The Shaman Diary - Journiarc

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2011, I was 16 year old
A teacher at school asked us to write a short novel, we had 2 weeks to write it.

Hello!
I'm Gregory Creupelandt, 31 from Belgium!
I work as a full-time backend dev (unrelated to video-games).
I'm working on The Shaman Diary RPG as a side project!
I've been fan of video-games since I was 6, never really stopped playing World of Warcraft (for more than 15 years).

I failed that test... 
It took me 10 years to finish the novel, instead of 2 weeks!
Here I am with a 650-page heroic-fantasy novel (written in french).
I printed 20 copies in 2023...
But actually no one was tempted to embark on such a read...
PS: "Journal d'un chaman" means "The Shaman Diary" in french.

650 page...
That was a lot too much.
I still have some copies,
no one was interested.

So I have a huge heroic-fantasy story to tell... And huge passions for video-games...
What about adapting the novel into an RPG?!
That's how it all started!
2025 I take whatever engine that looks easy and suitable to tell a story.
I tried RPG maker MV somehow randomly and felt in love with the engine and tweaking it with javascript.

Where does it stand right now?

The game is a slow pace story-driven RPG.
If you enjoy discovering a rich story & universe through dialogue and endearing characters, this might be for you!

The demo is available on Steam!
It covers the first 80 page (out of the 650).
With a whole first adventure, you can easily play 10+ hours on the demo alone.
The full main story should represent 60+ hours of gameplay.

store.steampowered.comhttps://store.steampowered.com/app/4245390/The_Shaman_Diary_Demo/

For now the traffic is very low.
But players enjoyed the demo... 
100% positive review so far!
Over 4hours average playtime!
Feedback has been incredible!

Quick note about my workflow:
I read a few pages of the book. 
Then I spend hours, days, weeks and sometimes months trying to adapt these pages into the game (or sometimes I just skip them).
It's probably not the recommended approach but it has been a ton of fun!
For the fights, I take inspiration from the battles in the book and wow.
Basically I spent hours thinking how to adapt wow boss fights into a turn-based system. It provides huge source of inspiration and so far, players seem to enjoy it!

Don't hesitate to try the demo!
And wishlist the game on Steam.

x.comhttps://x.com/DarkyneDev

discord.comhttps://discord.com/invite/7hm7Xc9CYq

End of 2025, I wanted to share the game's progress with a friend. 
I thought hey maybe I can publish a demo on steam so you can test it, 
that way it will be easier if I do some update etc compared to sharing a file...
That's how I launched the demo on steam end of 2025 with zero communication and something like 10 wishlists. 
Probably the worst demo launch ever from a marketing perspective. 
At that point, I didn't realize the game could actually interest people outside my private circle.
It was only after receiving glowing Steam reviews from strangers that I realized it was worth polishing my project and starting to talk about it.

Here I am, nearly one year later, starting to post and communicate about the game! This is still very new to me.

I will be very transparent about this topic because I know it is important to many players.
The story, the dialogues, the gameplay... All this is hand made and no AI is involved.
When I wrote the novel AI was not even a thing anyway (back in 2011-2022).

BUT I am not an artist, I'm a software engineer, my drawing skills are garbage (same for music, video-editing, etc...).
Even the cover of the novel, I did not draw it myself, it's my drawing teacher that did it in 2015 (and he can confirm I was very bad at drawing even with his help!)
I'm good at coding, but this skill has less and less value today because of AI.

So yeah, I have no budget to commission artists for every peace of visual...
I use assets I paid for and I use Gemini to generate the additional assets I don't have and I am not able to draw myself. I also use it to rework some visuals because lightning is not looking good etc such as for the game capsule.
I would be pleased to replace these assets by human artist work if the game finds a commercial success but that's kinda unlikely.

As said earlier, the numbers are not very big, number of players on the demo, wishlists, etc...
But feedback has been positive and retention looks good for a demo (over 4hours average playtime, median over 1h)

I'm not used to social-medias and only joined them recently to start posting about The shaman Diary.
I tried a few things such as a push-ups challenge for 30 days.
I was posting daily videos doing 25 push-ups for every wishlist I gained. 
I earned more wishlist that month (like 40 instead of 12 the previous month) so it's not that bad I guess but it was kinda exhausting.

x.comhttps://x.com/DarkyneDev/status/2090507344111178009?s=20

Only a few people tried the demo but they really became very fan of the game and started promoting it without me even asking! I'm sitting at 13 reviews (100% positive).
Seeing some X posts and youtube videos starting to pop here and there from people that tried the demo really feel unreal! The community is so welcoming!

People started posting about the game simply because they enjoyed the demo! I did not expect that!
Their feedback have been extremely valuable!

There are quite a few zones to explore and a few things to discover.
Some items, even small zones, are hidden and only a few players will discover them.
The demo alone can easily take 10hours to complete.

I played over 15k hours on World of Warcraft... So let's say I like systems, layers of optimization etc... The demo is relatively light on this aspect, you can craft or buy a few items. But the full game includes much more options for builds. I'm talking about gear sets, items with gameplay changing effects, talents trees...
The dialogues have some depth too and can be specific to your run, based on your previous actions or your behavior statistics (goodwill, cruelty, curiosity, courage and intelligence).

The game is not easy. Some consider it should have the "soul-like" Steam tag because some bosses require a lot of die, learn, and retry.
You cannot just spam your basic attack and hope to win, you have to make decisions on the enemy to focus, the spell to use, the cc to apply, the effects to dispell...
Some boss fights, especially outside the demo, require a lot of planning, reading the tooltips, and preparing a good strategy.
Every boss has specific mechanics and phases. I actually enjoy a lot developing this part of the game and can spend sometimes weeks to design a boss fight.

Of course there is magic... So it's not realistic, it's heroic-fantasy!
But I don't want the story to feel like it's a game. I wanted it to have a bit of realism in it, it was designed as a novel before being a game!
For example, you don't suddently learned a skill because of a level-up. You learned a skill because you observed someone explaining how the skill works.
You don't magically unlock talents tree because you reached a specific level... You unlock talents tree because you've just underwent rigorous training with a mentor.
I wanted the story, the world and also the items to feel consistent.
For example you defeated a werewolf that was very tough thanks to its life steal. With his bones, you might be able to craft an item with life steal property.
Another boss had an ability making him grow stronger every turn? Loot its remains to craft gear with that exact same ability!
Basically, I tried to always have a sort of coherence, I don't want things to seem like they came out of nowhere.

Reworking every zone using paid assets really helped to improve the atmosphere so much!
I initially used free default assets from RPG maker but changing that was a huge step up!
The game also uses about 200 community-developed or custom plugins. 
This has really enabled the addition of a wide range of features, setting it apart from standard RPG Maker games.

store.steampowered.comhttps://store.steampowered.com/app/4245390/The_Shaman_Diary_Demo/

Try the demo on Steam!
The demo is a full-fledged adventure lasting over 8 hours!
It covers the first 80 pages of the 650-pages novel!

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