Momiji Studios' latest creation,Video Game Fables, takes a new approach to traditional RPG mechanics. The solo developer behind Momiji Studios, Matt Sharp, wanted to create a classic turn-basedrole-playing gamebut with an experience system that encourages strategy and provides greater accessibility. InVideo Game Fables, experience is not simply used to level up individual characters and their stats, but for most aspects of character building.
Game Rant spoke to Matt Sharp of Momiji Studios about Video Game Fables' rethinking of experience points, levels, equipment, and skills. Sharp createdVideo Game Fablesto be a light-hearted RPG that would be highly accessible while offering a unique story line and mechanics. While original stories are commonplace in RPGs, they often provide little uniqueness in character building. The plot is usually simple: fight to acquire experience points, gain levels that improve stats, add skills and equipment, and repeat. Sharp’s vision was to overhaul the entire experience structure, which would hopefully allowVideo Game Fablesto contribute to turn-based RPG resurgence.
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Video Game Fables' Experience Is a Resource
Video Game Fableswas in the works for years before Sharp could focus on it full-time. While working at Wilmington University teaching game development, he drafted the basics of his upcoming game. The idea was to restructure the experience points from a linear system into a multidimensional resource. Not only would the points - still acquired by defeating enemies - be used for multiple things alongside leveling up and gaining stats, but the player could also reallocate them at will. While doing that he also wanted to make sure thatextensive character level grindingwouldn’t be necessary.
With my love for RPGs, I wanted to fix some things I didn’t like on a lot of RPGs, and just change things up to do something new.
Instead of simply filling a bar and completing a level that would give access to stats and skills, experience inVideo Game Fableswould be required for most character-building features. Simply wielding a new sword wouldn’t be possible, as the player would have to pay in experience points to wield it. Similarly, equipping a new spell would first require paying for the unlocking of the slot and then paying to equip a specific spell. To further ensure that leveling up wouldn’t be as all-important as it is in many of the morepopular turn-based RPGs, Sharp made stat increases with level-ups less significant. While level-ups would increase the levels and stats of the entire party of three, stats would only be increased by a few points. Equipping a new and more powerful weapon, shield, or accessory would make a much more substantial difference.
Benefits of Reallocating Experience in Video Game Fables
Sharp also made the experience points completely recoverable. The player could reduce the character levels, or remove spells and so on, to regain the points for another use case. Reallocation was made possible at any point in the game, excluding battles. According to Sharp, this was an important feature in terms of strategy and accessibility. It opens up tons of new possibilities in creating more challenging enemies as well as allowing players to engage incharacter min-maxing in a true RPG fashion. While the game is light-hearted, it isn’t the easiest. Sharp expects most players not to fly through battles without any issues.
The nature of the reallocatable experience points also allows people with lesser experience in turn-based RPGs, or games in general, to enjoy the game. No character-building effort is final, and that allows learning from mistakes and trying again with a new set of abilities. According to Sharp, some of theharder boss battles have a Soulslike feelwhere players are expected to fail at first. Bosses, or even some regular battles, might take the player back to reading about their enemies from the Monstrocomicon, or require them to ask their trusted time-traveling friend, the alarm clock Riko, for strategy tips.
For example, if you don’t have enough XP to equip a new skill you got. You could go and fight some enemies and get the XP, but you can also bump down your party level by one and get some XP back.
Lastly, Sharp didn’t like the fact that in a lot ofRPGs grinding levels is either a necessity or encouraged, be it intentionally or not. InVideo Game Fables, the constant grinding of XP in hopes of leveling up the characters and advancing further is not required. According to Sharp, while the game offers a free-roaming world with random encounters and thus unlimited access to grinding, that is not at all needed. Everything should be doable even with a fairly linear progression through the game. It might require a little more tinkering and thinking when the characters aren’t overpowered through grinding, but the satisfaction and the reward for the player are more than worth it.
Video Game Fablesis available now on PC.
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