Preparing a JRPG for PICO-8

My next major effort in Pico-8 is going to be an rpg inspired by Gameboy roleplaying games like Final Fantasy Legend and Pokemon. I played them all the time on my blue little Gameboy Pocket back in middle school, and I've always had the thought floating in my head to make such a game of my own.

For me, there are a few aspects of the games that captures the 'feel' of playing on the playground:

• 4-way movement that snaps to a grid
• 2-bit color scheme
• Dialog boxes that take a second to display
• Slow saving process
• Trying to keep a party alive through a long dungeon with minimal saves
• 16x16 pixel sprites
• Monochromatic game manual with lots of worldbuilding information.

The tricky thing about Pico-8, having experimented a bit with implementing many of these things, is the reality of its limitd space for graphics. The 16x16 sprites use up four times as many pixels, and the existing map space for the game world is already very small compared to what was available on even Gameboy games. Because of this, I am thinking of making a game world that is quite constrained in extent, leaning away from an adventuring-based game to an unlocking-based game.

In Skyrim, in the city of Whiterun, there is a priest who minds the dead in the catacombs. He has lost his holy symbol, which leaves him defenseless against a few risen dead. You as the player go down, smush three of them, and that's it! It's a fairly unremarkable quest, but I think there is a germ of a game idea: what if you were a normal priest, but there were some undead creatures to defeat as well?

Gameplay might include performing mass for parishioners, hearing confessions, helping the poor, giving homilies, cleaning the church, minding the grounds, painting icons, performing funerals, and then smushing undead in th catacombs. The entirety of the game could occur on the church grounds, whether it be in the chapel, in the soup kitchen, or in the catacombs. New problems to solve could be introduced by the parishioners, and new capabilities could come from upgrading the church in certain ways.

I'll keep thinking on it and will maybe write up more about the game concept in a few days. The weather is gorgeous today, so going to get out in it for a bit.