Toilets, Meat, and Drugs Development Update

Sorry for the continued silence on this corner of the net. I am unable to work on my personal game projects at an ideal rate - my thesis and student development work continues to take priority - but some progress has been made! Character dialogue in Toilets, Meat, and Drugs is nearly complete. In fact, now whenever you flirt with characters in game, they'll say something cute! Or they'll reject your (probably) inappropriate advances.

Oh, and now when you take pills in the game, you'll hallucinate! I really want to drive home the negative aspects of drug/medication dependence in this game, and it was difficult to do that without adding an explicitly negative consequence to popping pills in game. Not only will hallucinations visually impair the player, but the longer you've been taking drugs in game, the longer the hallucinations last. I think the new feature makes the in-game decision to take drugs a lot more interesting, and adds a ton to the game's flavor.

I myself have had horrendous experience with ADD medication, and wanted to capture how awful that experience can be through a game. Being able to better explore themes of drug dependence, both recreational and otherwise, adds a greater degree of personal relevance to the game that makes it more engaging to me, and hopefully to others too.

I've only just now noticed how suggestive this screenshot is. Eh, the hallucination is randomly generated, what can you do?

I was worried for a long time about whether I was spending my time wisely continuing to work on Toilets Meat and Drugs - I've spent nearly nine months now on something that should have been a side project, and the jam version of the game was one of the most poorly received games I've made. I've spent a lot of time on a project that had a very real potential to be unenjoyable to a general audience, but now that I'm reaching the end of development, I think that the risk is going to pay off. The game has so much soul. If I were a video game, I would be Toilets, Meat, and Drugs.

I've pushed the expected release date to summertime. Sorry for making everyone's Christmas miserable by not releasing the game by then like I said I would. This year's Christmas will be better.