Welcome in 2012 with a good ol’ mailbag post.

For those unfamiliar, the mailbag is where we take questions you all have asked and answer them here for all to see. Group learning! You can ask your own questions through the Contact Us page.

Hello, I am very interested in how this is coming along and must ask how much of it overall have you completed percentage-wise? Any general release date? Thanks, and keep up the good work.

We generally don’t answer these types of questions since the answers can be found on the Questions and Answers page. But I will answer it here nonetheless. Coming up with a completion percentage is a difficult thing. We’d have to get really involved to give you an accurate one, and that’s something that we don’t think is necessary. If we give out an incorrect estimate, we run the risk of giving a number that represents less work that we’ve done, or represents something too high which people will take as meaning we’ll finish sooner. For this reason we are not going to give a completion percentage estimate.

As for a release date, we do not have one set, or an estimate of one. We want this game to be a polished, well constructed piece of work, so it will be done when it is done. That’s not to say we’ll be working on it indefinitely though. We’d like to finish the game just as much as you’d like to play it. We have plans for things after Mother 4 is done, so some of us are getting a little antsy.

In your post of ‘Special Features of Mother 4′ you talked about hotels and how they affect the towns. As I read this I immediately was reminded of private actions from the Star Ocean series. Now I wonder, is it at all similar to that system? Do a certain group of characters trigger different events and outcomes? And does it affect their endings or relationships in the long run? If so then I must congratulate you. If not then no trashcan burger topped with fuzzy pickles for you. So either way, win-win, ‘ey?

(For those who missed it, this message is referring to this post from 2009.) I’m not familiar with the Star Ocean series, but what you’ve described is sort of similar to what we’re doing. It’s nothing as drastic as multiple endings, but it does change little things in the long run. That’s all I’ll say.

Is there a specific page, Youtube channel etc. where I can see screenshots and watch videos?

Indeed there are! Over on the right bar you’ll find a button that takes you to our screenshots page. There you’ll find all the screenshots we’ve posted here. On the bottom of the right bar is a YouTube button. That’ll take you to our YouTube channel where you can watch (or listen) to the videos we’ve posted. Take a look!

Hey you guys are great! You deserve a cookie!(Mother 4 development staff got a cookie!) Ok, my question is will there be any hidden bosses in the game harder then the final boss? I ask this because I was playing SMRPG and battling Culex and he is tougher then the final boss.

Thanks for the cookies~ Yes we’ll have some hidden boss battles that could be harder than the final boss. We’ve come up with some hidden bonuses we think you’ll all enjoy.

Is the game windowed or fullscreen?

The game will have both windowed and fullscreen options. You’ll be able to choose what scale factor the game will be displayed in as well. So you can magnify the game by 2x, 3x, etc. all pixel-perfect; no blurriness here.

Will the game tell us unknown secrets of the series? Like, how did Porky escape and went to the past(Mother 3). I remember in the ending of Mother 3 that Lucas’ village burned down so he went to Onett. But why is Lucas important to the series? What does porky want with Lucas? Why didn’t Porky go to the time period where Ninten was? There were a lot of things Itoi didn’t tell us.

I don’t think Lucas went to Onett at the end of Mother 3, but it’s very vague as to where everyone went so who knows! One of the great things about the series (I think anyway) is that a lot of the dots are left to be connected by the player and the fans. I think if these questions were answered, it would take a lot away from the charm of the game. We’ve approached Mother 4 with that in mind. So perhaps the game will “answer” some questions, but it will also make you ask a few more. We certainly hope it’ll get your brain stirring.

I tried to see if this was answered yet or not and couldn’t find it. Are you guys taking donations and would that help speed things along? For equipment/materials, motivation, or otherwise? I’d really like to play this game and see it reach “legit” status as soon as possible.

We are not taking donations for much of the same reason the Mother 3 Translation team did not take donations. The best thing you can do is continue to follow us and comment on things. Essentially, we work for your comments and feedback. Thank you all for keeping us going for these three plus years.

Any cool gimmicks that will come into play later in the game? What I mean by “gimmicks” is like, in the begging of the game will you be able to type in stuff to answer questions? Such as:  What is your favorite food? What is your favorite thing? What is your favorite item? etc.

You will be able to name your characters, as well as enter your favorite food and thing. We have a few more tricks up our sleeves, but we’ll save those for later.

Throughout the MOTHER series there has been many different types of weapons used like bats, guns, swords and some others. My question is can we expect to see new types of weapons for our heroes?

Yes you can. For example, Travis’ weapon type isn’t necessarily bats. You might find him wielding a toy light sabre, or something equally as deadly. I think you might end up liking Floyd’s choice of weaponry the most though.

Will there be any references or quotes from other video games besides MOTHER? Will any characters resemble other video game characters? Like how the runaway five had the two band members that looked like Mario and Luigi.

As well as pop culture references, we’ve worked in a few video game references. You won’t be seeing a companion cube or anything blatant like that though. We reference other games in much the same way that Mother 1, 2 and 3 did. Subtly.

You know how how Mother 3 has that quick *dorok* sound when you move through options, while in earthbound it has a little click sound? My question is if the options in Mother 4 will have their own tone. I just hate it when fan games don’t give an effort on little things like that, they just paste the same type of sound tone from the last game.

Yep. We’ve got our own sounds for the menus. We’re going all out- most everything is original. We’ve had pseudo-arguments about them. Whole chunks of meetings talking about how the menu sounds should sound. Hopefully you all will find them pleasant to the ear.

I was just wondering if one of you guys on the team have made a game before. It would be cool to be able to play it and see what kind of style Mother 4 would be like! Other than having that Mother series style, of course.

A fair number of us have worked on games before, but most have fallen through. I have some particularly old games available on my website if you’d like to check them out. They aren’t representative of Mother 4′s quality though, so keep that in mind. All of us have been working with or around game projects for quite some time.

That wraps up this mailbag! As always, feel free to send in your questions and comments through our contact page. We enjoy reading and answering your mail! Have a good New Year’s, and be sure to have fun and be safe. Dave out.

Where we answer your questions in song!

Ports

Well, I was wondering if this game will have a GBA version. If so, it would be great!

Will you port the game to Nintendo 3DS eShop by a 3 party company when the game is finished?

I was sorta hoping it would be in a ROM format until I read the FAQ but if this could be played on Android or iOS it would be awesome.

The game is not designed in a way that would be conducive to porting it to a platform other than Windows, Mac OS X or Linux. More details, such as system requirements, will be available at launch.

People, Places and Things

Will there be any references to the real world? (places, people, events)

Yes. We’ve referenced things from the real world in places, enemies, characters. We’ve remained pretty loyal to the sorts of thing referenced in the past installments of the games, so people brushed up on the pop culture of the 70s-90s should be pretty entertained. We have a few current era references mixed in as well, however.

Soundtrack

Will the soundtrack be available for download once the game is released?

We’re sure to do something with the soundtrack after release. We’re just not sure yet. We may remix our original music and put it out for download or something of the like.

Main character’s name

Why did you change Chase’s name to Travis? Is it because Chaisu left?

The main character was only named “Chase” as a placeholder while we developed the game. After a while, the team settled down and decided Travis would be a worthy “canon” name for our main character. Given the fact that you can name your characters anything you want, we never really made it clear to the public that we were considering changing some names. Chaisu’s departure had nothing to do with the name change.

Species

So I was playing earthbound and I saw the tenda (blue shy creatures) which made me think, there has never been a mother game with the tendas but earthbound, which brings me to the question, will the tenda be in Mother 4?

We’ve mentioned tendas on the starmen.net thread before, but at this point I won’t be confirming their existence or nonexistence in the game.

Party Size

For the 5 characters shown in the level up sequence, will there be a character switch out option, or will they all be in the fight at once?

The party in Mother 4 will never exceed four playable characters, and you won’t be able to rotate members freely. That’s all we will say.

Timeline

What spot in the Mother timeline will this be?

We won’t ever come out and say when we’ve set this game. There will be evidence enough in-game for players to come up with their own theories.

Recurring themes/leitmotifs

In each of the games in the Mother series there is a recurring song or series of notes that show up in different forms throughout the game. It was fairly subtle in Earthbound, but much more noticeable in Mother 3 with the Pork Army theme.

Will there be any sort of recurring song or diddy that shows up in multiple variations in Mother 4?

Why yes, yes there will.

Difficulty

I was just wondering if the games difficulty would be like mother 1, earthbound,mother 3 or some new kind of difficulty

We’re not setting anything in stone yet, but we’re looking at a new sort of difficulty. While the combat isn’t necessarily “harder” than Mother 3, it’s likely to require more strategy. You’ll find yourself thinking more and bashing less. Rest assured, Mother 4 will be easier than Mother 1.

Updates/DLC

When the game releases, will you update it every so often? Somewhat like map packs where you add new areas to the game for those who’ve beaten the game already. Also, will you allow modding on your game? Similar to Minecraft, they add mechanics that enhance the gaming experience.

Mother 4 will be a complete game upon release, including anything that would be released as “secret” or “extra” content. Any actual “updates” done with Mother 4 would be patches to correct bugs and glitches, but we’re going to avoid doing this as well. In a perfect world, Mother 4 will be heavily beta tested and entirely bug-free upon release, so we won’t need to be doing any patching.

Again, we’d like to apologize for the delay on this mailbag update. Some of these questions came in a long time ago!

It’s not a mailbox.

Here we are again! It’s time for another post of mail. A mailbag post. We’ve collected up some of your emails once again and will be responding as best we can without spoiling too much! Let’s begin, shall we?

Dogs

Will Chase have a pet dog in the game? Because I noticed the tradition of the Mother series, that all the main protagonists have dogs? Will Chase have one too?

As both a dog lover and a Mother fan, I sure hope he does.

Japanese Version

Will the game come out with a Japanese version?

No, we don’t plan on releasing a Japanese version of the game at launch. We’re not exactly skilled in Japanese, you see. Once the game is completed, we’ll see if translations should be made.

Menus

I noticed that the game looks a lot like MOTHER 3, but will there be an option to use an EarthBound-style menu system?

The menu system isn’t the same as Mother 3′s. It has its similarities, but it also shares some elements of Earthbound’s menu system. We think it’s easy enough to use that having multiple menu styles would be unnecessary.

Opportunity Costs

In life, there are opportunity costs. We make choices, gain their benefits, and receive their disadvantages. Does this system apply to Mother4? Whether it be something as subtle as a few dialogue changes, to something as large and noticeable as a plot change.

We do have something like this planned. It’s not game-changing, but it should add more dimension to the characters. We’ve actually talked a little about it before- check it out.

Giygas

Will Giygas/Giegue be making an appearance in this game like in the first two games, or will there be a separate antagonist like in Mother 3?

Giygas is toast. So that leaves… hm who does that leave… does that leave anyone? (Cue mysterious music~) There’s a new villain in town, and it isn’t Giygas. (Or Pokey. Or Pokiygas. That’s hard to say.)

Multiplayer

Will there be some sort of multiplayer in the game?

As big as multiplayer games are these days, we don’t really see the need for a multiplayer aspect of this game. You could always use the keyboard and a gamepad to do some sort of co-op a la Earthbound’s “two-player co-op feature”.

Site Updates

How often do you have the time to update the site?
Like on the main page of this site where you tell us the latest. You take too long to update it.

We try to get an update out about once or more a month. As you can see, we don’t always meet that mark, but we do try. We’ve got jobs and college and whatnot to worry about, so we don’t have as much time to write things up as we’d like. A lot of our free time is spent on the game itself, and sometimes we get wrapped up in development and accidentally forget about the blog for a little while. I suggest you pop our RSS feed in your favorite RSS reader, or if you use Facebook, become a fan on our Facebook page. That way you’ll be informed of an update when it happens without needing to check the blog.

Estimated Time of Arrival

Do you have, even a broad generalization of when the game can be ESTIMATED to be complete? Been waiting forever!

Unfortunately, we have no idea when this will be completed. I can’t really give an estimated time when it will be complete either. There’s a lot left to do, and I don’t know how long it will take to do it. Just know that we’ve been waiting as long as you guys have, and we want to get it finished as much as you want to play it.

Donations

I was wondering if you guys are accepting monetary donations towards the project. I understand that this is first and foremost a labour of love, but certainly there are some production costs that your loyal fanbase can help sponsor.

Wow, we really appreciate your generosity. Seriously. However, because of the nature of the project, we’d rather avoid taking donations. There are few costs that go into making the game, and those are covered out of our pockets. The best way to support us is to continue being generally awesome and keeping up with the project.

Of McGuffins and Magic Numbers

Now, I’m not going to ask any details regarding story because that would be futile and probably irritate you greatly. I’m just wondering whether any of the recurring number patterns etc. will be returning? Such as collecting 8 melodies, 7 needles, etc.

Asssuming there is to be some sort of theme like that in this game (which, granted, there might not be) would it say, be 6 magical McGuffins, or return to 7 or 8?

Also, Mother 3 followed a much more linear story structure than Mother and EarthBound, with its chapter system and less open world. Will Mother 4 be following the chapter style of narrative or will it more of a world in which the player is free to explore? Frankly, I don’t know which I would prefer.

Oh, one final thing. Any word on what the text box color schemes might be?

On the note of magic numbers- we will be continuing that theme in this game. There are eight, count ‘em, eight magical McGuffins. Now what exactly the McGuffins are, and how you interact with them, that’s the fun part.

On the note of style of narrative, Mother 4 will follow a more open exploration based world. There aren’t separate, defined chapters as there were in Mother 3. The story is presented similarly to how Earthbound was presented.

And lastly, let me check the color list in the build of the engine I’ve got here… There’s:

• Plain Flavor
• Bubble Gum Flavor
• Banana Flavor
• Cherry Flavor
• Lime Flavor
• Grape Flavor

These are tentative now, so they might not all end up in the final version.

Some of these are a month old or older. My apologies for not getting to them sooner. Even though these posts tend to be far between, we love getting your questions! Please keep sending them in.

Dave owwt.

It’s time to delve into the mailbag once again!

Unfortunately I lost the psd for the old mailbag logo. So I’ve made this more streamlined new one as a replacement.

Anyway, for all you new to the site, Mailbag is where we answer the questions you’ve asked through the Contact Page. We’ve selected the ones we can answer at this time, and well, answered them! Note that we have slightly altered the questions to correct grammar and formatting. So without further ado, let us begin.

Open Source

Will the mother 4 source code be open?

The Mother 4 project is closed source, meaning that I will not release the source code to the public at any point in time. (At least, in the next few years.) This is because I plan to reuse the code for other, more commercial purposes after the game is finished.

Download Location

When the game is out will you let us know on the website? And can we download it from this website?

Yes on both accounts. The game will be available for download only on the website. We’ll make sure it’s clear that the game is available when it launches. The current plan is to replace the home page of the site with one that features the download links front and center.

Creation Program

I wanna make a game like this but, what program did you use?

At first we used RPG Maker XP, but that fell to the wayside when I joined the team. I began creating the game using Game Maker for a more customized and Mother-like experience than what would have been achieved in RPG Maker. However, a little after a year into development I hit some limits of Game Maker, and had to develop “band-aids” to work around them. The band-aids soon became too troublesome to work with and I decided to make the switch to a more feature-full environment. After scouting about, I decided C++ with SDL and OpenGL would be my best bet, so I began work on a new engine from the ground up and have been working on it since. The IDE I use to develop on Windows is Microsoft Visual C++ 2010.

Setting

I can’t wait for this game to come out!! But what’s the setting?

Mother was based in 80s, yes?
Mother 2 was based in 90′s
Mother 3 was based somewhere in the future
So what time peroid is Mother 4 in?

And also, is Mother 4  based in America like the first two games?

Mother 4 will take place in a modern-esque world. There will be towns, cities, forests, valleys, sweeping plains, deserts, seas and much more. Think of it as a large connected world like that of Mother 1 or 2 mixed with the variety of locales featured in Mother 3. I can’t say an exact time or place though.

Mangoes

Do you like mangos?

Yes. I do love me some mangoes. (Yep this was an email we got. )

Mr. Saturns

Will there be Mr. Saturns in Mother 4?

Yep. Take a look at the banner up top.

Battle Combos

There’s a musical note icon in the battle screenshots. Will there be Mother 3 style rhythm combos in Mother 4?

There will be combos based on the music, however they won’t be exactly like Mother 3. We’ll be adding our own style to attack combos.

Music Stats

I’d like to know how many pieces of music has been made for the game?
How much of that is remixes from old games?

Currently I count 34 tracks. However, that doesn’t include all the music we’ve made and since replaced. There are 5 straight remixes and there are 4 songs with themes from past games interspersed in them. The rest are originals composed by Roger Levy and SNOBODYS.

The Sound of Music

I’ve got a question about the development of Mother 4, in regards to music. How is it being done? Will it sound like the music from previous Mother games?

As with the graphics, we’re giving the music a bit of an upgrade in quality. The best way I can tell you how it will sound is to give you a sample to listen to. Fortunately, there’s one availible. I’d like to direct you to The Music of Mother 4 from last year’s NCFC.

ESRB Rating

If the ESRB were to rate this game, what do you think they would rate it?

If the ESRB were to rate this game, I expect they would rate it along the lines of E 10+ or maybe Teen. You know, for cartoon violence and all.

Sprite Detail

I was a big fan of the detail of the sprites in Mother 3. I was wondering how much effort you guys will be putting the sprite animation aspect of the game.

There will be an emphasis on detail in the sprites in Mother 4. There will be extra animations for cut scenes as there were in Mother 3. Just wait until the NCFC rolls around for some screenshot action.

Difficulty

For the past couple days I’ve been replaying Mother 1 and Mother 3.While playing these games I have noticed that Mother 1 is a lot harder than Mother 3.I was just wondering how difficult will game would be? Mother 3 had times where it got a little tough but not as much as Mother 1. I’d like to know since I don’t like games that are really easy.

I think I answered this in the last mailbag, but maybe it was somewhere else. Anyway, we’re shooting for a difficulty less than Mother 1, but a little harder or on par with Mother 3. There will be hard parts, and easy parts, but what we’re most concerned about is balancing those in a way that gets progressively more difficult as the game goes on. This is where beta testing will be very useful.

Psychic Animals

Will there be any animal party members (like Boney from Mother 3) that can use PK/PSI attacks, or any anthropomorphic party members like that?

No we don’t have plans for any non-human PSI users. Although that is an idea. Perhaps someone could pursue that in another fan game. I’d check that out. We also don’t have plans for anthropomorphic characters.

COMING TO A THEATER NEAR YOU

I know you are producing a video game.
I know you don’t want any information leaked to the internet.
So I’ll not ask for miracles here… but would be so kind to give a general outline of Mother 4 plot?

I’m not asking to give every datail of the game, but to know a general scenario. Pretty much what you would read when reading the description of the game. As if I were looking at the trailer of this game.

There’s always the synopsis over on the about page, but I’ll try my hand at a trailer type description here:

In a world with darkness on the rise,
a few boys, some young men and a pretty girl stand alone.
It was all just fun and games until the strange crafts appeared in the skies.
Cars. People. Household appliances. Everything is alive and is out to get them.
What will become of the world?
Will this unlikely team of friends be able to stop the madness?
Only you can decide.
Mother 4.
Coming to your computer sometime before the end of the world.

And with that, this wraps up today’s round of mailbag. If your question wasn’t featured, don’t fret! Check the FAQs to see if it was already answered there. If you can’t find it there, then it just isn’t time for it to be answered. We’ve got to keep some surprises for when the game launches.

And as always, please send in your questions for future mailbag posts. Thanks!

Welcome to the first edition of the Mother 4 Mailbag!

Hello and welcome to a new semi-irregular series: The Mother 4 Mailbag! In this series, we answer your questions about the game! It’s semi-irregular because it relies on your input, so send in those questions!

So, without further ado, let’s answer some questions.

Do they have a chance of really being used, or are you just letting people submit things to get their hopes up?

There is a chance that the submissions will be used. We look at the quality of the submissions and whether or not they fit into what our plans are for the game. In fact, we have recently asked someone to aid in the development of sprites. We asked based on the quality of their work and the amount of apparent effort put into it.

The original intention of the Fan Submissions page was to create a place for fans to show off their artwork or other creations and not to look for potential additions to the game. The section was influenced by the various fan sections on Starmen.net where users can submit artwork, writing, etc. There is a disclaimer of sorts on the bottom of the submit form that details this.

Will the backgrounds in battle be as mind-boggling as the ones in Mother 3, or is the program you are using not able to do things like that?

Yes, we’re certainly able to recreate the signature battle backgrounds found in Mother 2 and 3. In fact you can see some of them in the screenshots, although the screenshots aren’t animated, so they lose a bit of the charm. But rest assured that there will be fully animated mind-boggling battle backgrounds in Mother 4.

As you Might know, Mother 2 and 3 shared Pokey as the villain, main and co-villain. Is it Pokey on this game too or it’s a bad guy that you created?

I think it’s safe to say that Pokey is not the villain of this game. However, the actual villain is shrouded in so much mysteriousness and shadows that we can’t tell you who it is!

Have you thought about creating a guide for this game or will you leave that task up for someone else to do?

We have thought about creating a guide for the game, however it would most likely be just a walk-through. However, that’s not to say that no one can make a guide when the game is launched. In fact, I’d encourage people to!

I have two questions about PSI.

Will there be new PSI powers?
Will old powers be returning?

I really miss PK Beam from Mother 1*

*(I’ve been playing it alot lately)

There will be new PSI powers, and there will of course be some old ones too. Whether or not PK Beam makes it in is a mystery though.

Do you at least expect to the game be released next year? Or will it take more time?
Also, is it going to have any tracking to Mother 3? Or it is going to be a totally different game?

As for a release date, we aren’t going to set one. Setting a release date would make us rush through the development process and could result in a poor quality game. However I’ll give an arbitrary date and say that the game should be out before 2012. So you can play it before the world ends. Yeah. Let’s go with that. That was a joke folks. I’m clarifying this here so people who come across this and are unfamiliar with the project aren’t confused. (Also because sarcasm is hard to pick up on through the internet.)

As for whether or not the game will have any “tracking” to Mother 3, that depends on your definition of tracking. If you mean will there be characters and places from Mother 3 in Mother 4, then no there won’t be. Well at least no places. It’ll be a new game with new characters and new places to explore.

Itoi kind of always put references to stuff on the MOTHER games. Beatles, Jazz, Movies and even literature references.

Are you guys doing stuff like that, too? I would love that.

Yep! Pop culture references are a significant part of what makes a Mother game a Mother game, so of course we’ll throw some in.