Away Message
In development
The last offline kid goes into the network to get a friend back.
A small-town RPG about a film kid, a baseball bat, and getting a friend back from the screen.
Background
Turn of the millennium, a high school. The internet arrives and kids start logging in and not quite coming back. You are the last offline kid, the one who can still see the school emptying out from the inside, and the one who can go down into the network and face what is being born there.
A Dragon Quest at heart, wearing EarthBound's clothes. The hero is a baseball player who is secretly a film kid, the most physically present person in school, which is why the screen never had him. His bat carries a lightning bolt. His friend, the computer kid, ran toward the new world with joy, not fear.
Turn-based encounters, a pixel art overworld at 320 by 240, and the quiet dread of a hallway with fewer people in it every day. The friendship at the center is built on movies, and the camcorder is as much a part of the hero as the bat.
Where it stands
A playable start-to-finish vertical slice in Godot: title, overworld with townsfolk and dialogue, random encounters, two bosses, an ending, and saves. Placeholder art and a draft script.
What's next
Breadth: more zones, more enemies, the real script and the real art.