March to the rhythm in this new creation from the masterminds behind Patapon!
Please note, we are waiting to charge for shipping closer to fulfillment. After shipping fees are added in, you will be notified via email before your payment is charged.
パタポンのクリエイターによるこの新たなゲームの世界で、リズムに乗って行進しよう！
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Whimsical Wednesday #4
over 2 years ago
– Wed, Aug 23, 2023 at 06:03:08 AM
※日本語のアップデートは下の方にあります
Whimsical Wednesday #4
With less than TEN days we are marching towards the end of the campaign. It's always a big question on every team's mind... How much will that funding curve rise during the last big week? We still have some tricks up our Ratatan sleeves as well as some of the bigger and interesting stretch goals left so we'll have to see but at any rate, the community is amazing and we just want to grow it even bigger! As always, word-of-mouth is the most important thing so getting the word out as a RataTEAM is essential for our last week’s success!
Campaign Information:
Final Discord Q&A:
As mentioned on Monday, the final Discord Q&A will take place August 25th (Friday) at 8PM EST/5PM PST. This will be a little earlier than we are used to but wanted to make sure everyone could go out Friday night AFTER the Q&A is finished. Like the previous Discord Q&A we'll be in the dev-questions EN channel for 45 minutes. Then we will head over to the 開発者質疑応答 channel from 8:45 PST/5:45 EST for 15 minutes to talk with the Japanese-speaking fans.
New Emojis and Achievements Incoming:
We know not everyone is a fan of discord but love how big that community has gotten. It's taken us a while but with some help from our AMAZING moderators, we finally have smoothed things out the experience overall. Over the next few days, we'll be adding in new emoji and new achievements. Some of the emoji will be available for everyone. Others you can earn through leveling up and being social with other Ratatan fans on the official Discord. Think of this as Ratatan's frequent flyer program!
Stretch Goals:
You cleared the Collectapedia stretch goal meaning you have a place to look at all the enemies, weapons, bosses, and characters. With characters this cute, it's great to be able to add that functionality. You are on your way towards unlocking Chinese and Korean to add in a whole new strata of fans! But more importantly you have now revealed the Ratatan and Cobun customization stretch goal. You'll be able to change partial colors and visual aspects of your Ratatans and Cobuns. Who doesn't love a nice wardrobe change from time to time! As we approach the final stretch goals, the content will get bigger and bigger... but also some really cool stuff is hidden back there so hopefully we can reach them all!
Community Game:
Well, you blew through the fan-polls challenge within a day but it's nice to see you use that functionality! Although we are surprised you are doing your own little character battles there seeing as how much you all seem to have found your favorites in terms of characters! Unfortunately, the Adachi-san favorite song community goal is not going well. We have LESS THAN 25 backers who have listed their favorite song that Adachi-san has worked on. We really thought with how amazing the music is, this would be an easy goal to clear... if you have the time, swing over to the official Youtube and list one track of Adachi-san's that you love!
Fan Art:
By: Catty Hunter
By: AnticuadoDenjir
By: wanyapon
By: crystal.qn
By: jazz-rat
Development Update:
#7 Game Design: Character Design
Welcome to Development Update #7!
The campaign is approaching the home stretch, and so the team wanted to explain a few more plans and policies surrounding some major parts of the game.
To help with this, we've spoken with Shimizu-san and collected some of his comments for this issue and the next one, so let's get started!
Hello all, pleased to speak with you. My name is Shimizu and I'm in charge of the battle design for Ratatan.
In this Wednesday update and next Friday's update, I'd like to introduce two pretty large components of the game. Today's will be about the character design of the Ratatan.
The theme will be the "loose" division of roles given to each Ratatan.
This game operates with player-controlled characters, such as the Ratatan or Cobun, each having assigned roles in battle. That being said, if these roles are too strictly defined then the game's adventurous and carefree nature will be lost, so we've been working on maintaining a loose sense of balance so any Ratatan can be used freely. The basic principle is that all Ratatan attack the enemy, although there are differences in how they attack and their range. Our policy here is to rather characterize the Ratatan's skills and the Cobuns' unique behaviors.
Now, another policy of ours revolves around character design. The Ratatan are the stars of the show, and so their characterization takes into account the world, the way they act and how they look.
Let's take a look at one example:
Harigittan isn't just a tough defender, but is great at counter attacking with sharp spikes--Harigittan’s catchphrase is "anyone who approaches me haphazardly is gonna be in for a surprise" and their trademark is that slicked back, spiky hair-do.
The Cobun that follow such a character are also pretty spiky, and so at a glance, you can tell that they'll also be defenders that deal some counterattack damage. We approached the other characters' behavior in much the same way.
We hope you're excited to see it all come together as we continue working on creating a carefree adventure with such a unique cast of Ratatans that everyone will enjoy.
Next up is the Creator’s Corner! Today, we received a comment from adultseat, the background artist who drew those amazing backgrounds for us.
Creator’s Corner: Background Artist adultseat
Nice to meet you.
I'm adultseat, and I'm in charge of the background illustrations.
Thanks so much for your warmth and support in this campaign! Your excitement for this project is giving me energy and I can feel my creativity growing every day.
I want the background art of Ratatan to ooze with a lively atmosphere that'll make you want to dance along with the characters on screen, as well as a sense of fun that'll have you discovering something new each time you play. There's a bunch more stages still to come, and I can't wait to see everyone singing and marching across each landscape!
Now, on to the last section of today's update.
You may have noticed the Premium Rewards, Dirge of the Dead (the right to having your name engraved on a tombstone) and Ghost with the Most (the right to appear in-game as a portrait). But until now, we haven't gone into detail as to how or where these gravestones and portraits are going to appear.
Well, allow me to show you a sneak peek of some concept art of a stage that's still in development!
I'll leave it up to the community to theorize what kind of place this is going to be while you wait for the next update!
Majestic Monday #3
over 2 years ago
– Mon, Aug 21, 2023 at 05:55:39 AM
※日本語のアップデートは下の方にあります
Majestic Monday #3
So here we are... the last two weeks. It's been an amazing journey and we still have our Megaton announcements left. What could they be?? For now let's look at the key stats:
・Almost 10,000 backers
・Over 8500 Discord users
・Over 20,000 registered Youtube users
・Over 13,500 registered Twitter users
・Over 200,000 gallons of consumed milk!**
**(Consumed milk calculated by combined amount of :milk_small: and :milk~1:)
As always, we cannot thank everyone enough. While the incredibly generous financial support we get through our backers helps make a better game, the all-around amazing and fun community keeps the fire in our developer hearts BURNing hot!
Campaign information:
Merchandise Corner!
Flag Flyers Premium Reward - While only two backers have currently selected this reward, it's worth noting that flying their flag high on Fortrun will be instantly visible throughout the entire stage as Fortrun proceeds along his merry way. As with other premium rewards you get all the core rewards in the Super Fever Set so if you are looking for a way to get your creative-side into the final game, consider helping to dress Fortrun up!
Kendama - Here is a fun way to play with a Ratatan character when you’re actually not playing Ratatan. Kendamas are traditional Japanese toys and we’ve created a very ratatanesque one! Show off your skills while reppin’ the Cobun army with this sweet 185mm beech wood kendama!
Price: 9500 yen
Kendama mock-up
Tumbler - Staying hydrated is essential. So is saving the planet. That is why we are offering this very cool and very useful reusable Ratatan tumbler. Whether you like your drinks hot or cold, we’ve got you covered! This 20oz (60cl) stainless steel cup has been designed to maintain your drink’s temperature just the way you like it! Except we have a problem! We have two excellent mock-ups but don't know which way to go so we'll need your input! Check out the fan-vote on the official Discord to vote whether you'd prefer Black or Teal as the base color. There is still a chance that if the tumbler is possible that we add in the other color later but for now we need to prioritize the most popular choice.
Price: 10,000 yen
Fan Choice and Character Battle Results
Of course you would choose the Buttonda to be the best cook! Thanks to everyone who voted in Character Battle #3!
We also got some amazing feedback from you on the core game design! Mushuma's cobun will be wielding a large scythe it would appear!
Finally, while it was great to see people suggest other colors too, everyone's favorite Platypus Ratatan will be green! We really appreciate your quick feedback! You have helped the dev team out of a design jam.
Final Discord Q&A:
We'll be running one FINAL discord Q&A this week. It will take place on Friday August 25th at 8PM EST/5PM PST. This is your last chance to ask the main developers your burning questions. It's hard to get them all in one place so join us in the Discord dev-interview channel then!
English Q&A time: 45 min.
Japanese Q&A will run for 15 afterwards.
Stretch Goals:
You've now zoomed past the Fireworks goal, cleared 1 million dollars (laughs in Dr. Evil voice) , and revealed the new languages we'll add at 155M yen... Nice! But what's more... you have the amazing "Beautiful Snowflakes" hint! You will LOVE this one.
Community Goals:
We had a lot of inquiries about the community goals. Did you clear the 2000 votes for Wednesday's fan vote? Since we add up the English and Japanese discord channels along with the Twitter votes... at 3850 - YES YOU DID!
While you didn't clear the Threads goal you did stop the Mantaneers attack on BOTH fronts so you have cleared last week's community goals and obtained the covered color records. At one point we saw as many as 33 people in the Harigittan voice chat and even snuck in for a listen--TOTAL CHAOS! We loved it! You also got a total 3735 votes on from Discord and Twitter for the Fan Choice #2 vote and really helped out our creators. Nice work RataTEAM!
Development Update:
#6 Game Design: Roguelite
Welcome to the 6th development update!
Today we’ll be going over a topic that came up many times during both the Discord Q&A and the Reddit AMA, so I’m sure that everyone’s curious about it: Just what sort of roguelite elements are we planning to include in Ratatan? Today, Director Nakasha will explain it all!
Hello everyone.? Nakasha, Director of development for the Ratatan team here.
Today, I would like to talk about the roguelite element, which it seems like everyone's interested in hearing about. Ratatan has attracted the attention of a great many people with all kinds of interests. Some of them are fans of rhythm-action games, and others are people who don't usually play games but would like to try Ratatan because of its cute characters.
With that in mind, the roguelite direction may raise certain concerns. Out of all roguelike elements (at least, that's what we'll refer to them as here), "permadeath", or losing everything you’ve gained in a run when you die, is the most representative one. While it can make gameplay more thrilling, it can also be cause for players to give up or stop playing a game. That’s why we'd like to reassure you all by declaring our policy in advance.
First of all, we are planning to incorporate permanent enhancements, which are elements that allow players to strengthen themselves through gameplay. We intend to include more of these than typically seen in conventional roguelite titles. Naturally we plan to implement elements such as enemies that change on each run and instanced buff elements, as is common in roguelite titles, but I would like to declare here that we plan to build the game in a way that emphasizes importance on number of playthroughs and time spent in the game.
We also intend for the permadeath element to be a little looser, so that even if a player fails to complete a stage, they will be able to take back some of what they gained during their progression. We do not intend to make everything you've earned disappear upon death.
This policy will also be applied to multiplayer games, with the construction of a system that allows players to join and leave the game midway, as well as a system that syncs levels when joining a game part way.
We also plan to implement a system in which enemies are strengthened as stages are completed, but will take into account the player's strength level so that certain players do not feel overwhelmed or left behind.
For now, we hope this reassures you; that we will only be "loosely" implementing roguelite elements and the time you spend in the game will strongly affect how things progress.
What do you think?
I would be very happy if this reduced your anxiety or increased your excitement for the game, if even just a little.
Next, instead of going to the Creator's Corner... I have to introduce this little creature to you all! This is "Mashuma" and their cobun!
*The image is from a game still in development and may differ in the final product.
Melodium: Bagpipes
Role: Fumigator
Profile: Manipulates mushrooms with a set of dubious looking bagpipes. Specializes in disorienting the enemy with smoke shrooms. Shy and inconspicuous, but will always get the job done.
We also did our best to get our hands on some in-development variation ideas that we really wanted to show you! (We’re not sure if these will be included in the final product or not…)
From the left, you’ll see an alternate color version, Cobun wearing matching clothes that might be popular with a certain crowd, and two rough drafts that were still being designed. (We couldn’t line them up thanks to that huge mushroom cap…)
*The image is from a game still in development and may differ in the final product.
With this, we’ve revealed 7 Ratatan, and there’s only one left waiting for their big reveal! You’ll have to wait until next week to set your eyes on that one… Speaking of which, it seems like Kotani-san wants to talk about eyes today!
Creator’s Corner: Supervisor Kotani
Hello! Monday really came in the blink of an eye.
It’s me, Kotani. I’m back again to talk about some more silly stuff. Last time, I talked about what an ordeal it was deciding on designs for the Ratatan.
I believe it’s only through suffering, coming up with a design concept and having Nelnal-san give them life that the Ratatans were able to become creatures that can tug on everyone’s heartstrings. I’m already seeing messages like “Nyandola’s the only one for me” and “I want Keroronpa to make fun of me,” or “Someone give Harigittan a big hug.” Those, along with all the fanart, animations, and comics that people have created have brought me a lot of enjoyment.
Right now, I’m typing away on my keyboard with the intention of talking about where I came up with the design concept for the wide-open eye and eyepatch theme that symbolizes the Ratatan, but I’m having a hard time explaining the logic behind it. Honestly, it’s not frustrating but rather something like an itchy feeling.
Of course, they’re meant to conjure up images of the characters you all know and love, but here, I’d like to unveil an important secret about Ratatan that has never been revealed before.
In Patapon, the player was a god who looked down on the world and led its little creatures.
What about in this game?
Some people might say “Well, it’s the Ratatans, right?” But here I’d like to quote some sentences from something I wrote in celebration of Patapon’s birthday last year.
---
Long, long ago, there were strange machines shaped like Medama called Gyorocchi.
Since playing outside on this planet was impossible, the Gyorocchi was the first present given to newborn children, and their first friend. They spent all their time together–wonderful companions who shared all their secrets and cried and laughed together.
Then time passed, and the children grew up, forgetting about the days they spent playing with their Gyorocchi. Then even more time passed, and soon there were no more people on the planet.
Small dreams floated up to the surface from the floor of the deep sea, only to be knocked to and fro by the waves until they were swallowed up by the wind. Does happiness exist at the end of the world?
Riding on the wind, these dreams eventually reached the side of a goddess in the Everafter. She had been waiting there for a long time…
Flag Flyerプレミアムリワード: 現在、このリワードを選択した支援者は2名のみですが、ステージ全体を陽気に進みながらフォートランに高く掲げられた旗は、すぐ目に届く位置にある予定です。他のプレミアムリワードと同様に、Super Fever Setのコアリワードはすべて内包されています。最終的なゲームにクリエイティブな面を取り入れる方法をお探しなら、Fortrunのドレスアップに参加してみてはいかがでしょうか！
Fabulous Friday #3
over 2 years ago
– Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 06:21:02 AM
※日本語のアップデートは下の方にあります
Fabulous Friday #3
This is an exciting one! Adachi-san who makes magic with his sound design goes into the method to his madness! It's all pretty impressive how he can design the music for a game like Ratatan!
Campaign Information:
Reddit AMA:
As mentioned previously, we'll be holding an AMA on r/ratatan_official subreddit and crossposting on r/IAmA at 10PM EST/7PM PST on Friday August 18th. We hope you'll stop by and ask us your burning questions!
Fan Choice #2:
The devs at Ratata Arts have reached another dilemma with their design and need your help yet again. You'll get specifics on our 8th and final Ratatan on the 28th but in the meantime we are stuck between which color is better: Brown, Green, or a slightly mature shade of purple grey! The team has put together 3 mock-ups and need your feedback to land on a final color. Go on over to the fan-vote channel on Discord or the official Ratatan Twitter to make your voice heard!
Cobun Coloring
We made some adjustments to the coloring of the Cobun we’ve revealed to you thus far. It seemed a bit sad that the rabbit’s colors didn’t match up with their Ratatan, so we made them matching red! We also made some other detailed changes to make it clearer which Cobun is paired with which Ratatan.
Character Battle #3:
You now have 6 of the core Ratatans core information so the character battles are really heating up! This week's challenge: Who is the best cook of the bunch?
Stretch Goals:
You secured Hard Mode, have revealed the Collectopedia, and now have the Wordsmith II hint! Here's to hoping that's Klingon, Latin, and Esperanza! We joke, we joke! Still though, we will be turning things up for our last two weeks and that means even better content for you to unlock!
Community Goals:
You haven't cleared the Threads goal yet but...
Sneak Attack:
The Mantaneers snuck in when we weren't looking and they attacked on TWO fronts! If we can fight them off it will clear our Threads Goal and secure those colored records! We'll need to complete BOTH goals by Sunday August 20th at 10PM EST/ 7PM PST. Here's where we need your help:
1) 1000 emotes/votes on the Fan Choice 2 vote (listed in the fan-vote channel on the official Ratatan Discord)
2) Get 20 members into the English-vc2-harigittan voice chat channel on Discord! Have someone do a screen cap and post it to the chat in that voice channel. You don't need to talk, just be in the voice chat room and show Harigittan some love!
Development Information:
Welcome to our Friday Development Update!
We like to feature our weekly interviews with members of the Ratatan development team on Fridays, and we know today's guest is someone you've all been waiting for; Adachi-san who's in charge of Ratatan's sound!
And since it's Friday, our Creator's Corner is brought to you by Director Nakasha-san!
Creator’s Corner: Director Nakasha
Hello all, Ratatan Development Director Nakasha here.
I'd like to show off a few elements of the game that our development team is working on implementing on a daily basis.
First thing I'd like to show you is the behavior around Rhythm Commands. Starting with two things:
※ There's a chance these Rhythm Commands may change in the final product.
1. The Fall In command is used to collect Cobun that are trailing behind the Ratatan's current position. Use this command while moving in game and the Cobun will bunch together. It'll be a pretty fundamental command in battles in terms of basic positioning.
2. Attack commands are used to prompt the Cobun to use their basic attack. Each Cobun has a specific attack interval depending on its weapon and it will move around until it is ready to attack again. Being too far away from the enemy will interrupt their attack, so you need to pay attention with their positioning.
The next thing I'd like to share is the Chorus.
We just received their animations the other day, so we'd like to show off how they look.
The Chorus will float around here and there and can be transformed into Cobun that’ll join you on your adventures by using the Fall In command when they're close to your Ratatan. We haven't been able to implement this yet, but we'll hopefully be able to show you how this looks next week. Aside from this, we're still working through the list and adding other necessary elements into the game.
We're preparing more to show you in next week's updates, so I hope you look forward to those!
Whimsical Wednesday #3
over 2 years ago
– Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 06:03:51 AM
※日本語のアップデートは下の方にあります
Whimsical Wednesday #3
We have reached the official halfway point of the campaign. You've KILLed 12 Stretch Goals and added in a ton of new content! You've worked as a community and held off two baddies via the Community Game and netted yourself Hardbooks artbooks and T-shirts with prints on the back. But most of all you continue to put smiles on our faces. We have never been so motivated as developers. Thank you so much!
Whimsical Wednesdays are all about art and music and this week is focused on the music of Ratatan! You'll get to see some great insights from Adachi-san, the Lead Sound Designer so pull up a chair and enjoy!
Campaign Information:
Fan Choice:
One of the best parts of connecting with fans via a crowdfunding campaign is that we can get direct feedback on some of the core design elements we aren't 100% decided on. The creative process can be complicated and bouncing ideas off of each other can create tunnel vision so we are turning to the fans to help us determine a core element in the game.
You've seen them in previous concept art but next Monday we'll be dropping more information on that mushroom-looking Ratatan. Before that though we need to lock down which weapon their cobun will use. For the next 72 hours we've put a poll live in the fan-vote section of the Ratatan Discord as well as the official Twitter account to have you determine which weapon you think fits the best. Also, it's worth noting that one of the community goals is determined by us getting 2000 plus votes so your participation in this vote is especially important! Well... what are you waiting for? Get over there and get voting!
Reddit Q&A Session:
As mentioned on the Monday update we'll be holding an AMA on r/ratatan and r/patapon at 10PM EST/7PM PST on Friday August 18th.
New Discord Functionality
We know not everyone likes discord but the community there continues to grow and it's amazing! We'll be implementing different features like welcome messages, backer polls, leveling-up, achievements, and giveaways! You'll gain levels by posting messages in the various channels and being proactive in the discord. Go to the demetan-commands channel on discord and input /rank to see your current rank or /levels to see the leaderboards but please don't tease Demetan too much! Additionally, we have added in a variety of voice chat channels for people who want to chat in smaller groups. Find an open room and enjoy the good conversation with like-minded fans! Hopefully it will make the wait for the final game a bit easier on everyone! Ra-ta-taaan!
Stretch Goals:
You marched forward and secured the Customize Fortrun goal and are so close to locking down that Hard Mode goal! We see people worried about less pledges coming in but trust us the campaign and community is already leagues more successful than we expected. And 90% of all video game Kickstarters follow a standard inverted bell curve so this is to be expected! Word of mouth helps in the middle weeks of a campaign and then of course some of the amazing new merch, stretch goals, and surprising reveals will be the afterburner for the final weeks.
Community Goals:
You smashed the Youtube community goal in less than a day. The Threads goal... not so much. We know it's another social media account but the number is very small compared to the number of current backers so hopefully a few people can pull together to make this happen but this week we may have a surprise attack that could actually help us reach this goal even if Threads isn't your thing... guess we'll have to be on our guard!
Development Information:
#5 Design: Enemy Attacks #1
Welcome to the fifth development update.
This time, let’s take a glimpse at the Ratatans’ adventures. *Today’s update will not include any behind-the-scenes design stories. Sorry! You can look forward to that in the next Creator’s Corner!
“Splish! Splash! Sploosh! Weather is clear! Visibility is good! Chorus ho! Get singing!”
Commands thunder out of the black bird Kro as it patrols overhead.
Matching the rhythm of Fortrun’s humming, the Ratatans break into song.
The horde of Chorus rush over and surround Fortrun, drawn in by their joyous singsong.
The Ratatans rush to capture and control all the Chorus they can.
But in the seemingly peaceful, deep blue Paraddean lies the hideout of the fearsome Swashbuckling Mantaneers!
“Hol’ up. What’s dat sound?”
Awoken from their cat(fish) naps, the Mantaneer flunkies pick up their telescopes and peer out from their floating watchtowers.
“It’s a Tapostle boat! The Ratatans is comin’!”
“Someone’s gotta tell the cap’n!”
“Howdy do? Is this the Everafter?” Fortrun asks the pirates, cheerfully.
“You ain’t gettin’ our secret maps!” The flunkies cry as they prepare for battle.
As the honks of a conch echo through the breeze, little huts atop tall towers open up allowing seabirds to fly out and spread the news.
The beasts of the sea follow the conch’s call and gather in wait for the Ratatans.
The pirates' battle to defend their island with its floating barges, piers and liquor barrels reaches a fantastic crescendo!
Eventually news reaches Captain Barbatoid and he makes his dastardly appearance aboard the Jolly Hermit...
What will be the fate of the Ratatans?!
…I know we’re all dying to find out what happens next, but now it’s time to jump over to the Creators’ Corner! Today, we’ll be hearing from Adachi-san, our sound designer!
Creator’s Corner: Composer Kemmei Adachi
Hello everyone! I’m Kemmei Adachi, a composer and sound designer.
For this project, I’ll be working on all sound-related things for Ratatan. How did you like the three songs that were released on the Kickstarter page? You should be able to enjoy a different atmosphere with each one of them. I really love the phrase from the Pirates of the Paraddean song: “Rattaparabee, rattaparabee, parabian.”
I was able to become part of Ratatan as it’s a spiritual successor to Patapon.
Let me tell you a bit about myself.
You may think of me as some guy who makes weird songs in the game industry, but I’ve actually made music for games from a lot of different genres: The XI Series, the Gran Turismo series, the LocoRoco series, Everybody’s Golf, and Freedom Wars.
And of course, the game you all know: Patapon. I’ve been the sound producer for every installment of the series, but my roots are in LocoRoco. I think that if I hadn’t worked on that game I probably never would have come up with my ideas for Patapon, and I wouldn’t have been able to develop my own style.
I set a mic next to me, created the tracks, and sang. Then I just did that over and over again—that’s how LocoRoco came to be. And I basically used the same style with Patapon. I sang the same phrases as the instruments, used fun onomatopoeia, and used all kinds of other methods to finish it.
Now, as for Ratatan… It seems similar to Patapon, but some of you may be wondering what’s different about it. Well, allow me to explain from a sound perspective.
If you’ve played Patapon, you’ll know that in that game God bangs on a drum while the Patapon sing and march forward. That’s the game’s basic style.
But what about Ratatan? As you can probably understand from the music, the Ratatan sing along with the Cobun, or maybe Fortrun sings and marches forward and the Ratatan and Cobun gather up to sing in circular canon until they’re all marching together. That’s Ratatan’s style. What was a drum in Patapon has become “song” in Ratatan.
This means that the commands will be singing. After all the excitement’s said and done, how many people will we have singing together by the end?
Due to this concept, creating a demo was harder than anything I’ve done before. How many Cobun are there? How many Chorus are there? Should there be at least 4 people? When things get exciting, the enemies should sing and fight back, right? Huh? Then how many people will be singing altogether? Do I have to do all of this?
In the end, I think I sang parts for about 30 people (sweats). In the end, we completed the demo, and I used that to ask different voice actors and actresses to sing weird songs. And it turned out amazingly, don’t you think?
As for Ratatan’s “theme park” atmosphere… I want to express that in as lively and fun a manner as possible. I may betray your expectations—in a good way! No, I want to betray you! I want to create songs that have different BPMs and variations (seriously)!
I hope you’re all excited! I can’t even imagine what I’ll come up with in the end, so I’m excited too! ♪
Majestic Monday #2
over 2 years ago
– Mon, Aug 14, 2023 at 06:08:43 AM
※日本語のアップデートは下の方にあります
Majestic Monday #2
We are now two weeks into the campaign but not quite the halfway point. One thing that continues to amaze us is that we are over 600% more than our initial goal. Video Game Kickstarters rarely reach this level over the past few years. We are honored by your amazing support!
Campaign Information:
Merchandise Corner!
We are back with more detailed merchandise descriptors and of course exciting new merch!
Record - This single record set will contain a selection of the biggest hits the game has in store. If you are a purist this is the sound item for your and your collection. Speaking of which, with some hard work on the community goals, we'll be able to provide colored records instead of just the standard black.
New Merch!!!!
Plush - Here it is. The single most requested item in the campaign. We worked with the folks at Red Art and while there is a decent amount of risk stemming from a higher base price and the minimum lot we must produce we are happy to offer this 20 centimeter high plush of the pyokorappa cobun. We'll have mock-ups ready during the last week of the campaign
Price: 12,500 yen
Plush Hat - Wanna go to various conventions and show off your Ratatan love? We have the perfect item for you with this Pyokorappa plush hat! The velcro straps make this a one size fits all! Show us your cosplay love! Mock-ups will arrive in the final week.
Price: 10,000 yen
Key Chain - This limited edition key-chain can be yours! Great for attaching keys, lockpicks, Nyandora bells, and whatever other daily-use item you may need! This holiday season, give the gift of Ratatan to a loved one!
Price: 5,000 yen
Premium Reward Reissue
The Bad Vibes Only Premium tier has been snatched up again but we can re-issue it one more time thanks to the developers’ flexibility (and quite frankly how happy they are with the ever-growing community!) There is a good chance this will be the last time we can do this so if making an enemy for the game is your jam, check it out in the rewards section.
Week Two Character Battle results:
Well well well. Mimizukyun... won? We don't really know if being the most lactose intolerant is a win or not but at least they destroyed the competition with their hatred for milk! Thanks to everyone who voted! As always, if you have any ideas for what a good thing we should battle over is, head on over to the crazy-ideas-and-merch channel on the official Ratatan discord!
Stretch Goals
You are slowly making your progress towards customizing Fortrun! Yo ho ho! Then it's Hard mode including some really challenging secret bosses. Over the weekend we revealed the "Trophy Box" hint as well. Lots of good content to unlock thanks to your continued support!
Community Goals
You slid in barely by clearing the total backer goal with only a couple days to spare. Not only that, your AMAZING Mimizukyun fan art restored their confidence and held off the Stinger Diggers with ease! This means all artbooks will now be hard cover!
We'd like to show some of the incredible art that came in! It's nice to see the fans help out Mimizukyun in such an inspiring way!
By: Raliciel/レリシエル
By: ZoraZ
By: さぬタン
By: うみねこ
The new community goals are here as well. This week is all about the music so let's point our amazing community love in that direction and see if we can snatch up that colored record merch upgrade! You'll note one of the community goals is participation in the fan-vote that will be set live on Wednesday. It's an important one that allows you as fans to affect a key part of the production so we need your input!
Reddit Q&A Session
The Discord Developer Q&A Session went over with flying colors. Since the goal is to try and bring in new fans, we will be doing one AMA session over at Reddit. Didn't get a chance to have your question answered? Well, this is your chance to ask again! We'll be holding the Reddit Q&A on August 18th at 10PM EST/7PM PST!
Development Information:
#4 Game Systems: Hideout and Crafting Functionality
Welcome to the 4th developer's update!
Today we'll be talking about some game systems: what you can do at the hideout, the Ratatans' headquarters, as well as Ratatan’s crafting system...but first we're just dying to introduce you to this little rascal! Please give a loud round of applause for Buttonda and their Cobun!
*These images are still in development, and may change before the full game is released.
Melodium: Sousaphone
Role: Suppressor
Profile:
A suppressor that really plants its trotters to conquer the frontline.
Great at blasting enemies from the front with its powerful toots, its snoot strength is truly top class.
We also managed to snag some still-in-development variation ideas, so we'll show those off too! (We're not sure if these will be included in the full game or not...) From the left, you'll see a variant color version, a Cobun wearing similar gear, and two other rough mid-development ideas.
*These images are still in development, and may change before the full game is released.
Okay, now that we've gotten these new allies, let's turn our gaze to what we can do in the hideout. As you go on your adventure through this game, you'll encounter various NPCs. Some of these NPCs will serve various functions within the hideout, the Ratatans' headquarters. By fulfilling certain conditions, they'll move into the hideout, unlocking hideout features for you. Also, by becoming better friends with these NPCs, you'll unlock missions that you can complete in order to unlock further functions. We're thinking that whenever the player uses such functions, they'll play rhythm action mini-games, and the results of the mini-games will determine how good the effects are.
For example, we intend to implement a crafting system where you can use items you collected on your adventure to create weapons for your Cobun and Melodiums for your Ratatan. Crafting in this game will allow you to use items you gained on your adventures to give your Ratatans and Cobun permanent enhancements. Our goal is to then add in a Ratatan-esque rhythm gameplay element that’ll let everyone enjoy the fun of creating powerful items.
As for what the rhythm gameplay will be... You'll need to do rhythm-based button inputs depending on what item you're creating, such as clang-clunk-clink when swinging a hammer. We're also thinking of making it so that the item you create may get stat boosts based on how well you do.
What sort of NPCs and facilities will be in the hideout? What other mini-games will there be aside from crafting? We hope you'll all enjoy imagining what could be as you wait excitedly for the game’s release.
Next, let's head on over to the Creator's Corner! Monday is Kotani-san's day! Seems like he'll be talking about early stage concepts today...
Creator’s Corner: Supervisor Kotani
Hello! Game designer Kotani here. We're close to halfway through our Kickstarter campaign now. Thank you so much for all your support. Are you enjoying the campaign?
Last time I talked about the Ratatans' boat Fortrun, which acts as a hub where people can come together. This ship has existed for over two years, since it was originally a core component of Project JabberWocky. He existed as the "festival float" that would help make the experience feel like "a parade-like adventure."
At the time, my image of Fortrun being fun while also possessing sad and nostalgic motifs that came from artistic and dark fantasy inspirations in children's books I loved to read as a child, such as In the Forest by Marie Hall Ets and Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. And despite the fact that the images weren’t set in stone yet, the team worked hard to create a working prototype.
It felt like a waste to just shove it into a folder somewhere, but since I still hadn't gotten a concrete idea for what sort of characters I wanted to follow in Patapon's footsteps, this initial project was temporarily canceled.
After that, I got a renewed realization that the key to igniting the project would be to create characters with their own identities that still had that Patapon flare and did some serious soul-searching. Soon, while thinking about various ideas, these characters appeared: baby-like characters with eyepatches over one of their eyes—eyes that conjured up images of Patapon.
I jumped for joy and said "This is it!"
My idea is that the open eyes aren't just shaped like that to be homages to Patapon—but also as important key features meant to connect all the players who'd poured their love into Patapon to these new characters. (As for why I thought that...I'll explain it another time!)
Bad Vibes Onlyのプレミアム・ティアはまたも完売になりましたが、開発チームの柔軟な姿勢のおかげで（そして率直に言って、彼らは成長し続けるコミュニティに対してとても喜んでいるので！）もう一度だけ再発行を予定しています。これが最後のチャンスになる可能性が高いので、もしこのゲームの敵をデザインしたい！という気持ちがあれば、リワード・セクションを覗いてみてください。
