Making a Pie: An Interactive RPG
In this review, writer Pyroclastic_Snow explores the debut game by CrowPrince, set in a vibrant alternate universe of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
Our writer takes a thoughtful look at how this first-time creator brings their narrative to life through interactive storytelling with a distinct visual style.
Seeing the evidence of someone’s first time making a game can be a rather rewarding experience, and this is no different. Making a Pie by crow_prince_ is the interactive part to a larger story that takes place in a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic alternate universe with the idea being that the element of honesty is “cast aside”.
Much of this AU story is told in the form of Instagram posts made by the same user, which I’ve been following for some time, so I do hope to do the artist justice as I review their first step into the world of game creation.
The Making a Pie story follows Pear Butter and her difficulties with raising Lil’ Mac, her infant child, with no help from Bright Mac. Eventually, she is invited to the Grand Galloping Gala by Cheesecake, who offers to help her get her pear butter making business off the ground by introducing her to someone at the Gala who can help finance her venture.
The story itself, with dishonesty as the central theme, shows how Pear Butter struggles with sneaking off alongside Cheesecake without telling Bright Mac, who is too focused on work to notice his wife needing help and support.
One of the first things about this artist is that they have an extremely unique art style, one that uses lots of bright colors and exaggerated features to their advantage. It really stands out, especially among other artists I tend to follow, and this art style moves into their game and cut-scenes with beautiful bright colors and fun characters.
The scenery in the game itself reflects this style as well, as a loose interpretation of the cartoon version of the castle.
The other thing most will notice is the artist’s mature writing style in the character dialogue and the more mature theme along with it. A common storytelling device used often is the ability to build from an already existing story to build a more diverse world in that medium. You almost have to see the original story and the new story as separate in order to give the new story the respect it deserves.
This, in my opinion, saves the artist creating the story from having to create the world entirely from scratch and gives the writer/artist more availability to focus on the narrative they’re trying to write.
This storytelling method has a right and wrong way to go about it, and I do believe this artist does so in the right way.
The game play is simple but effective, placing greater emphasis on storytelling over complex mechanics. The creator uses an RPG maker game engine, and the creator uses this to their benefit.
The only real downsides I found were that when character sprites moved, sometimes the bottom of the sprite cut off and moved to the top of their sprite, which is a bit odd.
Additionally, towards the last half of the game, I was trying to make the main character leave and one of the NPCs was blocking the only exit, so I had to wait for the way to be clear in a moment where my only action was to leave via that particular exit.
But, please remember, this is this creators first game so there was bound to be an error or two and neither one really took too much away from the overall story.
To sum up, for a first time game maker, this extremely short experience was a positive one if you already follow the story on Instagram. This creator did well with what they had, and I enjoyed the experience!
I do highly recommend looking into the artist’s other works, I personally am looking forward to more of their MLP infection AU as their unusual art style made that idea incredibly interesting.
My dearest hope is that crow_prince_ takes this game as a stepping stone to make more interactive story games in the future.
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Article Author: Pyroclastic_Snow
