Forgotten Beginnings: A New Afterlife

This game is free to download, with the option of paying.  You are welcome to download it for free and come back later to pay something, if you decide to.  No ads, no data collection, just free with the option of paying.

I wanted to have my own music in a game, so decided to make my own game.  This is the full version of a prologue/demo I released some months ago (also found on itch.io, if you're curious).

My playthrough was ~4.5 hours long on the "faster" game speed setting, with animations turned on.  This time also does not count time spent in battles that result in defeat and require a reload, so depending on your game speed + how many reloads you need, it may be shorter or it may be longer.

OST is available here on itch.io https://james5272.itch.io/forgotten-beginnings-a-new-afterlife-ost more options found in the description of that page. If you enjoy the game and want to support me, consider buying the OST!

There is also a strategy guide, there is a sample included in the game install directory as "strategy guide SAMPLE.txt".

Clicked the AI tag because I used ChatGPT to help me generate code to have easier (for me) control over moving windows with the Bestiary plugin.  I also used it to create the "drop % of party currency on escape" mechanic. That's all it's been used for, nothing else.

***Credits in credits.txt in game install dir or viewable ingame through menu - datalog***

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LINUX

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As far as I know, the game can at least launch on Linux, at least under some circumstances. Download the Windows version zip (right now the only version available), extract the game folder, then open it up and rename Game.exe to nw (has to lose the .exe). Double clicking nw may not get the game to run, but I've been told you can run nw successfully through the terminal. The game has *NOT* been fully tested in Linux, and since RPG Maker MZ doesn't officially do Linux, I probably can't fix any issues one may have with Linux (the reason I used RPG Maker for my game is cuz I am not really a coder). And, if you are playing on Linux and feel like paying me, I *highly* recommend you wait til you know you can complete the game before giving me anything, if you chose to. That way, if it falls apart at some point, well it would suck if you couldn't finish the game, but hopefully without having to pay for it, you aren't bitter about it.

I've also gotten it at least running - but not fully playtested - on Steam Deck, so this might work for other versions of Linux, too. Download the Windows zip and extract the folder somewhere. Leave all contents as-is. Then, in Steam, add a non-Steam game, go to the game directory, and add Game.exe. Then, go into the Steam properties for the game, go to Compatibility and set it to use a specific compatibility tool, and tell it to use Proton Experimental. After doing all this, I was able to run the game, I haven't played much yet but not issues. The default retro font will probably be too small for some, you *can* change it to larger Arial in the options, but the game wasn't made with this in mind so all windows and dialogue boxes were done specifically with the retro font. Arial might make things ugly or flat out break some stuff. You can reduce its size as well though if it creates the opposite problem (too large), in the options.

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KNOWN ISSUES

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- Sometimes after launch, the game has really low speed for 10 - 15 seconds. I didn't notice this when playtesting it within RPG Maker MZ, only with the deployed version (which is what you have access to). The possible fix is to add the game folder as an exclusion to antivirus - the theory a RPG Maker forum user gave me is it may be detected as HTML but not in a browser, so getting scanned on launch. I added the game folder as an exclusion to my antivirus (just what's built into Win11) and it stopped having this issue.

- In the rename save file screen, backspace doesn't work.  You will have to use X or ESC on keyboard to delete.