Asparaquest Epilogue: A New Beginning
(01/2025)

The Demon King is dead. Now what?

Asparagus "the Brave" isn't exactly living his best life. Despite finishing a history-defining quest mere months ago, he has no money and no purpose. After receiving an ultimatum from his landlord, he will need the help of his neighbors to get his life together... and your help too!

The Beginning of the End

When I heard that UChicago Game Design was doing a game jam in collaboration with Career Advancement, I absolutely had to rope in my good friends Adam (writer) and Jimbo (coder/sound designer/lead artist) to join me.

NEW: Scroll to the BOTTOM to read about the post-jam update.

My roles in this project, made in 3 days with Game Maker and fully original assets (except for the font), was composing music, helping my friends, a bit of spritework (some tiles and 2 character designs!), and writing half of the climactic end scene.

I can't spoil that, sadly, but it's a short enough game that you could play it and see! Do you have 20 minutes to spare?

The theme of the jam was to make the opposite of a given game genre, and we eventually arrived at the idea of an anti-RPG. How did we invert the genre? By taking away the main thing: the quest. It's already done.

There're no more fights to be fought either. We thought - if an RPG is supposed to be about the joy of going on a grand adventure, then the opposite would be a game about incredibly ordinary life experiences. Something more grounded and realistic where you have to have a JOB.

That said, it wasn't miserably realistic, as this little gem won joint first place in the game jam. We are immensely proud of how it turned out and plan to update it and potentially expand the story with another game.

A Bit about the Music

At the time of us devising the concept, Jimbo was interested in the aesthetics of the Game Boy. We embraced the simplicity of this aesthetic to speed up asset production.

What surprised me was how this applied not only to the graphics but also the soundtrack.

I'm used to working with real-sounding virtual violins, guitars, and other instruments, especially ones that produce more than one note at a time.

Stepping down to 4 monophonic audio channels was challenging, but with a few classic game music tricks, I found a workflow that let me make 6 tracks that feel rich and full. I also threw in one laughably overproduced battle theme for the fun of it.

Though I worked with very modern technology, I did my utmost to produce an authentic Game-Boy-styled soundtrack within REAPER, my DAW of choice.

Check out the full soundtrack here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLN-52-9QpM&list=PLKAiruE2DJoxbFj1WTivBzOZ-uVqRzUeY&index=1

I approximated polyphony by alternating

between pitches very quickly... this let

me create chords and harmonies.

Also pictured is an echo technique, wherein I use quiet notes to make notes reverberate slightly. This makes the sound even more full.

I limited the number of notes while maintaining sonic variety by switching between different waveforms, or "instruments."

The synthesizer I used allowed me to approximate the sound of the Game Boy's unique Wave channel, which uses user-supplied waveforms. This let me mimic real instruments, such as the violin using the waveform pictured here. That's one of the signature sounds of this game.

In one track, I also severely bitcrushed my vocals to mimic the Wave channel's other (rarely used) function - playing back samples. This was a bit of a creative liberty, but who wouldn't want a Game Boy game with mumble rapping?

Overworld Theme - Chiptune

Overworld Theme - Realistic

"Battle" Theme - Chiptune

"Battle" Theme - Realistic

These tricks allowed me to make chiptune music that feels like the "realistic" music I imagined in my head. Y'know, with the violins and guitars.

Check the audio players on the left to get an idea of what I was imagining when composing the soundtrack.

The "realistic" versions of the tracks were made after the jam, and I didn't have to rearrange them much.

Making Yummy Characters

You might've wondered to yourself why on earth the protagonist's name is "Asparagus." I don't really know either... it just came to me. That said, it began a trend of us naming the characters after food.

I had the privilege of designing Perilla, a former guild receptionist and Asparagus's love interest.

Perilla, whose design is inspired by the plant that is her namesake, began her life as a sketch on an index card.

We were initially considering using the Game Boy Color as an aesthetic baseline before deciding in favor of the original Game Boy's look.

She also has a large sprite sheet - thanks to Adam's masterful writing (and some of my own), she became a character that needs a lot of expressions!

I also designed Broccoli, a handsome goblin. Adam intended for him to be old and decrepit... and uh... well.. I was feeling a little silly.

I also made these characters' overworld sprites in accordance with the proportions of the other characters.

Footage, Screenshots and a Link!

This part is self-explanatory. Elf-explanatory?

Play our game here: https://jimbo234.itch.io/asparaquest

A playthrough of the game, courtesy of my friend Jimbo!

Post-Jam Update

To prepare the game for a school showcase and address a few issues, we released an update on September 24. This update contains bug fixes, new music, more flavor text, and most importantly... a CORNHOLE MODE!

The new music can also be heard on my YouTube channel. Check the link above, in the music section of this page.

I drew this title screen. Jimbo added some animations to the base design. As in the rest of the game, the "press start" text uses the PIXY font, but I designed the title text myself.

I also composed a title theme and made a sound effect with BFXR for when the main text appears.

The Music

00:00 / 00:01

The Sound

I composed a little ditty for the cornhole minigame as well.

Jimbo gave me the initial idea for the tune, and I expanded it into a full track.

In addition, I extended the theme for when you "fight" Broccoli. The jam version only had 40 seconds or so of unique music before looping.

Why? Because.

And a little bonus... a cameo from my character Fraise, whom you can also see in my Models section.