PERSONA NYC
My roles: Solo Developer
‘PERSONA NYC’ is a tabletop RPG campaign module inspired by Atlus’ Persona series. As the solo developer, my work includes all of the game’s art, encounter design, narrative, and written documentation.
For this module, I challenged myself to uplift the existing game system’s lacking aspects, such as under-developed player classes like the Compass, by 5 brand-new subclasses. I also strove to overhaul the game’s combat system to something more strategic and crunchy by incorporating battle grids and several new battle mechanics, such as knockback, territory control, and various weapon types with unique uses.
Featuring A Custom-Built Combat System!
PERSONA NYC is designed around a combat system totally new to the Powered by the Apocalypse system. Inspired by games like Mega Man Battle Network and Into the Breach, the module and all of its encounters are built around an arena-based combat system, where players and enemies alike must compete for territory to limit their opponents’ movements. To compensate for the more tactical, wargaming-style battles, new rules have been added to account for things like movement speed, attack ranges, and even different weapon types with unique areas of effect. Detailed below is an in-depth breakdown of the new combat system and a few of its features, such as weapon ranges and movement speeds.
Handmade pixel-art maps and character tokens!
To give PERSONA NYC its own unique feel, I have been created hundreds of custom art assets, ranging from character tokens to sprawling maps. Eponymously set in the iconic city of New York, New York, I have brought the location to life with many of its iconic landmarks, as well as its diverse populace through pixel art. Many of the map assets feature a comic book panel style to portray snippets of the city and it’s scale without requiring massive assets to be made.
On top of that, I aimed to capture the mystique of the unknown with NYC’s shadow counterpart, the “Sleepless City”, where the players must venture to take on dungeons and do battle with dangerous shadows. Included are several unique “battlefield” maps for each dungeon to compensate for the module’s unique battle mechanics.
Times Square: Since the story of PERSONA NYC is set in, of course, New York City, the world would be remiss without an explorable map of the iconic Times Square. Due to the isometric camera angle, I resorted to displaying some of the square's quintessential billboards on the side of the map as comic book panels.
NPC Sprites: A sample of some of the sprites I have made for the campaign. They are based primarily off the visual style of the Devil Survivor games for the Nintendo DS & 3DS systems.
Demon Sprites: A sample of some of the enemy sprites I have made for the campaign, including both recreations of existing Demons from the Shin Megami Tensei series as well as some original designs of my own.
Battle Palette: A taste of some of the battlefield maps I've put together for one of the game's dungeons, an art gala in an opulent mansion. Not shown in this image are the hazards - partygoers of a gala wandering through the fight who will get angry and fight back if they end up caught in the crossfire of a battle.
Shadow Sprites: A sample of some of the enemy sprites I made for this project. Most of them are replicas of the enemies seen in Persona 3 & 4, but a few, such as the clown, swarm, and several of the spookier ones, are original designs.
Dungeon Map: A part of one of the dungeons I have designed for the module. All of the dungeons I have designed are made up multiple maps, with different areas of a dungeon being represented with their own maps. This map in particular is the eerie backstage of a mysterious theater.
Prospect Park: A small snippet of Brooklyn's Prospect Park, where players can go to relax away from the city's tall skyscrapers and bustling populace.
CA-SL: The story of PERSONA NYC focuses on high schoolers as its main cast, just like the games in the official Persona series. As such, I put together a school for them to attend: Chodorow Academy for STEM Learning, with many of its more important rooms represented as a highlight reel of comic book panels.
Theater Office: One of many obscure-yet-important locations throughout the campaign's story. The scattered papers and well-used liquor cabinet alone can tell visitors plenty about this room's owner.