plans specifically. One thing is for sure though, this won't be the last time Krëshkia, Sinja, and the Tantoezoes will make an appearance.
Tschüss, Amity Nexishka
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Moin, this is a great first title! You managed to cram a lot in here, turn based combat, an inventory system, loads of dialogue, a proper story-great work!
I will try to finish this when I'm off work, but for now-thank you for the nice lunch break!
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