The Benza RPG
The Benza RPG Version 2.5 and Nintendo Switch Development?!?!
A big part of me feels like that’s the lead story here, but I’m going to come back to the NINTENDO SWITCH DEVELOPMENT story later. (OMGOMGOMG what is happening?)
Version 2.5 of The Benza RPG adds two new fantastic playable characters, a bonkers storyline even for us, and about 3 hours of new content. I’m quite proud of this bit of the game. This part of the story I’d been looking forward to since we’d started and I’m glad we finally got it in the game.
If you’ve played the game to this point and have been on this journey with us for the past year, you know that The Benza RPG is actually based on a television show called The Benza. In Japan, we just had the successful release of the first part of series 2 of the television show. Over two hundred guests joined us and it was a lot of laughs!
Now that the second season has launched in Japan, it frees up a lot of my mental resources to work with Gui and Masa (who’s translating this blog if you’re reading it in Japanese) on steering this game through its last act! We are probably going to take a small step back to do a mini QOL update next, but then it’s full steam (no pun intended) to the end.
As our game is a retro RPG, we always thought that the Nintendo Switch would be the most comfortable main console port of our game. A few weeks back a very hopeful Gui and I crossed our fingers and sent in an application. We’re very happy to announce that Nintendo approved our application and granted us permission to port The Benza RPG to the Switch.
Quite like the title of this blog, the game must come first. As much as I would love to just start porting everything right now, Gui and I from the beginning of programming said that we would want the game to be completely finished before we started porting it to any other systems.
It’s a long road from here to possibly porting to Nintendo Switch, but I’m very excited to have this amazing option available to us. I don’t believe we’d have this option without everyone’s support and feedback. Thank you and I hope you enjoy Version 2.5!
Chris
MCM Birmingham Comic Con
The release of The Benza Series 2 has eaten up a lot more time than I thought it was going to. I’m sure you can imagine it’s difficult to simultaneously work on a game and produce a television show at the same time. I have to admit, Gui and I both feel very lucky to have this game to continue to work on. The Benza is a very fun world to be a part of, and no matter how stressful programming within RPG Maker can be, the constant humor and gags within The Benza prevent Gui and I from ever becoming stressed to the point we want to quit.
We have lots of amazing news. We are releasing a small patch today to commemorate the world premiere of The Benza Series 2 at MCM Birmingham Comic Con. We have added a password locked chest that can be opened with a code in Higashi Nakano Talent. (It’s on the west side of Higashi Nakano if you haven’t been there yet.) We will be releasing the code for the chest on social media on the 13th of November. Keep an eye out for it. This password will get you an equippable “MCM Comic Con T-Shirt” that gives whoever wears it a regenerative TP effect. I recommend David or Alena.
Additionally, we have decided to release a large expansion The Benza RPG 2.5 before we release the final 3.0. This expansion will add five new floors to the main dungeon as well as an additional estimated three hours of gameplay. I won’t go into too many details now about this release as Gui and I are still estimating how much new content we can comfortably fit into this release.
Stay tuned for more information about The Benza RPG 2.5 as well as the official release of The Benza Series 2.
Version 2.0.4 Release!
It feels like we've finally got the hang of how to roll a massive version update now. We have replied to every message that we received about questions, QOL changes, and bug fixes. We can say with confidence that we have addressed all of the concerns that have been brought to our attention with this update.
As you all know, The Benza is a television show, and we are simultaneously shooting series two while smoothing out the rough edges of version 2 of the game. Cast members Kosuke Imai (Kosuke) and Lee Min Kuk (Lee) both played through the full game for the first time. It took Kosuke a bit over 30 hours to finish the main game and all of the side quests! Needless to say, while we are on set we talk about the game quite a lot and about who's in everyone's main party.
If you read this and have a minute, let us know what your play time is at and who is your main team!
Mine is Chris, Alena, David, and Maria. All offense, all boosts, all the loot.
Thanks for playing! We hope to be making small updates via steam every two weeks or so until work begins on version 3! Speak to you again soon.
-Chris