Jorge Blanco: The Night Owl Game Developer Who Founded Manafinder

When asked about the development process for Manafinder, Jorge shared that it was a passion project and therefore had no real “release date” until 2021. He went on to say that “It’s really fun to not have a release date and go at your own pace, but it can also lend itself to ‘always-expanding’ scope and never-ending development. Setting limits and grounding ideas was very important too.”

Jorge’s inspiration for Manafinder came from an unexpected place – a fantasy-inspired poem he wrote while practicing writing poetry. “After that I was heavily inspired by the outdoors, nature, and other video games,” he shared.

In terms of creating the game’s art and music, Jorge worked with a team of four pixel-art collaborators and one composer. “I usually wrote down a document about the ideas I had in my mind and then shared it with the artists. Then there was some back and forth on making changes, most of the time the changes were about ensuring it fits with the engine requirements.”

Jorge also shared that he incorporated player feedback throughout the development process. He showcased the demo at multiple events and took notes on player feedback and playthroughs. Later, he also had an official demo feedback thread on Steam, where he captured feedback from players. He emphasized the importance of balancing between pleasing players and not compromising on his vision.

When asked about challenges faced during development, Jorge mentioned that his day job allowed him to finance the game but also made it difficult to make time for actual game development. He also shared that marketing and social media can be brutal in the indie gaming scene, with so many games being released daily, it’s a fight for attention and convincing players that your game is worth their time.

Jorge also touched on future plans and updates for the game, stating that he’s heard requests for console ports, but he couldn’t announce anything yet. He also shared his thoughts on the RPG Maker community and its role in the larger game development industry, calling it a “wonderful community” and expressing his admiration for the way developers push the boundaries of the engine.

When asked about how Manafinder differs from other RPG Maker games, Jorge shared that it doesn’t use any assets that come with the engine and that it uses a lot of custom javascript plugins that he wrote himself to achieve the exact presentation he had in mind. He also highlighted some of the unique aspects of the game, such as the weapon and imbue systems, front-view “a la” Phantasy Star battle perspective, leveling up when camping, and item management.

Jorge also shared some lessons he learned during the development of Manafinder, emphasizing the importance of starting early on localization if you plan on localizing your game, and mentioning how finding every single string used in the game to move it into a text file in order to make the game localizable was not fun.

Finally, Jorge shared his thoughts on the future of RPG Maker and its potential in game development, expressing his interest in the upcoming RPG Maker Unity and the potential it holds, but also noting that the community is still strong, and he can definitely see more and more unique projects coming out using the existing versions of the engine.