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Getting OFF: A Weird Ass RPG’s Unlikely Revival

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In 2013, while browsing on an erstwhile internet I discovered a download for a game called OFF, created by some guy named Mortis Ghost. Originally released way back in 2008, it had finally been translated into English from the original French. It was described as an off-beat RPG, one of my favorite types of G’s to RP in. The screenshots showed off an interesting world of monochromatic characters and weird worlds punctuated by bright, surreal backgrounds.

Instantly intrigued, I installed it and played through the night. Meeting weirdo characters, reading strange and off-kilter dialogue, exploring the different Zones, and fighting monsters while the ear-honey that is this track by the game’s composer Alias Conrad Coldwood plays. 

You know what, just leave that on while reading this. You’ll thank me later.

You can’t show me some shit like this and NOT expect me to throw off my sleep schedule playing it all night.

I didn’t beat it that first night, but after just one or two more like it I had completed it. I was engrossed by the story of the Batter, a black and white baseball-uniformed man with a single goal – to purify the world. As you puppeteer the character (this is not, in fact, a colorful way to describe the act of playing a game. ‘You’ are directly talked to from the moment you start playing, and are just a part of the story as any of the other characters), certain truths are revealed, and you realize that you might not have been given the whole picture of what it is you’ve been mindlessly doing the last few hours. Why is the Batter purifying everyone he comes across? Is it good or bad? What has been my role in this? 

Eventually, at the end of the game you’re forced to make a choice. A very important choice that will irrevocably shape the world of OFF. I shan’t go into too much more detail as I want you to play it yourself. I’m a nice guy like that. This fourth-wall breaking and thematic look into video games as a concept might sound like another indie game that might have been released a few years later, and this is no mere coincidence. 

OFFten Imitated

OFF, like many other indie RPG Maker games, would inspire several people. Be it fan-art, -fiction, -wiki, or -theory, people began to flock around this game on sites like Tumblr creating mountains of works that were inspired by the game. Eventually, someone named Toby Fox played it and was so inspired, he made some game called Undertale or something. This is just one of the several artists encouraged by the game.

Just one of the several times Toby Fox mentions OFF in the Official Undertale Artbook. Remember specifically how he was inspired by the music. It’ll come back later I swear!

The way OFF instantly became a cult classic was insane. While it might have been a few years after the original release, the widespread fandom on Tumblr was, I’m sure, how most of us found out about it. It spread like wildfire among some of the other bigger fandoms such as Homestuck. I’m sorry for bringing that up. 

From there it quickly got attention as a must-play for anyone who loved weirdo games. Then a must-play for anyone who loved deep stories in games. Then a must-play for just about everyone. We even had Markiplier playing it.

People fell in love with the intense scraggly art style of Mortis Ghost, they fell in love with characters like the masked shopkeep Zacharie, whose convivial presence adds some nice humor and light to the otherwise grim story. It seemed like OFF was on top of the world. (Or at least sixth in the world, as shown by this year-in-review Tumblr post showing the most reblogged games of 2013, in which OFF beat Skyrim, Final Fantasy, and even League of Legends.)

I don’t really have any joke or anything to say about this pic, I just think it looks real neat and want to include it.

While it gained a huge cult following, it would never reach truly mainstream popularity. Due in-part to having the most ungoogleable name since MOTHER, and at least they changed that when it hit stateside. Unfortunately people on Tumblr moved onto the next big fandom, probably something like the Avengers or Sherlock. Places where their specific type of fan-art would be better suited.

New games also came out, like the previously mentioned Undertale, that ate OFF’s lunch and expanded on the thematic elements in new and arguably more inventive ways. Less people made fanworks about it, and less people talked about it. As more and more time passed, it seemed OFF only lived in the margins of my notebooks, where I’d doodle Zacharie’s mask and the Batter’s mean mug. Eventually they disappeared from there too. Just as quickly as it entered the cultural consciousness, it faded without much noise. OFF, while definitely influential, seemed to have been lost to time.

And then, near the end of last year, it was revealed that OFF was coming back.

On the OFF-chance

Like a spark of an errant match way too close to the gas pump, the trailer for a new remastered version of OFF lit my previous love for the game and exploded the memories back into my mind. It’s hard to state the shock I had when I saw it, I truly never thought this game would ever see the light of day again, and here it is, plopped into my YouTube recommended videos. Despite the shock, it was a more-than-pleasant surprise. One that still boggles my mind.

A screenshot of the OFF remaster featuring the most iconic cat with a big toothy smile, The Judge. Well, maybe second most iconic.

However, this was not the same OFF had played over a decade ago. Billed as the new and improved definitive edition, it includes several new additions. From simple things like a bezel featuring new art, to more expansive changes like a retranslation, new gameplay segments, and even a newly recorded soundtrack with music by several indie darlings, including none other than Toby Fox (I told you it’d come back!), fulfilling the prophecy and creating an ouroboros of inspiration and involvement. He is the snakehead eating the head of the opposite side. 

While I’m not sure how much new stuff is added at the moment, I’m sure it’ll both retain that same OFF experience I had, while expanding and more fully realized version, especially since Mortis Ghost is fully involved. This remaster gives OFF a much-needed second chance at life. I hope this causes more people to play this game, as it is definitely one of the most interesting and unique games I’ve ever played. 

We finally got an August 15, 2025 release date during SGF. I’ll see you somewhere over the rainbow when it comes out. In the meantime, you can play the Prologue on Steam now.

The post Getting OFF: A Weird Ass RPG’s Unlikely Revival appeared first on Palette Swap.

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skywardshadow
11 days ago
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Indie Quest Showcase Spotlights Numerous RPGs

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YouTube channel The Gaming Shelf held an Indie Quest 2025 Showcase, during which it provided trailers and reveals for forty upcoming and recently released indie RPGs. The 85-minute show — viewable in full below — featured appearances from the following titles:

 

The post Indie Quest Showcase Spotlights Numerous RPGs appeared first on RPGamer.

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skywardshadow
19 days ago
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Nice Hat, Loser

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Imagine getting up on stage for a presentation that would have cost in the ballpark of $500,000, all to promote your new video game, and instead of having people talk about it, they are instead talking about:

a) Your stupid hat

b) How your little speech sounded like a wizard breathed life into a downvoted Reddit comment.

The post Nice Hat, Loser appeared first on Aftermath.



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skywardshadow
20 days ago
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Square Enix settles lawsuit with mobile studio accused of copying assets from a cancelled Front Mission game

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The publisher says mobile game Metal Storm used art from a failed business deal…

Source

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skywardshadow
29 days ago
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Front Mission 3: Remake Releasing in June

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Forever Entertainment announced that Front Mission 3: Remake will release for Nintendo Switch on June 26, 2025. The game is a remake of the third entry in the Square mecha tactical RPG series, which originally released for PlayStation in Japan in 1999 and in North America and Europe in 2000, before receiving a PlayStation Network Classics release in 2010. It follows Forever Etnertainment’s previous releases of Front Mission 1st: Remake and Front Mission 2: Remake.

Front Mission 3 is set in Southeast Asia in the year 2112, during a cold war between the Oceania Cooperative Union (OCU) and the People’s Republic of Da Han Zhong (DHZ), with the United States of the New Continent (UNC) sending in peacekeeping forces to resolve separatist conflicts. Its story follows Japanese wanzer test pilot Kazuki Takemura after a mysterious explosion occurs at a base, with the game splitting into two different scenarios — one for the DHZ and one for the UNC — depending on a choice made at the start of the game.

 

The post Front Mission 3: Remake Releasing in June appeared first on RPGamer.

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skywardshadow
29 days ago
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This XCOM-style strategy game dares to ask: What if Napoleon Bonaparte was a woman who had an army of battlemechs?

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The French Revolution was a time of overwhelming and quotidian violence. As Louis Antoine de Saint-Just—the revolution's Angel of Death himself—put it in Georg Büchner's play Danton's Death, "Is it so remarkable that the stream of the revolution should at every bend and cataract cast up its corpses? … Are a few hundred dead bodies to hold us back? Moses led his people through the Red Sea and into the wilderness till the old corrupt generation was exterminated… Legislators! We have no Red Sea and no wilderness, but we have war and the guillotine!"

You know what would have made everything better? If they'd also had mechs.

(Image credit: Studio Imugi)

This is the thesis of Bonaparte: A Mechanized Revolution, which puts you in the uniform of Bonaparte themself in the turbulent years of 1789 onwards. You know, Bonaparte! Cesar or Celine Bonaparte! The famous revolutionary hero(ine) who fought for either the Ultraroyalists, the Moderates, or the Jacobins depending on which choice you pick at the start of the game. Why, who did you think I meant?

The game bips and bops between different modes: A tactical, XCOM-ish thing where you're moving your battalions and death-robots around and setting them on your foes, and a broader strategic view where you're competing with other factions for control and influence over the different counties of France. Neither of these are hyper-complex, but they've got just enough moving parts to feel satisfying. Tactical battles ask you to think about your abilities and positioning at least to some extent, navigating behind foes to attack them from where they can't riposte, while your strategic affairs are divided between straight-up invading places and bolstering your support with propaganda efforts.

The third mode is narrative—visual novel scenes where you have tête-à-têtes with the era's notables and rally your votes to pass or reject laws in the National Assembly.

(Image credit: Studio Imugi)

This is, if the towering battlemechs didn't tip you off, an alternate history. But it nevertheless tries to hew relatively closely to the real outline and personalities of the French Revolution as it happened. The Comte d'Artois? Still an unpleasant reactionary. Robespierre? Still very keen on virtue and terror. Lafayette? Still very bad at seeing what is obviously happening around him. Events move inexorably, towards conclusions that feel inevitable.

Except, of course, you are Bonaparte, and you make your own history. I like the game's tactical and strategic elements—they're not complicated but they have just enough depth to feel rewarding when you sink your teeth in—but it's the ability to write your own revolutionary narrative that keeps me coming back. You can sign on with any of the revolution's three main factions—the Jacobin radicals, the Moderates, or the Ultraroyalists—and fight to establish their dominance over France.

It's catnip to a particular flavour of historical-fiction-brained nerd (me), and deeply satisfying to that part of me that always enjoys imagining just what life looks like in the empires I've established in CK3, or EU4, or any other historical strategy game. Turns out the answer is 'chaotic and bloody,' but, look, nobody can reign innocently.

2025 games: This year's upcoming releases
Best PC games: Our all-time favorites
Free PC games: Freebie fest
Best FPS games: Finest gunplay
Best RPGs: Grand adventures
Best co-op games: Better together



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skywardshadow
31 days ago
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