As much as we hate them, cuts in game development are often necessary. If I’m being honest, I’ve never worked on a project where we didn’t have to make some tough decisions. You start with bigger aspirations—dozens of sprites, backgrounds, and CGs—only to realize that everything takes an insane amount of time and resources. Parallel Pulse was no different.

The original vision for the game was something akin to TWEWY in terms of combat, but with a narrative more aligned with the Persona series, where you bond and hang out with friends. The game started as an action RPG, and until mid-May, I was set on this approach. But then reality hit—with each sprite taking way more than what I had initially thought it'd take.

In a previous devlog, I gave you a glimpse of how much effort goes into creating a single sprite sheet. It goes without saying that this became a nightmare for me—and not just for the main character but for each enemy as well. Every enemy needed at least three animations, while Laios, the player character, required at least 15 combat animations for various actions like attacks, taking damage, and more. It was overwhelming.

After returning from TheComicCon Thessaloniki this year, where I attended a tabletop game design workshop, I realized that continuing with an action RPG would likely end in failure. The sheer amount of work required for various animations
and VFX was beyond our capacity. That’s when I decided to pivot to a turn-based RPG.

While this decision was comforting to most of the team, some believed the game needed to be fast-paced with action elements like before, and I couldn’t agree more, but we had to be realistic.

For the next few days, I struggled to find a system that could be turn-based while retaining some action elements. Fortunately, one of our artists proposed a game mechanic that draws inspiration from a mobile turn base RPG. While that game is indeed turn-based, it also incorporates action RPG elements in a fast-paced manner. After agreeing on the course of action we'd take, something unexpected happened: we realized we now had more flexibility with our game. Let me explain what I mean by this.

In our initial concept, having AI-controlled sidekicks seemed like a good idea, especially since The World Ends with You successfully handled two characters at the same time. However, this idea quickly became problematic when considering different hardware and design considerations for consoles and PC. And compared to The World Ends With You, having AI teammates often isn’t fun for players, so this feature was easily scrapped.

By switching to a turn-based RPG, we hope to offer a wider cast of playable characters, which not only makes more sense for the narrative but also enhances the player experience.

Another cut was the concept of having visual novel backgrounds for each environment. While doing early UI concept art, we realized that the existing backgrounds, where the player navigates, looked great without the need for additional ones. While we haven’t completely ruled out adding more backgrounds, it’s likely that we’ll stick with what we have.

The result of these cuts was not just freeing up time for the art department and myself but also giving us the opportunity to explore more monster designs and introduce greater variability throughout the game. Although our game design document is still in a high-level state when it comes down to combat, I believe there’s now a good balance between The World Ends with You and Persona gameplays.

In the end, these cuts not only decreased the overall scope of the game but, in my opinion, made it better. The only trade-off is that action RPGs are generally more streamable than turn-based RPGs, but it's a small price I have to pay.

Check out the rest of my articles here: https://www.alexitsios.com/2024/08/painful-cuts-i-had-to-make-to-my-game.html