So I just opened up a can of emails. And guess what? I’m going to put ‘em up here! Ha! It’s like it’s a mailbag post or something!

Let’s get started.

Will this game use the chapter system, like in Mother 3? Or will it be more like traveling and saving towns like in Earthbound?

I feel like I may have answered this one already, but here goes anyway. We’re crazy, and we’re going to do a sort of mix! There are no chapters like in Mother 3, though you could separate the story into chapters if you so desired. There are some elements of town saving, but that’s not the only thing you’ll be doing along the way. In short, Mother 4 will have its own feel.

I was wondering if you guys have figured a new release date, I know the original was in 2010, so yeah…

Well, first off, we never set a release date, so I don’t know where you got the 2010 thing. We still haven’t set a release date. We aren’t comfortable enough to set a release date or give an estimate yet, but when we are we’ll certainly let everyone know. Or we’ll just release the game one day. Who knows? Heh, I suppose we know, but that’s beside the point. If it comforts you though, we do have an internal release goal.

Will Mother 4 have the main character own a pet dog or a new type of animal? Every game in the series had a pet dog. It would be cool to see a new pet that could be an assist character (like king) and you can call him at will like the Flying Man. But not as a playable since you already have all the  playable characters set up.

The main character will indeed have a pet. And while it can assist you, it does so in its own way, and not through battle.

Do you have any plans to or have you already implemented, and I am too blind to see a mailgroup to let us know when you have updates?

We don’t have a mailing list, but we do have an RSS feed and a Facebook page if you’re into that. Most of the team is also on Twitter- you can find us in the sidebar to the right.

Just how invested are you guys into this game? There are a LOT of fan games out there, and they are pretty… meh, or crap.  And a lot of them use the same engines and such.
What I’m trying to say here is… How high of a standard does this project have?

We like to think our standards are pretty high. Our goal is to create something with official quality, but you all will be the judge of whether we succeed or not.

How many hours have you guys put into the making of this game so far? I imagine a lot since it has been in development for so long!

Oh gosh. I have no idea. Let’s try some math here. Let’s say we work on the game on average, about 10 hours a week. The game has been in development since 2008, so that’s about four years. There are about 52 weeks in a year, so we’ve got:

10 hours/week · 52 weeks/year · 4 years = 2,080 hours (roughly)

Of course, there’s a handful of people working on the game, so this is just indicative of one person’s time. (eg. mine, since I’ve been here since pretty much the beginning.)

May I ask why you call the game Mother 4 (since “Mother” is the Japanese name) and not Earthbound 2 (since that is the American adoption of the name)?

Good question! We called the game “Mother 4″ since it’s a sequel to the Mother games. Now that may seem obvious, but hold on a moment, there’s a little more to it. Consider the following: “Mother” refers to all three games, whereas “Earthbound” refers only to the American localization of Mother 2. (And arguably Mother 1.) Since we’re aiming at making it a fan-sequel to the series we used the “Mother” title.

Is there going to be good music like Mother 3?

See hear for yourself on our YouTube channel.

Will we be seeing the staff characters (especially the tall one) in the game (not counting credits)? It be cool to see them and them.

They’re definitely be in the credits, but actually finding them in the game itself… If they do end up in there, you’ll have to look pretty hard to find them.

When ever the game does come out, will you be following the tradition of making some sort of detailed guide of the game? You know with clay figures of the enemies and characters, including their stats and all.

Making a guide like that would be quite an undertaking. We may eventually do a walkthrough of sorts, but we’d like to leave that sort of thing up to the fans. On a sort of related note, we will be doing a “bonus package” which includes concept art and other goodies some time after the release. (As to avoid spoilers. )

Any possible things to do after you beat the game? Plan on any expansions?

There’ll be some things to do after you beat the game. Something along the lines of Mother 2′s end. That’s all I’ll say though. As for expansions, we don’t have any planned. This type of game doesn’t really warrant expansions. I know in this age of DLC, people have come to expect additional campaigns and sidequests later on, but we’d like to give it all to you up front. The closest thing we’ll do to expansions are bug fix updates. (And hopefully there won’t be too many of those, if any at all, heheh.)

Can you teleport like in Mother 1 and 2 or will locations be more linear like in Mother 3?

Locations are not as linear as they were in Mother 3, but we will neither confirm nor deny the existence of PK Teleport in this game. (Don’t you just love us.)

On a scale from one to ten, how weird would you say the enemies in Mother 4 are? I love fighting all the strange enemies in the Mother series, like the New Age Retro Hippie in Earthbound, and all the different chimeras in Mother 3, so I hope this game has some strange ones!

Well, I’m not sure about ranking them on a scale, but we do have some pretty wacky enemies. They’re not all wacky, mind you, but there are a number of wacky original enemies we think you’ll enjoy. Take the Lampstalk for example.

Welp, that concludes this episode of MOTHER 4 MAILBAG. I hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to ask more questions in the comments, or on Twitter, and we’ll do our best to answer them. And as always, if you’d like your question to appear in a mailbag post like this, send us an email through the contact page.

Have a good one folks!

Hello, readers. This is Zephys of the Mother 4 team. I’ve decided to make a different sort of update this time around. If you’re a super-expert on everything we’ve ever said, done, or shown, this post is of little interest to you and you should just scroll to the bottom. I bet there’s a few things you’ve forgotten, though.

To everyone else, specifically newcomers to our site, this post is to serve as a giant “What the public should know about Mother 4 so far” reference. (Hence the title.) There’s a little concept art treat for you at the bottom of the post, but other than that, you won’t hear too much that’s “new”, per se, though a few concepts being reworded/reintroduced might make something click in your head in a way that it hasn’t before. Grab a drink and sit back, this is going to be a big post.

To fully get re-acquainted with the project, we recommend dropping by the
about, FAQ, and staff pages, and then reading this post.

Now for the fun stuff.

History

Mother 4 was started by Chaisu back in 2008, essentially on a whim with a couple of friends at his side. In time, the project became something a bit more serious, and Chaisu brought it to attention by starting a thread in the fangame section of starmen.net. At this point, it was being made in RPG maker XP, and had a largely undeveloped story, though the core idea was both present and solid. Looking back on it, that core message and idea really hasn’t changed much. Despite the huge changes we’ve seen over the years, the spirit of the game is entirely intact.

When Mother 4 began, no one truly knew what it was going to become. The ambition was always to create something that could be considered a worthy sequel to the series, despite its origins, but we never expected it to evolve like it has. It was at this point in time that we revealed some basic information about the game to the public. Most things we’ve confirmed in the past are still in effect, but I’m sure a few things that we’ve said have changed. (Not very much at all, though!) Anyway, we’ll address that in the next section.

As time progressed, more people got on board to help with the project, some close friends of Chaisu, such as Leo the Professional, and who still has a namesake in one of our characters for designing the rockin’ Azure Studios logo, Flintofmother3 for providing our super-convincing clay models, and others that have honorable mentions on our staff page. Around this time, Chaisu switched the development engine over to Game Maker, and It wasn’t long before Dave joined the project, and then myself while I was studying at USC over a couple of summers (The courses in question being Writing and Videogame Design, who’d have imagined?).

It took awhile, but it was during this phase that a lot of concept work got finished up, and there was a lot of progress made in our GML engine. Before long, though, we realized our limitations, and switched over to a custom SDL based engine written in C++. At this time, too, Chase moved on to greater things with his music, and the story got finished up. It was at that point that the public really started to see a lot of changes from us, and we released a bunch of updates in fairly quick succession. At this point we also felt we were ready for more laborers, so we hired a few more guys onto the team and got them settled. Sometime around this phase is also when Chaisu moved on to his music career, which is actually a very exciting story to see unfold.

Features/The Game Itself

When the project was still young we boasted larger, more interesting towns, and that still holds true. Our Fourside/New Pork equivalent is really going to be something amazing, especially when you step into it and hear that song for the very first time.

This would also be a good time to mention the Town Life system in a bit more detail.

Town Life

In Mother 4, you can spend a lot of time in towns, practically living there until you are ready to move on. This is heavily inspired by Shigesato Itoi’s wish to make his games “more than a road trip”, in the sense that the towns feel less like stops on a path and more like destinations themselves. Our towns are larger than the previous games, with considerably more enterable buildings.

To keep this idea fresh, you’ll also see many more businesses and business types in Mother 4 than in previous games. At this point, you can expect dine-in restaurants, movie theaters, and other such things, all of which serve their own purposes for your characters’ well beings.

You can also expect to do some thrifty shopping, if you’re so inclined. A town may have a department store where you can get everyone’s gear updated for a fair enough price, but if you really take the time to engage, you can really scour the town you’re in for the best gear for the best price, sometimes you can even outdo the department store deals in quality AND price! You never know what you’ll find in the nameless local thrift stores and curiosity shops, after all. Stopping by as many places as possible is also a good way to get a few side-quests started, leading to even cooler acquisitions.

Some towns will have multiple businesses of the same type; namely hospitals, hotels, and restaurants of varying qualities. While a lower quality business is cheaper, their services are as well, and sometimes it’s worth the money to stay in a nice hotel. It’s good to take the time to utilize the town life system, but it’s not a must. Talk to your friends and see what’s on their minds, and who knows, maybe the relationships with your party members will grow!

Saving and the Postal Service

While Mother 4 doesn’t necessarily take place in a certain time period, it is a world where the course of technology is a bit different from our own. While there are telephones, ATMs, and other modern conveniences, there’s a strong respect in its communities for the dedicated service of the postal system.

The mail system serves a lot of purposes during your stay in Mother 4. First and foremost, this is how you’ll be saving. Does the postal service’s logo ring a bell at all? You save your game by sending a letter home to someone important to the character presently leading the party. Nothing makes a memory like a stack of postcards to go over once the journey’s done!

In addition to saving, there’s a lot you’ll find yourself coming to a mailbox for. First and foremost for an adventure of this scale, you’re going to need money. In Mother 4, you make an impression wherever you go, and instead of having family fund the whole adventure, or thriving off the generosity of local amphibian life, Your party relies on donations from the communities its helped in the past. Whenever you check a mailbox, you’ll receive your letters before being able to save, or conduct other business.

Level-up Jingles

One of the most notable things about the Mother series has always been its music, and having the SNOBODYS on board has really been a blessing, making sure one of the most delicate features of the project is right where it needs to be. Stitch and I were having a conversation about how each character in Mother 3 had their own “instrument” for when they attacked, and how it really put some more soul into the game. After toying with this idea a little bit, I came up with the brilliant idea to expand on this, and this is one of the results.

Rather than having a single level-up jingle, each character has their own. When multiple characters level up at the same time, their jingles play simultaneously, creating a more complete song. It really makes those experience cash-cow boss battles all the more satisfying to level off of, since you’re hearing the complete level-up symphony. Here it is in action, complete with a few combinations of jingles.

In execution, it’s a really minor improvement that makes a world of difference when it comes to experiencing the game.

Tidbits

• The “don’t care” option is returning, and has multiple predefined names, rather than just one for each character as Mother 3 did. (5 or 6 sets.) Our first and second don’t care options are as follows:
• Travis
• Chase
• Zack
• Felix
• Meryl
• Suzy
• Floyd
• Blake
• Leo
• Vinny
• 4 party members at a time. There is no “switch out” option, meaning the party changes as the story progresses.
• Our story features a band, like the Runaway five and DCMC.
• Just like Mother 1′s Dragon, Mother 2′s Kraken, and Mother 3′s Ultimate Chimera, Mother 4 features a mythical beast of sorts as a storyline boss. Hint: If we told you its name, you’d recognize it, but you still wouldn’t know what to picture in your head.
• No Chimeras in Mother 4. Sorry.
• No Pokey/Porky, No Giygas, No PokeGiygas, No Giygas MK II, No “Ghost of Pokey”, No Lucas teaming up with Ness to FIGHT Giygas MK II, No Sonic the Hedgehog. We’re a fangame by definition, not by following the norm of fangames.
• The meter you saw in our early screenshots isn’t gone in our new screenshots. Observant fans already know this.
• Like in Mothers 2 and 3, rolling HP/PP meters are back, giving you a chance to recover from a fatal blow. We added a couple of things to this feature, the most notable being what we’re calling the “last stand” feature, which greatly increases a character’s stats when they’ve been hit for more HP than they’re currently worth, or, in simpler terms, when their HP meter is on its way to 0. Similarly, if your PP meter is rolling down, but you have enough PP to use a PSI move when that character’s turn comes, the move has a chance of going through, even if the meter’s going to end up below the initial PP cost. This is effective for advanced players who are trying to get the most bang for their PP buck.
• Enemy spawning will be similar to that of Earthbound. They appear in the overworld, and spawn somewhat randomly. You will not always encounter the same exact enemies in the exact same spot as you would in Mother 3.
• Rogg is still in the enemy roster. Rejoice! Other early enemies are still present, such as the Lake Gull, Chronic Puncher, and a few others. Also expect series staples to return, such as the Ramblin’ Evil Mushroom. It should also be noted that the Unassuming Local Guy and Ego Orb will be in-game somewhere, as they are mine and Dave’s favorite enemies, respectively. One of the commonly overlooked enemies from a past game is back in Mother 4, with plot relevance as well. (No, it’s not Negative Man. Good guess, though. It’s an enemy there were several of.) (Rogg was sprited by Pik.)
• When an enemy drops an item and your inventory is full, you can choose to use either the item left by the enemy or an item in your bag to free up room, rather than being forced to throw one away.
• It’s a strong possibility we’ll have condiments in this game, a la Mother 2, but you have to select them, rather than it being automatic, and the condiment has multiple uses, making it actually worth carrying around.
• Mother 4 will have a sound test option. Much in the same style as the one found in Mother 3.
• PSI Beam is returning, as well as a couple new PSI moves. They’re tasteful. No PSI Super-death-wave or Manilovepeanutbutter. But you could name your favorite thing one of those, if you really wanted. We’ve also done something creative with 4th D-slip
• We considered crafting for all of 15 seconds before we decided it wouldn’t fit well in a Mother game. We do have something sort of like it, but it’s a lot simpler. Sort of like having your Courage Badge become a Franklin Badge, and there’s only a couple of weapons you can improve like that.
• There are three PSI users that you play as: Travis, Meryl, and Leo. Zack holds his own just fine without PSI.
• We’re officially looking at tons of sidequests and optional content. It’s like you paid for a bunch of DLC, but we’re giving you a whole game like a good developer would.
• I’m warning you, anyone who thinks they’re going to do/see/experience everything in the game is in for a hilarious amount of play time, primarily because you’re not going to do it in one playthrough. We have some random dialogue, and there are a few things in-game that change based on what decisions you make.
• Hilariously enough to players who know about the development of Mother 2, there was originally a portion planned for space exploration, but limitations and story development eliminated it. We changed the ending of the story (Definitely waaaaay better), and with this new ending, we had to cut our space environment. We’re down a cool dungeon concept, but that’s it.
• I will say that we have a huge chain of optional “challenge” fights you can take on, and they do somehow reference past games. I won’t explain more than that. The cool thing about it is the way we’ve implemented it. It doesn’t clutter the game, but it doesn’t feel set aside. There aren’t 30,000 little Zelda style “secret caves” filled with optional bosses, but there’s not a “Challenge mode” on the main menu, either. You’ll have to wait to see that.
• Finally, a couple technical points, the project supports gamepads (with configurable controls), fullscreen, and even has multiple menu colors.

The Process

Story:
We started out with a very basic story arc, probably under 1,000 words long, just to nail down what we wanted. This took me all of 20 minutes or so, since it’s a hybrid of two story ideas we had going earlier in development. After that, the team read over it, voiced their yeas and nays (unanimous yeas, I’m proud to report), and off I went, starting my second draft of our final story (my 10th draft total since I joined the project). In this draft, I actually brought up an old MSpaint world map I drew (our overworld hadn’t changed from the original story draft), and I drew lines from town to town, plotting out the flow of our characters as I wrote a more in-depth story. To preserve my own sanity, I skipped out on some of the “Faster” means of getting a detailed story down, as I knew I had time to spare while the art and engine departments got caught up, and really made sure I was comfortable with what I was writing. That Mother-y feel’s an interesting one to catch, but I daresay we’ve done so quite well. I essentially kept writing the story over and over again, getting just a bit more into detail with each draft, making each draft ~25-50% longer than the previous one. Our most recent complete draft’s about 20,000 words long, and this “final” draft that I’m working on now is already that long and I’m not halfway done.

It’s kind of like painting a picture, really. Base colors, color blending, shading, details, more shading, fine details. While each Mother game has a standalone story, they do reference each other, and weave into one larger story. Mother 4’s story fits this continuum, so events that took place in past games are a factor in the basis for this installment, though they are not directly referenced.

We haven’t revealed much about the story itself, and I recommend you review some of our other updates to gather the bits and pieces we have revealed. The basis is fairly generic in the regard that it’s a mother game, and the little blurb on the about page covers that much.

Programming and the Game Itself:
Making an RPG is tedious, difficult, and requires a sharp, dedicated mind. Our engine is coming along at INSANE speeds considering Dave’s the only guy on the project. Dave’s toiling away, and getting us an engine bit by bit, but each bit we get is flawless and well polished. Beta testing’s not going to consist of fixing a bunch of things that could have been avoided ahead of time. It’s being written in C++, which means he started with a blank text entry field. We don’t have anything holding our hands or limiting us. If it helps you wrap your head around what Dave’s taking on, he needs to make the RPG maker before we can actually begin making the RPG, and that statement’s eerily accurate, since he’s making brick road so user friendly.
In that regard, our engine is code written from scratch, making it perfectly flexible. When you consider the way Mother 3 played, it wouldn’t take much to give Lucas a sword, change the story, characters, and setting, eliminate the RPG battle system, make a few more changes, and make a completely new top-down Beyond Oasis/Zelda-esque game.

Art:
The art department is important for any game for obvious enough reasons; It’s the very surface. It’s the first thing you usually notice when experiencing a game. We employ a pretty standard method. We use concept art to inspire some of the more intricate or daunting tasks for the pixel artists that actually make what will appear in-game. Here we’re providing a sketch of Belring’s schoolhouse and toy store, followed by a draft of how they will look in-game. This is actually a pretty specific piece of work, courtesy of Mars, and then tiled by Phones. A lot of Mars’ pieces are largely impressionistic, and only meant to inspire, rather than serve as a solid blueprint. We’re seeing more and more of these rigid pieces as development progresses, though. It’s a magical thing to see the world form.

Click the concept art to view a larger version.

The Big Question

Q: You guys are lunatics! Aren’t you worried about being cease and desisted?

A: As an opening statement, the reason this project’s working out so well (almost 4 years in the making) is because of how hilariously unlikely Nintendo is to give it a C&D order, for reasons you’ve largely covered. From the developer’s side, I can say that there’s very little “stolen” from Nintendo’s series in this game, minus the title, a few character names, Mr. Saturns, (possibly Tendas, we’re still kind of fighting about that), enemies, and things of the like that are staples to the Mother series. These are all minor things that could be considered hails alone, but mixed together, becomes a bit more obvious. The big stuff is ours, however. Our characters are original, our villain is original (And I’m gonna hate to see him go when we’re finished with the game. He’s really cool.), and our world map is original.

From a logical, business perspective, Nintendo certainly will have no interest in seeing the project shot down, since it doesn’t seek profit, and is so unobtrusive compared to other high scale projects. We have nothing to gain, and neither do they. May as well keep the fans off of THEIR backs about the series, right? Heh, in that regard, Reggie may think we’re doing him a favor. You wouldn’t believe how much fanmail we get.

In the event we DO get a cease and desist order, don’t expect Mother 4 to die. We’ve given the game a makeover before, and we can do it again. Just like any good Mother game, this one doesn’t rely on content from past installments to shine. It wouldn’t take much work to yank or alter some of the elements taken from past games, such as a few enemies, songs, and items, and of course, mr. saturns. In that regard, we’d go from “Mother 4” to “That really awesome RPG Azure Studios made”. Actually, we’d be able to cross some lines that would be jumping the shark in the context of a Mother game. It could get pretty interesting.

I could go on about this project forever, which makes sense considering how long we’ve been at it. While we’re not expecting a cease and desist order, we are going to go ahead and end this update before it gets too long-winded. If you feel like there’s something that should have been touched on here that hasn’t been, feel free to address it in the comments. Maybe we’ll edit this thing and add it to the FAQs page or something of the like.

If you’re interested in the dcmsoftware.net domain, drop me a line, and we can work something out. I’d rather it go to someone who’ll use it than some domain squatter.

And finally, if you find broken links, report them so I can fix them. I’ve gone back and fixed a good number of them, but I may have missed some. Thanks in adavnce.

And no this isn’t the update I was talking about in the commments of the last post. HEHEHEH.

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.

Fun stuff!

In other news, we have a couple posts in the works.

• Zephys has been putting together a “everything we’ve told you” post where he goes over just about everything we’ve told you about the game. It’ll be a handy catch-up guide for newcomers and a good ol’ review for folks that have been following us for a while.
• I’m going to be putting together another mailbag post here shortly. We’ve got a backlog of mail and it needs clearin’ out. We’ve responded to the mail we recieved that wasn’t marked as for the mailbag. But we do miss some occasionally. If we didn’t answer yours, and it wasn’t marked as for the mailbag, please ask us again or mention it in the comments here.
• I’d like to do another technical post some time. Any requests? (Something general would be good.)

So that’s that! Hope your holidays were excellent, and I hope you all have a wonderful New Year. Put your feet up and spend some good time with your family.

And here we are with NCFC Friday. You guys like music, right? Yeah, you like music.

Continue to the NCFC Booth…

Every once in a while, we all have to step back and look at the big picture; to see what lies beyond us, where we truly belong, what we really are….and, sometimes, we just need to know where to slap down a city. Today’s update is going to look at how we do one of those things, and it’s not the first three. That’s right, today, Mars is talking about map-making.

Waltz on over to the NCFC booth!

Dave here once again to bring you Wednesday’s NCFC update. In the spirit of an NCFC Workshop, I’ll be discussing the basics of the implementation of the battle system. All you game developers lend an ear. You might learn something, or you maybe you’ll think I’m crazy! In either case, I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments.

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Today’s update focuses on some less important characters, some non-player characters. Come have a listen to what they have to say. You might learn something! Or not, some of them are a little silly.

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Our NCFC 2011 Booth is now underway! Our first update introduces you to several characters. Please take a seat and say hello. They won’t bite! (Well okay, one of them might.)

Continue to the NCFC Booth…