Cathy Goes Flipside (Demo)

Welcome to the Flip

Cathy,  an average millennial girl, goes for a walk only to encounter a sinister phone-stealing crow. 

Well, she isn't going to take that. Too bad the crow isn't really from our world and has his own agenda involving our heroine. An agenda that includes transmogrifying her into a cat... uh... person.

The crow's world, Flipside to our world's Flopside, is a really weird place with all kinds of bizarre characters, creatures, items, and secrets to find. 

If you're into it, join Cathy as she journeys through Liminality and into the unknown...

Game Overview

Cathy Goes Flipside is a JRPG style game made in RPG Maker MZ. It started out as a much smaller project meant as a gift for my wife, who tends to like fun stuff like this. Along the way, the ideas and content got big enough that we figured others might enjoy it as much as we do and decided to share it.

The story is essentially a fish out of water magical adventure. It draws inspiration from pretty much everything we love and the game is full of references and easter eggs.

Though this is an RPG Maker game, the art is nearly 100% my own work with only  a few generic RPG Maker assets in use. For now, this can't be avoided but the intention is to eventually make it a full 100% custom.

I've also used the sideview battle system which currently features character animations and unique enemy designs but will eventually include more custom sfx, more animations for special moves and the like, etc.

The SFX and Music were sourced from the Free Music Archive and other similar databases, always with the Creative Commons license. This stuff is considered "temp" and full credit will be added to the game when these choices are finalized.

I wouldn't call this game edgy but there is some swearing and stuff like that.

Future of the project

I intend for this to be a finished, playable RPG of about 5-10 hrs length by the time I'm done. My current estimation for completion is sometime in early 2025 but it may be done sooner depending.

I have the bulk of this project's scope, artwork, and major story beats planned out or finished in advance and you can rest assured that as absurd as the game sometimes is, the internal narrative is something I take as seriously as you can with something that involves characters like the Cheesy Ranch Boys or the all-consuming Glob.

There is more I'd like to do with things like UI, systems, etc but that'll depend a bit on whether this project stays on RPG Maker or moves to a new engine. In the meantime, I'm hoping this stands out among other RPG Maker games for its unique identity and aesthetic.

UPDATES:

• v1.1 minor fixes
• v1.2 minor fixes, made text boxes more consistent but there's still more work to be done there.

Tips for a Fun Demo Experience?

1. Listen to Turtle Mama
2. Save often -- after a few mins of intro, you can save anytime as long as you're not in combat
3. Use items -- the combat system is heavily attrition-based and you will probably not have full HP/SP between fights most of the time so use items to sustain!
4. Use Special Attacks -- the SP recovery is item-based but you can recover a bit by "guarding" in combat so it's pretty forgiving
5. Don't Skip (all the) fights -- there are some skippable fights here but skipping too many of them may hold you back and make future fights harder
6. Equip new gear -- numerically, not a big diff, but amakes an impact on combat
7. Brute force -- for the first half (sewer), you can brute force the combat but the 2nd half  (forest) has a little more complexity with resistances and elemental damage

Most of this IS explained in the demo. If you're no stranger to JRPGs, this game should make complete sense to you and will probably be pretty easy.

Feedback

Feedback is important. I want to hear what you think. But please, keep it kind and constructive. 

Licensing and Housekeeping

No shenanigans. Don't pretend this is yours. Don't repost it anywhere without my explicit permission. Don't rip its assets.

I would appreciate if people approached me before using it in a video or streaming it.