So we tried Kickstarter and, while we didn't meet our goal, we learned a ton from the process. Firstly, we want to thank everyone who believes in Ribbiting Saga as much as we do, we're now more excited than ever! If you still want to support us you can do so by picking up the same tier on our pre-order page using the Humble Store Widget - Every tier includes beta access now. We want to have as many frogs in our beta as possible!

In the past month we've had 2 big realizations:

First, Ribbiting Saga needs a community of people testing it in order to create the best game we can possibly make. Second, the sword is a bad main weapon for multiple reasons. The following paragraphs hold in-depth explanations for these two key developments.

Early Access

We've decided the best place to introduce the world to Ribbiting Saga is through Early Access; The game is non-linear and because of that the dungeons change based on your choices, granting players multiple ways to play the game. Players that want a spicier play-through will probably be interested in the randomizer mode we're implementing, which shuffles the placement of items. 

This means there are many ways the game can break, so we need as many players in the game as possible as early as possible. We intend to officially launch into Steam Early Access within 2-3 months, however anyone who pre-orders before then will get very early builds of the game when they are ready so we can prepare for this launch. If you'd like to support us through this period you can pre-order right now. Our goal here is to be as open and active as possible, so we hope you'll join us in our Discord Server to be further involved.

The Guntlet

Ribbiting Saga is a fantasy adventure game so the main character has to have a sword, right? I made that early choice and realized I was wrong.

While creating Ribbiting Saga I've always clung to the goal of creating the best adventure game I could ever produce; I studied the mechanics of franchises like Zelda, Metroid, and Megaman and asked myself, "What makes these games great?"

While focusing on other games and my own, I never once questioned if having a sword as the main weapon was actually a good idea for what I envision Ribbiting Saga to be. We've always planned on implementing an arm-cannon as the ability the players receive from defeating Captain Blu, but after testing we decided to promote this ability as the core weapon for Andi.

Our boss fights are meant to scale and get bigger, faster, and more challenging. A sword just doesn't work with large enemies that move quickly, not to mention that a Zelda-style adventure game focusing on ranged weapons leads to cool abilities and puzzles that wouldn't otherwise be possible.

Don't worry, Ribbiting Saga isn't a twin-stick shooter now! I created a simplified targeting system that locks to the direction you are facing, and once you hit an enemy while strafing you will automatically face the direction of your target. For example you could be charging your shot, roll around like before and break out of the roll into a satisfying charged blast! It's still Ribbiting Saga, but now it has an arm-cannon!

I can't wait to show you the other weapons and upgrades we are working on. It's going to be a blast!

The Future

Right now we are focusing on getting a free demo of all the new combat changes we are implementing, so look out for that in the coming weeks. Beyond that it's a sprint towards Early Access. We already plan to take in the opinions of the community when considering our approach to Early Access from the start so we can bolster a mighty beginning!

We will be updating our devlogs on our website, Itch.io, gamejolt, and IndieDB. Plus we will be linking our blogs on Twitter. So pick your favorite place and follow us there if you want to stay connected! We will be updating every Monday, so be sure to check back in to see what we're working on. Discord is the best place to give us direct feedback and be involved with the community, so we highly recommend you join if you're interested in having an impact on the game's development. We also plan to start doing monthly Twitch Q&As so keep an eye out for those out as well!

Thank you so much for your support. We can't wait to share Ribbiting Saga with you!