FAQ

Great, I want to hear what it is so I can fix it! Feel free to message me on Discord or Reddit (@sarriest everywhere) or leave a comment on itch.io. If you have a detailed description or screenshots, even better, because I need to be able to reproduce the bug to fix it.

6 months / 27 weeks, which is much longer than I would have liked 😅 I started working on it in May 2024, had to take a 3.5 month break part way through because life stuff blew up, and completed it in March 2025 🎉

I actually tracked my progress on a weekly basis (mostly to hold myself accountable), maybe I'll clean it up and share that here. But at a high level:

• 3 weeks - Transcribe the podcast, translate the story into gameplay elements, list out all the characters and maps, find a game engine and learn how to use it, create art assets for all the main characters.
• 18 weeks / 4.5 months - Finish the 5 chapters of the story.
• 1 week - Everything else not core to the story (title, menus, SFX, quest log, etc.), start looking for playtesters.
• 4 weeks- Balance battles + add skills, playtest, bug fix, polish.
• 1 week - Soft launch! So I can iron out any bugs before contacting the HFTMT hosts.

The original intention was to scratch a creative itch.

I'm a game programmer by trade, but in my current role, I don't code much anymore. Just lots of meetings and planning, and I miss being able to get my hands dirty. Me being me, I couldn't just "make a game", but had to learn a new skill and make sure I actually published it. I'm also not an artist, which meant I needed to either pick up some basic art, or find art assets which all had similar enough art styles. Or both.

With those constraints in mind, RPG Maker MV was a no brainer because it:

1. Comes with a bunch of default pixel art assets, which is my favorite art style that also happens to be easier to pick up
2. Has a huge community of creators with lots of free art assets and plugins
3. Mostly no code, so I could focus on the story and art
4. Uses JavaScript, a language that's easy enough for me to pick up if when I eventually get frustrated at not being able to customize everything to my satisfaction
5. Can build a browser based game, because I don't want to pay the $100 Steam submission fee or make people download a random exe/app file from a stranger on the internet.

And then I realized that HFTMT's 10 year anniversary was coming up! That was a very nice milestone to hit and I decided I would release this game then to celebrate it 🙂

I'm not creative enough to come up an engaging story from scratch. My strength is taking something and building on top of it, so right from the start I knew I wanted to base my game off an existing story.

Hello from the Magic Tavern is my favorite podcast that saw me through a difficult year. I love D&D, and their O&B miniseries is probably my favorite spinoff of theirs. (The other being Shadow City) It's hilarious and of a good length for a short game, so I went with that.

• Game engine - RPG Maker MV (it's regularly on sale, I think I got it for USD $12
• Image editor - GIMP (free)
• Audio editor - Audacity (free)
• Code editor - Notepad++ (free). Don't @ me I know there are better IDEs but I wanted something dead simple with no frills and I already use this for my own notes!
• Version control - GitHub (free)
• Text editor / everything else - Google Docs

Nope, sorry. Some of the free assets I used have terms that prohibit sharing the assets outside of the game. That said! DevTools is your best friend, IYKYK 😉

By playing it, leaving a nice comment, rating it 5 stars (only if you think the game deserves it!), and sharing it with your friends 🙂 Seeing people genuinely enjoying the game is honestly the best thing I can ask for.

No, I don't take commissions, nor do I accept donations. If you're feeling generous, HFTMT has a Patreon which you can support! Or if you're already supporting them, donate to your favorite charity instead 🙂

Are you Arnie? 👀

Adding a few more quality of life features to the game (a proper quest log, an Easter egg tracker, lots of little polish items that nobody but me notices, etc.) and fixing any bugs that come up. And then... make another game! I'm probably gonna turn my favorite D&D one shot, The Wild Sheep Chase, into a similar RPG. It's lots of chaotic fun! My Forever DM, Atari, has already agreed to run it again for me 😄

P.S. Atari runs paid D&D games online, come join us (and our trivia team)! Use this $10 credit if you do.