Lisa: The Painful RPG [Beta – PC]

Lisa: The Painful is an indie role-playing game developed by Dingaling Productions (now known as LoveBrad Games). The game was designed and programmed by Austin Jorgensen using RPG Maker VX Ace and released for PC, Mac and Linux in December 2014.

The games is a successor to Lisa: The First, a  freeware game made by Jorgensen in 2012. Lisa: The Painful was funded thanks to a Kickstarter campaign that started in November 2013: in the Kickstarter’s public feed of the game we can take a look on different phases of game development, Lisa beta versions and how the game changed over time.

Lisa Kickstarter Trailer

This trailer is our first glimpse of the game, and we can already notice some interesting “beta” elements. The trailer is basically cycling through two different animations, one showing Brad (the protagonist of LISA: The Painful) and his party, and the other one showing him ambushed by Buzzo and Columbo (two of the main antagonists), with text cards hinting at tough choices players will face through the game.

In this image we can clearly recognize some of the characters: Brad is the bald guy, Olan Hoyt is the one with a hat and the wrestler’s one is Rage Ironhead. The last one playing the guitar is a deleted character called Hawk, an early version of Rando.

Beta version of Rando, courtesy of Lisa RPG Wiki

Lisa Pre-Alpha Gameplay Footage

This video was uploaded on Austin Jorgensen’s Youtube account  and it represents a pre-alpha stage of the final game. Still, many of the locations that made into the final game are clearly recognizable, albeit with some differences (Devil’s Bathhouse, Snow Mountain, Bob’s Dojo). The bike and motorbike are already present and tested a this point in development.

A look on the pre-alpha battle screen: two of Brad’s initial friends, Cheeks Gaywood and Richard Weeks (along with Sticky Angoneli), were once playable (there is also another shot of the cut character Hawk). Other cut features are a team attack (shown in the picture) and a sneaking mechanic, possibly used to ambush enemies.

Lisa Kickstarter Demo

On November 20th 2013, Jorgensen uploaded a demo of LISA on Gamefront, the original file has since been deleted, but a backup version is available in here. This demo features various locations, characters and enemies (like the Men’s Hair Club, then called the Magnificent Manes Men’s Club), alongside different graphics for in-game dialogues and text.

During Lisa development many different characters were either dropped or their role in the story changed: our friends at The Cutting Room Floor have a nice page about them.

Image gallery:

What do you think about this unseen game? Give your vote!

(4 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

Loading...

Would you like to add more info, screens or videos to this page? Add a comment below!