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About To Ash
An RPG By Kyle Ballentine.
Do You Accept Death? Or Do You Fear It?
An old-school RPG made to question your acceptance of mortality.
A unique RPG where instead of becoming stronger, you get weaker as you go along. Demitri is a hero who already completed his journey. He is already powerful, so combat is complex and strategic from the start! But no one can live forever, and everyone’s story must come to an end.
The theme revolves around death and acceptance. Written by a therapist, the story is made help you think about what you cannot control. Age, death, loss... these are all things we must accept in our lives.
For those just looking to experience the story, there are 2 distinct modes.
Key Features
- No grinding levels, because the hero becomes weaker
- Complex, strategic battles from the start and no long tutorials
- Turn-based battles with the “Stance” mechanic, allowing you to strengthen the character in various ways and respond to enemy attacks.
- Strong themes of acceptance and mortality with an impactful ending, even the towns are modelled after the 5 stages of grief
- 2 versions, one for RPG veterans and one for those who just want to experience the story
•Full rpg experience with combat (6-10 hours), or...
•"Adventure Mode" (3-5 hours), which removes the element of combat and strategy, but leaves the story, puzzles, and exploration to enjoy!- 2 endings depending on your choices
- Original art by Neon Skies Studio
Developer Profile:
I am a therapist in Santa Ana, California. I currently live with my wife, two cats, and one dog.
This is my first game, To Ash. I’m a life-long gamer, (growing up with two brothers, we played a ton of different games) and an RPG lover. I worked on this by myself, but had input from testers, family, and had some original art made by Jala Prendes.
So you know where some of my influences come from, some of my favorite games are; Castlevania, Mario RPG, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Smash Bros., ‘Tales of’ games, Zelda, and Albert Odyssey.
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
RPG Maker strikes again! To Ash is one of hundreds of low effort retro-pixel RPG Maker asset/construction kit flips spamming the Steam catalog, made with the RPG Maker video game construction kit... in their own words, "Our easy to use tools are simple enough for a child." Like all RPG Maker "games", this is essentially a bunch of low quality/canned assets from RPG Maker coupled with a cringeworthy high school anime club fan fiction. As with all RPG Maker games, the poor quality engine displays badly in fullscreen and doesn't have full HD support or any graphics tweaking options, making this unacceptable for any dedicated modern PC gamer. The point can be made that the intention of RPG Maker is to make demos and small games to pass around friends, and shouldn't be used for "professional" game development. Like most RPG Maker shovelware and asset flips, the game features extremely low quality copy + pasted 2D retro pixel art, looks awful, and has even worse gameplay. RPG Maker is an absolutely terrible construction kit, and never results in games of any reasonable quality or value to gamers. This RPG Maker asset flip assembles the RPG Maker assets and the high school anime fa…4 found this helpful
To Ash, developed by 16 Bit Psych and Kyle B and self-published, is an unconventional role-playing game that deliberately subverts the genre’s most familiar progression systems. Instead of charting a hero’s rise to power, the game centers on decline. It follows Demitri, a once-great adventurer who has already completed his legendary quest, and now finds himself facing the inevitable erosion of strength, relevance, and life itself. This reversal of the traditional RPG arc forms the emotional and mechanical foundation of the experience. From the outset, To Ash signals that it is less concerned with empowerment and more focused on reflection. Demitri does not gain levels in the conventional sense; instead, his capabilities gradually diminish as the story advances. This design choice reshapes how players approach combat. Every battle carries weight, not because the hero is on the cusp of unlocking stronger abilities, but because resources and resilience are finite. The absence of traditional power escalation encourages careful planning and strategic thinking, reinforcing the narrative theme that time and vitality are slipping away. Combat unfolds through a turn-based system anchored …2 found this helpful
I have played this game 4 years ago and somehow made it to the end, but in trying again, I cannot run fast enough to get past the blocking black ghost, so uninstalling and moving on.1 found this helpful
really good bro keep going :)1 found this helpful
https://youtu.be/Tvp6XjAKBf0 Exploring a narrative hook for weakening hero over time has potential but the execution is far to frantic to give the idea space to breath.
I've always wanted a game with a mechanic where you get weaker / lose abilities as the game progresses. The opposite of how you'd expect things to work. What would be the story explanation for such a thing? This game takes that concept and runs with it. An aging hero brought back to save the world one more time. The stance system was pretty good and I'd like to see other games use a similar. As is a good excuse to try and avoid random battles. Making you question if opening a guarded treasure chest is worth it. This isn't the best game ever, but if you enjoy JRPGs it's worth a playthrough. Especially for the cheap price of $2.
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