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Otto Needs Your Help! Otto’s beloved city of Vaudeville has been beset by a force bent on eliminating any form of amusement! The Bleak Barons, and their sourfaced leader, Chairman Fountainhead, are converting innocent creatures into killjoys! The Barons are sending them into Vaudeville to harass the playful and kindhearted citizens! Fortunately for the characters of Vaudeville, Otto is a quick-witted, highly talented aspiring hero, with dexterity and comedic instinct. All Otto needs to do is get out of his house and into Vaudeville so he can help his friends and save the day!

Post news Report RSS Otto's Storytime: Telling the Tale of a Monochromatic RPG

A 1920s styled 2D comedy RPG that follows Otto, an isolated citizen of Vaudeville, who must rescue the town. The Bleak Barons have begun to transform Vaudeville’s culture into something so dark and sinister Otto can’t standby and watch.

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A 1920s styled 2D comedy RPG that follows Otto, an isolated citizen of Vaudeville, who must rescue the town. The Bleak Barons have begun to transform Vaudeville’s culture into something so dark and sinister Otto can’t standby and watch.

In Vaudeville citizens try their best to keep society abroad happy. Joking, dancing, singing, all to make others smile. Sounds perfect? Nope, far from it as each citizen sacrifices their personal happiness to make others happy.

Otto becomes the target of public ridicule, due to personal differences, up to the point where Otto must move to an island outside of Vaudeville.

Otto stays on the island until rumors about strange events happening in Vaudeville start spreading. These events seem to have the name Bleak Barons attached to them. Otto’s few friends get dragged into weirdly, dangerous situations and leading Otto to leave the island and head back to Vaudeville!

In the Monochrome RPG battles are iconic because Otto doesn’t only have the option to defeat enemies, but can also run from them and entertain them.

When Otto entertains an enemy, they grow to like Otto so much they join Otto’s group and help out in future battles. Bosses, for the most part, won’t be entertainable, but I think that the choice of being able to entertain versus hurt enemies helps to emphasize the narrative components of the game.

As Otto grows the group, getting more “friends,” Otto’s able to take on bigger, stronger enemies and handle situations differently.

The overall art style helps to bring together the story and battle by allowing for a range of situations to be symbolized through living plants, animals, and furniture. When the Workshop designs elements for the game, we are taking a holistic view.

Through our community-based process, we make sure that visual assets symbolize the ideology we want behind the piece (funny, sad, serious, etc.). As a community, we also consider how the imagery may influence the intended impact of the story.

The fact that the style allows for quick iteration and completion compared to colored assets helps to keep us on track timeline-wise. We also chose this style as it allows for a range of creatives to contribute to the project without worrying about the project taking up too much time.

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