Right now, I can’t really tell you much of what A Short Hike developer adamgryu is working on. He shared a little look at whatever is next last week, and it certainly looks adjacent to A Short Hike vibes wise – we’ll come back to this one with the tiniest of details in a bit. At the very least, I can certainly tell you what he’s not working on: a game called Untitled Paper RPG.
As described by adamgryu, Untitled Paper RPG is an “untitled RPG inspired by the classic Paper Mario games. It’s got turn-based combat with quick time events and a detailed overworld to explore.” This of course begs the question why I’m telling you about this game at all if it’s ostensibly cancelled. Well, last week the indie dev actually shared a short one to two hour long demo of the game, essentially the entirety of what was made. Adamgryu also offered up a short blog post explaining the project a bit, and what led to it now being officially cancelled.
Back in 2018, I was working on an RPG inspired by the Paper Mario series. I don’t think I’ll end up finishing this game, but I figured I could share the demo that I had put together anyway. #gamedev Blog post and demo here! 🔽
adamgryu.itch.io/paper-game/d…
Untitled Paper RPG initially started development back in 2016, after adamgryu saw the announcement for Paper Mario Color Splash. “I was nostalgic for the old style of Paper Mario and thought – well, I make games, why not try making the game I want to see?” he explains. After leaving his job in 2017, he set out to make indie games, but while working on this one in late 2018 he took a break and started on A Short Hike. “It unexpectedly did really well for me! I had planned to go back to my RPG at some point, but there was still a lot of work I could do on A Short Hike.”
In the end, his reason behind “sort of” cancelling the game was a simple one: after putting out A Short Hike, he just “didn’t really want to go back to this game? The development for the RPG had become difficult, which was why I took a break from it in the first place. I might return to this project someday, but I’ve been working on other things and don’t see myself making time for this RPG in near future.”
Adamgryu then listed out a few of the reasons that working on the game felt “overwhelming,” including the classic issue of the scope feeling too big, not actually having a story, and having doubts over the turn-based combat system. He ultimately decided to release this demo partially because some people still ask about it, so “sharing the demo is better than nothing.”
Back to that GIF of one of his upcoming games, Adamgryu also shared that this is an action adventure game he’s working on. It’s one of three projects he’s tinkering away at, including a micro-RPG with a claymation aesthetic, and an online platforming roguelike.
It’s often sad when exciting games get cancelled, but it’s also rare that we in the first instance get this much insight as to why, and in the second have the ability to actually play some of it. There’s a value to be found in something that’s incomplete. I often think about Satoshi Kon’s Opus, a manga he never finished before his death in 2010, and how it’s then forced to leave so much to the imagination of the reader. What would Untitled Paper RPG have become? Perhaps a worse game than what its demo presents! So let’s appreciate what we do have instead.
