Toilets, Meat, and Drugs Update

 Alright, enough talking about politics for a while. Here's an update of Toilets, Meat, and Drugs.
I've recently figured out what the game really is about: a bizarre remix of stereotypical masculine and feminine styles, not only in terms of aesthetics, but in terms of game mechanics. While the combination of ugly monster and pink cutie aesthetics has been obvious for a while now, the combination of play styles has not. For example, if you want, you can play the game as your typical violent masculine power fantasy and kill everything. But the game's charming (or is it flirting?) and fleeing mechanics pose unusual alternatives to the traditional masculine play style, and don't only supplement the violent experience, but with adjustments I've made to the game, can now totally replace it. Instead of playing as a lethal force of dominance, you can play as a force of love, or as a victim of violence.

And, regardless of which path you choose, you still need to feed your character, take them to the toilet, and maintain their health. The game deliberately includes a return to the (usually) mundane, but relevant experiences, but it reminds us that those seemingly mundane needs can sometimes prompt memorable experiences.

I've always been disappointed by many open world games in that they don't let the player decide whether or not they'll be a killer, but rather what sort of killer they'll be. Toilets, Meat, and Drugs is a challenge to that. It's as though a mainstream shooter, an art game, and a social justice game got together and somehow made a super sexy baby. It's all of these games at once, or none of these games at once. It depends on how you play.

This means that it's either the sort of game that'll be enjoyed by everyone, or hated by everyone. I don't care. It's still a super sexy baby to me.



Now that I've realized that, I feel a lot better about making it. What started out as a Digimon World fan game (lame) has become something I feel proud of.

Now, here's some more technical notes:

• The final game will be renamed Toilets, Meat, and Drugs: A Pink Monster Story. I figured that the title should be at least somewhat reflective of the actual game.
• Expect a release in 1-2 months. I'm almost done improving the game's mechanics (I just threw in a reputation system that actually adds some depth to the previously underwhelming charm system). I just need to finish with the new levels, re-implement the story, and add music. 
• Expect actual NPCs that can talk to you.
• The new game world is nearly 3x the size of the old one. Complete playthroughs  of the game should take about 1-3 hours. For a game made by one person in a couple of months, I think this is pretty good! 

Just a pair of reminders of how gosh-darned complicated this game is.

Toilets, Meat, and Drugs Update, Waker and Void Hero Blues Non-Update

TM&D now has too many monsters. Up to 25 playable beasties:

You kind of have to view it full screen.

There's been a slew of tiny changes, the most significant of which is that NPCs now spawn, grow and evolve as the player grows. Not only does this mean that the game's difficulty automatically adjusts with the player's ability, but previously explored areas never grow dull and constantly change. It breathes a lot of fresh life into the game! The end game is pretty epic when a random assortment of miniature gods crawl across the landscape.

I'm also about halfway done with the new areas. The new game world will be over twice the size of the old one. I also only have 2 more new monsters to program. Once I'm done with both of those things, I just need to rework the story, update the tutorial, write the music, and finish the thing!

Then I'll get back to Waker and The Void Hero Blues. VHB needs to be done by December, so it'll take priority. I'll then focus all of my energy on Waker and try not to be diverted by any more side projects. When I started Waker, I didn't have very many quality games in my catalog, and I felt a need to flesh it out. While Empty Chambers is awfully pretty, and Digital Toilet World has it's charm, both are pretty tiny games, and don't really show off what I can do as a developer.

TM&D is the first mechanically rich game I've made in a long time, is pretty substantial in scope, and really rounds out my collection of work. As a matter of fact, it reminds me a lot of the games I made in my early adolescence. I honestly haven't made a (complete) game of such length, or with such a large world, since I was 14, nor have I found myself pouring so many hours into a game's development. The graphics are pretty shitty too, just as they were back then.

Making games with crude, minimalist, punk graphics is so liberating. Give it a shot.

But, yeah, after this, no more goddamn side projects. Starting next year, all Waker, all the time. Oh, I think Waker's second birthday was sometime last month. Shit. I feel pretty awful, I couldn't work on it at all this summer - by the time my broken wrist was pulled out of the cast, I had been totally derailed by TM&D. So, so sorry.

Toilets, Meat, and Drugs: Bug fixed!

Some of you who've been trying to play Toilets, Meat, and Drugs may know about a save bug in the game.  Basically, the game would be unable to save until after you close it for the first time. I am so relieved to say that I have finally fixed the bug.

Here's the technical explanation of what happened. When you save progress a video game, the game itself is unchanged. Instead, a separate data file is created that contains all of the relevant information, such as the player's status or location. While game developers usually create save scripts from scratch that target the information that needs to be saved and ignore the information that doesn't, Game Maker has a single function, game_save(), that automatically stores all information to a file. While this function is overkill and only recommended for beginners, it's really convenient to use for a jam game, when time is not a luxury.

The function has worked wonderfully in past experience, with older versions of Game Maker. But when Yoyo made the switch from Game Maker 8 to Game Maker Studio, the file directory system changed so that Game Maker games could be ported to platforms besides Windows. Which is great and all, except you don't get the benefits of this change unless you pay $100+ dollars for a professional license. The standard license, which I have, lets you port games to Mac, but that requires going through a holyshitton of hoops that I don't ever want to go through again.

Anyway, Game Maker Studio used to have the game_save() function removed altogether. It's since been added back in, but doesn't work as its supposed to with the new file directory system. Basically, the function doesn't actually create a directory in which to store save files until after you close the game for the first time! What the hell?!
 
What this means is that people who played Toilets, Meat, and Drugs for the first time would lose all of their progress upon dying or quitting the game. This is incredibly frustrating for the player, and even more embarrassing for me. I also wasn't able to detect the bug during development at all - the directory was created well before I even implemented the save system. It was a much unwanted surprise when I found out that I published a broken game!

Let me tell you, for a developer, there is no worse feeling than releasing a broken game. I would rather release a bad game than a broken one. I feel no shame about releasing games with crude, hastily draw, graphics, or a game with overly simplistic game play, or a game with missing music, or a game that I made in middle school. However rough these games are, they still have some sort of appeal, and, goddamnit, at least they work. Technical competency is the baseline, the absolute minimum standard a game must meet. Releasing a buggy game is like releasing a song recording that can only play through shitty laptop speakers - technical incompetence ruins the art.

I've been incredibly anxious over the past few days trying to figure out the cause and solution to this bug. Just this evening, after the deleting the game's directory and keeping an eye on Windows explorer as I played the game, I finally was able to identify the problem. Finally, by using a piece of code that creates an empty dummy folder when the game starts, I've tricked the game into actually creating the directory before the player closes the freakin' game. Cripes.

Fuck you, Game Maker. Fuck you. This extra stress was the last thing I needed.

But thanks for allowing me to create games for the past nine years.

Toilets, Meat, and Drugs is now available on itch.io and Gamejolt. And thanks to Warpdoor for featuring it on their site!

Monster Mash 2014: Final Entry

I need to sleep, so I'm not going to write another blurb about it, but it's worth noting that Toilets, Meat, and Drugs can now be downloaded for the ol' Windows PC.

Please don't be shy about feedback! I would love to hear your thoughts.
I'm so looking forward to playing the other Monster Mash entries this week!

Monster Mash 2014: Day 6

Aight, today I finally got to stop drawing and coding (mostly), and got to do sound and level design! And by some I mean all. All I need to do now is add some finishing touches, fix some bugs, and maybe try to cram in some of the Monster Mash 2014 multipliers.

Toilets, Meat, and Drugs is pretty huge for a jam game - it already has about a half hour of gameplay. It may suffer in presentation (breadth over depth, yaknow), but goddamn, I haven't enjoyed playing anything I've made this much in a long time. This is really the first time I've seriously focused on game mechanics over plot in, I dunno, six years? This thing is a hoot to play. Every play through I've done so far has had it's unique unexpected surprises.

Here's some screenshots of today's work.

D'aw, what a sweetie pie.

There are evolution sparkles!

Goddamnit, I swear I'm going to make a game without shooting one day.

Raccoon-dogs (?)

Bahahahahhaha

More evolution sparkles.
Sorry, I suppose "metamorphosis sparkles" is more correct.

I wish you could hear the game too - I had a lot of fun creating each monster's cry in bfxr. Especially for the lil' cyborg guys.

Monster Mash 2014: Midweek report

Development on my Monster Mash 2014 game is going slow, but amusingly. I'm thinking of renaming it from Pink Toilet World to Toilets, Meat, and Drugs. I've got most of the core mechanics down - eating, pooping, physical and mental health, items, and even farming.

I think this is shaping up to be the most mechanically driven game I've made in a while. Waker is all about art and story, Empty Chambers is about art and concept, and Digital Toilet World is about pooping. Toilets, Meat, and Drugs is all about exploration, choice, and survival. The game will take place in a small, but persistent world in which careless resource consumption and acts of destruction will punish the player in the long run. While this wasn't intended to be a political game, elements of environmentalism are managing to creep through in subtle ways, often via the mechanics. I've always been more of a "convey-da-thought-thru-da-plot" kind of guy, so engaging in "procedural rhetoric" is new and exciting for me.

Here's a dev screen - haven't gotten to world design yet. Just testing the items so, you know, items.

And here's the complete growth chart for the player monster. Couldn't resist objecthead:

Monster Mash 2014: Day 1

This week is Monster Mash 2014! It's a game jam in which you have seven days to make a game with a monster protagonist. I've been trying to release two games every year, and I just couldn't resist the jam's theme, so I'm entering.

If you're a close friend of mine, you might know that I have a bizarre obsession with Digimon. Yes, I'm talking about the children's Digital Monster franchise. I'm not sure what it is about it that keeps me replaying the old (mostly terrible) PSX games, rewatching the show with subtitles, and creating evolution charts.  Maybe it's because Bandai successfully brainwashed me when I was little. Maybe it's because Megadramon looks really freaking cool.

Also, can you say "rabbit-with-jeans-and-gattling-gun-hands?" Because whenever I try to say it out loud, all that comes out is, "hot damn! I would totally give up my dexterity to be that fashionable!"

In any case, Digimon is one of the reasons I started making games. Ever since I was 8, I've wanted to make a game with metamorphic fighting dinosaurs. Although I'm increasingly growing more interested in making more philosophical, political, and subversive games, the urge to make something stupid with fighting dinosaurs is still there. And I need to get it out of my system.

Hence, I'm entering the Monster Mash.

The game I've started working on today is currently called Pink Toilet World. It is the spiritual successor to Digital Toilet World. In it, you will play as a monster who will grow into many forms depending on your choices. You must find food, plant seeds, and avoid getting sick. You can befriend, escape, or kill other monsters. You must find toilets (although there will be more than one this time around!)

My right hand is still in a cast, and this is a jam game, so it's gonna look a little rough. I'm going for a cutie/pink aesthetic, even though the monsters will be a tiny bit ugly. I'm trying to find a way to justify the general immaturity of this project, so I've decided to use it to reject the gendering of colors. Pink is for everyone.  

Here's some monsters. You start as the little guy up top, and grow into one of the guys at the bottom:

Cheers!