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 was apprehensive about entering but found new motivation when I was able to convince my good friends Adam (the writer) and Jimbo (the coder/lead artist) to join me. 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 out with and 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?
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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.
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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 speed increase applied not only to the graphics but also to 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 7 tracks that feel rich and full despite the limitations... and in multiple genres!
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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.
I approximated polyphony by alternating
between pitches very quickly... this let
me create chords and harmonies.
I limited the number of notes while maintaining sonic variety by switching between different timbres, 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 convincingly mimic real instruments, such as the violin using the waveform pictured here.
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In one track, I also severely bitcrushed my vocals to mimic the Wave channel's other function - playing back samples. It's debatable if I bitcrushed them enough, but to my credit, nobody really knew I included mumble rapping in the game before I told them.
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.
Don't know what I mean? Hear it for yourself! The upper audio players have the in-game music, and the lower ones have the "realistic" versions of it that I made after the jam.
These are the overworld and "battle" themes.​ I didn't have to change the arrangements much when "remastering" them.
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.
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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.
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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' sprite sheets 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!
