itch.io

While I enjoyed working on an RPG, I learned that doing a project like that on my own takes a lot of time, and that I don't really have all the skill sets that I need to make it into what I really envisioned in my mind, since I'm no artist or musician or etc. So while I won't say "never again" outright or anything, I also don't really see it happening outside of a situation where perhaps in the future I could work as part of a team on another non-violent RPG project.

But you're right, the entire concept of non-violent RPG is almost unheard of... there are very few of them out there to my knowledge at least. Perhaps the idea will appeal enough that some other folks will want to try their own hand at making them, and the sub-genre will start to spread over time. I was pretty inspired by Undertale, for its ability to have encounters that didn't need to be solved violently, and how it generally did things in unorthodox fashion, even going so far as to highlight the absurdity of, and parody, many conventional RPG cliches. Non-violent games or generally wholesome ones seem to be on the rise in popularity recently, which is a promising sign I think overall.

All that said though, I'm already working on a new initiative that for the moment is taking the form of an Interactive Fiction story with different characters and stories broken out into chapters. Writing is more my forte I think overall, and as I'm learning my way around Twine at the outset of this new project, it's also nice to not run into the road blocks and limitations that I had trying to make an RPG, where most of the things I wanted to do were outside of my wheelhouse of skill sets. Here my only limitations are how well I can or cannot draw out the reader's imagination with words. And importantly, the boundaries to creativity and imagination are much fewer with this approach as well. Fewer limits means more things become possible to explore and create.

And with the new project I also have a focus on some novel ways of looking at things, including repercussions surrounding violence and anger. So it might not be along the lines of what you're looking for necessarily, but I think it will surprise and hopefully interest enough folks to eventually build a community around it. I envision it as a collaborative, or at least free/open, universe where folks can take what I have started and run with it themselves in their own projects, or contribute ideas for building it up over time. Maybe an RPG based within its universe would be a possibility for the future. I can't imagine what shape(s) it will all take yet, but that's okay too. As it has been said, when nothing is certain, anything is possible.

I'll get more into the details of all that when the time comes though. It's not quite at a good enough starting point to where I feel I'm ready to start putting out public builds just yet, but I don't think it will be terribly much longer until I get things there either. Unlike with Death? Preposterous!, where I waited until it was done before putting it out there for folks, this time around I plan to develop and release builds gradually over time, so it will be more of a work-in-progress for the long term sort of endeavor that I get to share as I go, which should be more fun overall I think.