RPG Devlog ~ EKSORSIST AKADEMI

This page is a journal of shorts, following my attempt to make an RPG. As with all projects like these, this may never go anywhere! That being said, this is a more serious endeavor than the shelved platformer game, and I would really like to make it some day.

Characters - KARAKTERIOS

The Protagonist - It's you!

Lala - Healer - I wanted a cute name with alliteration, but none of the common alliterative names fit quite right. At first, Lala was a bit of a joke placeholder name, but I've grown quite attached to it (and it's not like the name is completely unheard of). For some reason, I associate her with Aerith from Final Fantasy 7, but I don't think they are very similar in demeanor or story (IDK, my only exposure of the game is the remake).

Corwin - Fighter - a bit of a dumbass but has a good heart. I wanted a name that was fairly literal, a part of the amateurish vision. The meaning of the name most likely is actually derived from a word for "leather worker", however, the meaning I chose it off of was "heart's friend" -- regardless of whether that is historically accurate or made of for baby name websites, I have a conlang now I easily ascribe that meaning to it.

Yet-Unnamed Oracle - Came from a different game idea that merged into this one. The Oracle has the rare power of prophecy.

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Devlog - DEVLOG

7-5-2025 7-5-2025

Project Starts, after a vision that the religious sort might have ascribed to a god or muse.

7-6-2025 7-6-2025

First sketches of the main trio.

7-7-2025 7-7-2025

While practicing piano, I play some chords and make a song out of them. This becomes "her song" and is assigned to this project.

7-9-2025 7-9-2025

Paraphrased from my journal

This project came to me in a vision on July 5th, while I was stuck drying dishes because our dishwasher is STILL broken (as it has been for the past six months or so). As I worked, this idea just sort of formulated and grew. I've had bursts of creative inspiration before, but none so strong as to contain multiple characters who I could see vividly, a strong premise, and a world that already felt realized right from the beginning. When I was finally free from my responsibilities, I rushed to my computer to write down as much as I could.

I believe this came exactly a month after Deltarune Chapters 3 and 4 came out, which was almost certainly one of my inspirations. But, more than that, I feel more inspired by the general concept of RPG maker games and indie itch.io games--something that is, perhaps, amateurish, but has a lot of charm and passion, too, so you just can't help but love it.

For now, I'm calling the game "Exorcist Academy", a title which I hope invokes that sort of amateurish feeling--it's simple, not particularly innovative, but it gets the point across (and hopefully without sounding boring). As the name suggests, it follows exorcists attending a school that teaches them in the ways of exorcism. Demonic incidents have been rising since the start of the game, and it's up to the player character to find out why!

I started coding the battle system yesterday, but something REALLY crazy happened, so I had to take a mental break for a bit. I've finished the basics now--you can't use items or spells yet, but I have a turn manager that seems to be working, and you can attack just fine.

7-12-2025 7-12-2025

Paraphrased from my journal

Progress has been slow. I figured out how to make cutscenes yesterday. I've been using placeholder sprites, but I think I need to make character sprites--at least a front facing image so I can get the sizes down.

7-13-2025 7-13-2025

Paraphrased from my journal

So, I didn't do that. I spent all of today trying to iron out the battle system so it works better. Enemies now inherit from an "enemy" scene instead of a singleton. The battle adds enemy scenes to the battle from an encounter variable, which allows me to be a bit more flexible with the stats, have unique battle dialog, and hopefully unique attacks, too.

7-20-2025 7-20-2025

...? who is that? (aka: I discovered transparent windows)

7-22-2025 7-22-2025

I decide to merge a prior project of mine from 2021 into this one.

7-24-2025 7-24-2025

unrestrained autumn fun?

9-6-2025 9-6-2025

Battle portraits for the main party members.

9-16-2025 9-16-2025

Solidified the script and sounds of the conlang [later added "h" and "t" sounds and characters].

9-20-2025 9-20-2025

Transitioned from graphics based on 16 pixels to 32 pixels.

10-5-2025 10-5-2025

Paraphrased from my journal

I've been working on and off on things, forgetting to write about them. Godot updated, so I made the (perhaps very bad) decision to start from scratch--well, partially. I'll still be referring to the old code, but I'll be rebuilding the scenes and changing the organization system.

It was probably a good thing, as it led to me understanding custom resources. Before, player stats were handled through a singleton, but now they inherit from a "Party Member" resource instead, and I'm using the same logic to create an inventory system. Apart from that, I'm brainstorming the battle system. I understand the basic mechanics, but I want to make something fresh and fun!

I'm procrastinating on homework, though, so I really should get back to that.

11-10-2025 11-10-2025

how much longer now?

11-11-2025 11-11-2025

I have to do homework now, so last dev post for a while. I’ve been reworking the battle system to be a little cleaner + I added damage animations. Of course, this happens to be the first time I’ve actually shown off the battle system...

As of now, the system consists of the basic turn-based encounter mechanics (you act, enemy acts, and so on). Only attacks work right now, but I do plan on expanding that, and have ideas for how different mechanics might work.

Today I made the portraits their own scene, so that animations and health bars could be managed by itself! It’s also automated now, so if I add or remove party members, the battle system will create the portrait nodes with all necessary information automatically

12-17-2025 12-17-2025

Spent today and yesterday reworking the way the PartyMember and InventoryItem classes worked out so they could be more straightforward and self-contained…which, naturally led to many, many bugs… but they’re much more concise! And I and think I really understand how to make and use custom resources now.

Today was mostly debugging the issues that arose from such major changes, but I did start work on the status effect system (as displayed here in battle). I’ll probably get to work on the spell system soon, as the logic is probably just a combination of how statuses and items already work.

12-19-2025 12-19-2025

Reworked the battle system to accommodate the new mechanics implemented. Sure, it may not look much different from the last video, but much has changed beneath the surface.

Additions

• Turn Order display. This mechanic was already present and just consisted of organizing every encounter participant by speed, but the player had no way of seeing it. Now, they can (in the top left)
• Complex Animations: It sounded like it would be fun to have unique animations for various status effects. It was not as fun to implement, but I managed it! Thanks to animation trees…which still scare me. However, as I was writing this, I’ve found the logic…isn’t especially sound.
• Removed placeholder controls for giving items/casting spells. Now, you simply click on the portrait of the party member you are targeting. the same is technically true for enemies, though i have not tested it because I haven’t programmed a spell that targets enemies…
• Implemented defend (but the exact effect is still subject to change)

To Fix:

• Whatever is messing with the enemies position after the damage animation. I suspect it has something to do with anchors.
• Buttons focus even when completely disabled (thought it was an engine quirk, yet it doesn’t apply to enemy button instances within the battle scene, specifically).
• Animations break sometimes.
• Animations are weird for downed party members
• When a party member has been downed burning will instead heal them…. This may be linked to the Defending action, though the reason for that may simply be that it makes the battle last longer …Your guess is as good as mine. I can only hope this is some dumb thing I overlooked and NOT a major fallacy with the entire system.

2-21-2026 2-21-2026

Recreated one of the earliest game locations so I can feel like I'm making progress again.

2-26-2026 2-26-2026

Over the weekend, I revisited a childhood RPG (one of the only RPGs I have any memory of playing) to gain inspiration, which helped me figure out a general map for one of the...areas? Wait I have areas now? I mean, it's basically the same area, but still... it feels like a real game. Oh, and I made new sprites for the walls and floors, and they look much nicer.

Other than that, I spent the past couple days trying to reorganize the messy dialog system that was sprawled across my files, messed something up and it suddenly broke beyond fixing. Maybe it was for the best, because I think I prefer the new version better. Amittedly, the systems I made may not be the Best practices... IDK, I'm not a programmer, I just pretend to be.

The system is not too different than what a JSON dialog system would be, but I very much do not like working with JSONS (difficult to read and therefore difficult to manage), so i really wanted to use an in-engine system where I could more easily set variables and call functions! Beyond the capabilities shown in the video, the system has choices (which can be conditional) which can call functions and create branching dialog path. Admittedly, I don't actually have a system for conditional dialogs but I'll figure something out.

4-24-2026 4-24-2026

Cleaned up the dialog system code (no more if/elif/etc, it's a "match") and consequentially fixed the main but that was preventing me from making cutscenes.

We're so back.... after I finish finals.