Questions and Answers
Have a question about the project or website? Check here before you ask! A lot of common questions are answered here. If yours isn’t, feel free to ask us through the Contact Us page!
Q.Is this official?
A.No. Not in any way, shape, or form.
Q.When is the game going to be released?
A.We can’t say for sure, but when we’re real close, we’ll let you all know.
“We’re still not brave enough to say how much more time we’re going to have to put into it. We’re working hard, and we’re working a lot. We’ll get it out as soon as possible.” – Zephys
“We’re still not brave enough to say how much more time we’re going to have to put into it. We’re working hard, and we’re working a lot. We’ll get it out as soon as possible.” – Zephys
Q.Is the game a ROM or a ROM patch?
A.No. The game has been written specifically to run on computers under Windows, OS X and Linux. More information on system requirements will be available near launch.
Q.Itoi said he’d make a MOTHER 4 official if it was presented to him! Will you do so?
A.People seem to be misquoting the man himself: “What I mean is, if someone were to come up to me and say, “I’d like to make a MOTHER 4,” I might just say, “Sure, go ahead!” (laugh) Yeah, if there was a MOTHER 4, I’d really love to play it.” There are no promises made that a fan-made Mother 4 would be made official. While it would be an honor to get this to Itoi in Japanese, it isn’t likely to happen. This project becoming official is not going to happen. (Quotation courtesy of Earthbound Central.)
Q.How do I download and play this game?
A.When the game is ready, it will be available as a download from this website. You will need a computer running Windows, Mac OS X or Linux that can play other recent 2D games relatively well. You really won’t need all that much. More specific details will come when the game launches. The game will be a standalone program– no emulators are necessary.
Q.Will character X be returning? Is character Y related to character Z?
A.We cannot answer these types of questions.
Q.Will there be X in the game? X was in one or more of the Mother games.
A.If it’s a recurring theme or element, chances are pretty good it’ll end up in Mother 4.
Q.What program or programming language are you using to make this?
A.The game is being written (essentially) from scratch in C++ using SDL, OpenGL and FMOD.
Q.Is the project open source?
A.The project is closed source. We do not have plans to release the source at this time.
Q.Will this game ever be ported to another system? (Wii, DS, Android, iOS, etc.)
A.Don’t get your hopes up.
Q.When is the demo coming out?
A.A demo will come out if/when we tell you guys about it. However, there may well be no demos.
Q.How much will this game cost?
A.Zero, zip, nada – Mother 4 will be available absolutely free.
Q.What is this game?
A.A fan-sequel to the MOTHER series. Check out the About Page for more details.
Q.If the ESRB were to rate this game, what do you think they would rate it?
A.If the ESRB were to rate this game, I expect they would rate it along the lines of E 10+ or maybe Teen. For some cartoon violence and mild profanity.
Q.How much is done? Is there a percentage?
A.A completion percentage is a difficult thing to put together, so we can’t really say one way or the other. Just keep an eye out for updates on the main page.
Q.What are those bars below the characters’ HP/PP on the battle screenshots?
A.Secrets.
Q.Will you be able to name the characters?
A.Yes of course! it wouldn’t be much of a Mother game if you couldn’t.
Q.Will there be any connections to the previous games?
A.Yes. It wouldn’t be a Mother fan game otherwise.
Q.How long will the game be?
A.“Approximately (long). Yes. Roughly (big number) hours of gameplay, if you do all the sidequests and secrets and stuff.”
Q.Will any music from past games be returning?
A.Yes, of course!
Q.Are there Mr. Saturns in this game?
A.Look up at the logo at the top of the page for your answer.
Q.Will there be pop culture references like in Mother 1, 2, 3?
A.Of course.
Q.Are you associated with Starmen.net?
A.No, while most members of the team are members of the forum there, this project is not part of Starmen.net.
Q.Are you associated with the Mother 3 Translation?
A.Nope. People tend to assume this, but it is not the case. We had nothing to do with the translation.
Q.Who is the leader of the project?
A.Both Zephys and The Dave share that responsibility.
Q.What happened to Chaisu? Wasn’t he the project lead?
A.Chaisu switched gears to focus on his music career, which is going very well. Since then, Dave and Zephys have picked up the slack, and the project’s progressing as fast as ever since the other new additions to the team got settled into their roles.
Q.Who writes the story?
A.Zephys is the writer of the game.
Q.Who designs the artwork for the game? (Sprites, tiles, etc.)
A.We have a number of artists on the team; Pik, Gabe, Mr. Mars, and DrewEyes come to mind. See the staff page for more info.
Q.Who programs the game?
A.That would be The Dave. He has written the entire engine from scratch in Game Maker, and is now busy porting said engine to C++.
Q.Who does the audio for the game?
A.The SNOBODYS are currently doing an excellent job at it.
Q.Who else is there?
A.Check out the staff page for a complete list.
Q.How can I join the team?
A.Send us a Contact Us email with links to your work, and we’ll go from there.
Q.Can I sign up somewhere to be notified when the game launches?
A.No, but we are looking into it.
Q.Why hasn’t my comment shown up yet?
A.It’s probably your first time posting here. First time comments must be reviewed by the administrators in order to check for spam bots. As long as you put some thought into your comments, they will be approved. The administrators will delete any comment that is spam or otherwise unnecessary.
Q.Where can I submit fan stuff?
A.We are no longer taking fan stuff submissions. Fan stuff submissions will return after the game’s launch.
Website Secrets!
There are a number of secrets around the site. We won’t tell you where they are or give hints or anything, so don’t go asking. If you find one, feel free to say so in a comment, but please don’t spoil it for everyone else by telling where it is or how to get to it. We’ve lost count of how many there are, but there are about 8 big ones as well as some red herrings here and there.
Please note that we WILL NOT hide anything from you that we would put in an update. The secrets are just the team being cheeky. So if you can’t find any secrets, don’t worry about it.
Some of the 
I can't get my Mac to work. If I sleep, I only get a lousy 2-4 hours every day to work on music..My two full-time jobs are deadly. 
People have been asking good questions lately. I think our next Mother 4 blog post will be a mailbag. 
