Topic: Citizens of Earth (it looks great!)

There wasn't a topic yet, so here we are! I think it looks like a potential gem, and I'd love to see more eShop AND retail Wii U rpgs. There's only one bad thing though; it just makes me want EarthBound that much more.

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/03/citizens_of_earth_pr...

Hey, I'm Ryan, the creator of Citizens of Earth. Feel free to post any questions you have about the game here and I'll do my best to answer them!

You said that you plan to release it in March 2014, how long have you worked on this game?
Also I see you're from the Great White North, thats cool, I'm from Canada as well. Canada represent!

Well March 2014 is what we're aiming for, but it's too early to say exactly when it'll release. In terms of how long we've been working on it, there's probably a couple ways to answer that:
-Initial design of the game began in 2009, but it was pushed to the side in favour of developing another game, Waveform, which we released on Steam last year (which also might be coming to Wii U!)
-While I was personally deep in the development of Waveform, Andrew (whom you may have seen alongside me in the GameSpot interview we did: www.gamespot.com/6406066 ) began expanding on Waveform's tech to develop the tech we'd need for this game around July 2011 I believe.
-After finishing up Waveform last year, I began working full-time on Citizens of Earth in about May, 2012
-The art production began in around December, 2012

So parts of the game (namely tech and design) have been in development for a long time! But the art production is much more recent.

And yes we are proudly from Canada! Our last game, Waveform, is actually currently a finalist in 4 categories in the Canadian Videogame Awards (http://www.canadianvideogameawards.com/finalists/), so we're very happy and proud to be Canadian developers .

It says that there are over 50 citizens to recruit. Does that mean over 50 potential party members/followers? and do the characters in your party affect any events or dialogue in the game?

Edit: Also, can you go into detail about your experience working with Nintendo to release the game so far? and I'd love to see/support your other projects on the console as well.

The game looks great and I am so glad it is coming to th eshop. The eshop needs more awesome looking games like this. I really hope Nintendo is helping out indie devs as much as possible.

I have one question, how are planning to utilize the gamepad?

We haven't finalized the exact number of Citizens yet, but we're aiming for 50. And yes, that means potential party members. The vast majority will be optional though. Each one will have a unique skill-set in battle, and a unique ability outside of battle, so it's to your benefit to recruit as many as you can. But it'll certainly support the option of picking and choosing just the ones you're interested in as well. And yes, the characters in your party do affect events and dialogue.

Your question about my experience working with Nintendo thus far is kind of interesting. So to give some history, I used to be a programmer on many Nintendo games such as Mario Strikers: Charged and Luigi's Mansion 2. Thus, when I first wanted to make Waveform for the Wii I thought they'd have no problem with it. But it was rejected because they thought my office space wasn't secure enough. So to be honest I kind of gave up on any future Nintendo development, despite being a life-long Nintendo fan, since I didn't really want to keep going down a dead-end. But thankfully they've tried to change things up and they've been great about Citizens of Earth so far, even going so far as to send me a dev kit for free in order to do the port. And I had the great pleasure of meeting up with my contact from Nintendo of America while at GDC over the last week and it was great. He's a fan of both Waveform and Citizens of Earth and is excited to see them come to Wii U, and maybe the 3DS. So things are certainly looking up in terms of working with Nintendo on this and other projects.

Regarding the gamepad, I'm sorry I don't really have anything I can say about that right now. Since we're aiming for releasing early next year we're still experimenting with how we can best use the gamepad and don't want to rush into anything. But we'll try to come up with the best possible use, and please stay tuned for future announcements about that

How will the battle system work?

The battle system is rooted in the Dragon Quest/Earthbound tradition, but expands upon it in a number of ways, particularly related to the strong emphasis in Citizens of Earth on the breadth of characters and their individual uniqueness. I know that's a bit vague, but more details will come in the future

@EdenIndustries
what do you think about the demand of earthbound and what are your thoughts about ackkstudios project y2k?
are there any golden corral restaurants in canada?

I think Earthbound has achieved a much more well-known and appreciated status these days as opposed to when it first released, and I think people are eager to play something similar. At least, the reception at GDC would seem to indicate that.

I'm actually not aware of project y2k, sorry. What is that? And there may be golden corral restaurants in Canada, though I've never been to one and can't remember seeing one off the top of my head

Oh and if you're interested in keeping up to date with the info on the game, feel free to keep tabs on our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/CitizensOfEarthGame or Twitter: https://twitter.com/EdenIndustries

Just the fact that you have stopped by to discuss your game with us and give us all this feedback is the final icing on the cake that makes this game a future must-buy for me! This is how smaller developers should act. The game looks gorgeous, is a nice neoretro throwback to classic masterpiece RPGs, and it appears to have a complex battle system and excellent comedy-caliber dialogue, so I'm automatically going to like it.

Ryan, you've scored yourself a day-one customer! I just have a couple other questions of curiosity.

1. I've checked out the screenshots, and saw the Mother, Brother, and Conspiracy Guy. Can you share with us an example of an early-game citizen and what their skills and abilities might be?

2. I see that there's an online battle system. The first thing that came to mind is the StreetPass functionality in the recent excellent SRPG, Fire Emblem: Awakening. I don't know if you've played that or not, but is the online something along those lines?

I am buying it day one and I hope many more Wii U owners are doing the same. If you also utilize Miiverse to its fullest especially with all the new features that Nintendo is adding in the future will add a lot of value to the game. I love Miiverse and its potential.
It is interesting to hear your history with Nintendo and I am really sorry that Nintendo was intent to keep that policy about the office. It looks like things are changing slowly but surely with Nintendo and I am actually seeing that they are showing signs of being humble.

I hope Nintendo knows that the gaming industry needs them even if thier specs are not Ps4 and Nexbox levels. I love them giving you a free dev kit. It shows some good faith towards indie devs.

I wish you the best and keep up the exposure so no one forgets this game when it finally gets a release.

project y2k is an earthbound inspired game in the works as well lol. ill be keeping my eyes open for citizens of earth too

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Thanks! And yeah I definitely agree. Interacting with the community is something I love best about being an indie developer.

Thanks again! We've actually gotten a few comments on forums that people think the art is ugly. But I think it looks great, though I'm biased I suppose .

Well the Conspiracy Guy is an early-game citizen. His in-battle skills include spouting off a bunch of wacky theories and arguments that damage enemies and apply a number of status effects. Since he's also obsessed with alien conspiracies, he carries around a variety of probes to use on enemies as well .

His out-of-battle ability is an almanac detailing info on all the enemies in the game, and he actually has a few in-battle abilities that you can use on the enemies in order to fill out this almanac. So one of the coolest things about Citizens of Earth is that every Citizen's out-of-battle ability strengthens as they level up. So in the case of the Conspiracy Guy, the almanac fills in with so much info that you'll never need to use GameFAQs! That's the idea anyway . But it'll include an enemy's stats, abilities, strengths, weaknesses, items they drop, etc. So if you level up the Conspiracy Guy, you will have essentially perfect information on every enemy in the game!

Despite being a massive Fire Emblem fan, I actually haven't played the new one yet. So I'm not familiar with how it handles online, but in Citizens of Earth you can fight a friend head-to-head using your team of Citizens. We already have that working and it's pretty darn fun already, even though it's not balanced yet. We're going to investigate additional forms of online connectivity, but certainly you can count on those battles at the very least.

Thanks! I really appreciate your support!

Ah, interesting! I'll have to keep my eyes open for that.

Ryan, Would you ever consider Mii integration? so you could add your Mii as pixel people in the game?

Awesome Ryan I can't wait to play this game ... Love the quirkiness in the art style and overall story .. Very kool!

There is not nearly enough backers for this potentially fantastic game. It's barely reaching it's funding goal, let alone the 3DS and Wii U stretch goals. It would be a shame if this game is not released in some form or another.

Even their kickstarter page made me laugh. Looks to have a great sense of humor!

Thanks for your support! Anything you guys can do to help spread the word is very much appreciated