ETNIA

Players who like pixel RPGs, equipment grinding, combat growth, light narrative and heavy world. It can also meet some differentiated needs. For players who prefer combat and construction, they can gradually strengthen their characters by defeating monsters in the rift, collecting fragments and equipment, and experiencing numerical growth and treasure-hunting cycle. For players who prefer the world and narrative, they can gradually piece together a story about “eternity” and “freedom” during their journey through the maple forest, forbidden zone, old city and winter city.

I have a fondness for pixel RPGs and have played many pixel games, such as “TerraRIA”, “Minecraft”, “Purple Crystal”, “Far Star Story”, “The Cage of Predators”, and so on. I really enjoy the simplicity and orderliness that pixel art brings. However, there are currently not many new pixel RPGs that interest me in the market. Perhaps this combination is indeed relatively niche and somewhat outdated. Previously, I came across a single-player pixel RPG made by someone online. Although it was simple, it was a very traditional pixel RPG, which aroused my interest. So I sent a message to the author, proposed the idea of collaborating with him, and took on the art work, and thus this game came into being.

The game allows players to explore the map and obtain various equipment through battles, and then combine them to form different styles for combat.

Although it is a lottery-style game, we have attempted to incorporate the free combination elements of meat pigeons, making Combo more diverse and interesting.

Players can freely combine five pieces of equipment and one weapon. The equipment has interactivity, and each weapon has its own unique features.

At the same time, players can obtain points by upgrading, which can be used to increase their own values and unlock skills. Up to five skills can be loaded.

I began this project full of enthusiasm but gave little thought to later development. I also had little experience, so the workflow was messy from the start. Many key details were left undefined early on, and I soon found that it was hard to adjust course once development was underway. For instance, I used labour-heavy frame-by-frame animation while settling on old-fashioned four-directional character movement. This made controls feel rigid and created heavy animation workloads — nearly every action needed variants for different directions. Since I was new to the game engine, I also lacked clear asset standards. Programmers had to repeatedly rework the files I provided, dragging down overall efficiency.

My technical limits added more trouble. I could not create proper shader effects, so almost all visual effects were hand-drawn frame animations. The results were unsatisfactory and extremely time-consuming. In hindsight, these issues stemmed from missing initial technical plans, asset rules and stable workflows, plus a failure to recognise my own limits. I tried to fix problems by putting in more manual work instead of adopting better tools and methods.

Passion is enough to kick off a project, but only solid standards and sensible decisions can bring it to completion.