In games, when we discuss a novel new gimmick that seems almost impossible at a technical level, the answer to the eternal question, “How’d they do that?”, is often simply, “It was a lot of work!”

If you’d like to see one example of this in its chrysalis stage, I strongly recommend you check out the new demo Damien Crawford just dropped, for a title they’re calling “I Have Low Stats But My Class is ‘Leader’, So I Recruited Everyone I Know to Fight the Dark Lord” (or IHLSBMCILSIREIKTFTDL for short).

The premise is self-evident from a single screenshot (something a lot of indie developers would kill for):

It’s a turn-based RPG where you have 99 party characters.

AT ONCE.

If that plus the above screenshot don’t instantly make you freak the hell out, then I just, like, don’t even GET you.

You can download the demo here. And if you dig it as much as I do, be sure to drop Damien a couple bucks! They’re going through some stuff right now, and speaking as someone who merely does gamedev 9-to-5: making cool shit is a hard enough job when it’s stable, let alone when it’s not.