Welcome back to your regularly-scheduled devlog. I hope you had a pleasant two weeks, and I hope you’re hankering for some crumbs of that sweet, sweet information.

INTERROGATION

This fortnight (contain your laughter, we’re all grownups), I submitted our Project Apparatchik Tina, as well as returning interviewee Sab, the Creator, to a grueling interrogation session concerning the differences between the pitch deck and the future mod. I hope this wordier-than-usual devlog will satisfy you knowledge gremlins, though I’ll still try to include an image or two if the art team doesn’t kick me out of their office with their spike-studded steel-toed boots.

Q : If you had to explain in a few words what you liked in the original pitch and what needed changing, what would you say?

Tina: We liked the vast majority of the original pitch, but incorporating it required us to turn DCA into a real character with an actual story to tell. The resulting narrative is a lot darker than the pitch might have led players to believe – it isn’t all fun and games and cocaine skulls and fucking the 2mm hole.

Sab: The original pitch was a very fun one. It followed many of the amazing and ridiculous tropes of the game, including and not limited to fucking the 2mm hole, but it spoke very little about the actual grounded experiences of the character. DCA felt like a perfect opportunity for another tragic telling of how it is to be at the edge of your own conscience, quite literally in this case.

Q : The pitch mentioned waking up next to a bucket of red paint and an oscillographic projector. Why have these elements been dropped?

Tina: They were hooks without a narrative behind them. In our original meetings, we considered methods for incorporating them, but ultimately, none of the solutions we imagined felt quite right. Eventually, ideas that can’t be incorporated are retired to our “Graveyard,” a folder we sometimes resurrect things from. The oscillographic projector remains there, but that doesn’t mean it will forever.

Sab: Quite frankly, there were a number of great ideas as to what should be the main plot/hook. That’s just yet another example of that. I feel like what we currently have is the most solid of the ideas so far.

Q : Of the proposed characters, new and returning, which have you decided to cut and which are you most impatient to revisit?

Tina: The pitched cast had a bit too much masculine energy, so we replaced the Hardie Boys. (That isn’t to say we absolutely won’t use them at all, but for now, they’re cut.) As a group, we’re all pretty excited about writing for George (Idiot Doom Spiral) and Rosemary. We like speculating about the dynamic between the Union of Moribund Alcoholics.

Sab: I wasn’t all that on board with bringing back the Insulindian Phasmid to begin with, I believe it served its purpose in DE and I don’t see much of a reason to bring it into DCA. That doesn’t mean the scene is going to be devoid of mysterious cryptids, though. Very excited for the hobocamp characters, so we can invoke a Three Stooges type thing.

Q : Which of the proposed tasklines seem to have the most potential, and what new tasklines could you tell our readers about?

Tina: Of the tasklines on the original pitch, our favorites get the most attention, which naturally results in them being better developed. To keep from spoiling anything, we will speak in vague terms. 

In this project’s entire history, not a single writer has even attempted to suggest cutting the Cocaine Skull taskline.

As for new tasklines, we have one that involves a snowman surprise that we’re particularly fond of. We’re making good use of the Business-Minded Individual and the Martinaise Ex-Patriot too, but we can’t say anything more at this time.

Studies of the Cocaine Skull. One of these is the website’s icon.

Q : What can you disclose concerning “Vaga-Bonds” and the Pharmaceutical disposition?

Tina: We changed the name of “Vaga-Bonds” several times, mostly because we kept having good ideas. At one point, they were Bumotypes, then Hobotypes, but those both felt too similar to Copotypes, so we settled on Trashologies. You can see some of their DNA in the original pitch, particularly for Alphabum and Saviorbum.

At current, Pharmaceutical Disposition is simmering on a backburner until we can discuss if and how we should incorporate it. I would love to, and I know exactly how we’d do it, but that’s a talk we’re going to have after the vertical slice releases.

Reader’s Questions

We only have a single question today, and honestly that’s pretty good, I’m not complaining at all. If you’re looking for an excuse to dust off the old email machine, you can suggest devlog ideas you’d like us to talk about by sending them to [email protected].

As always, do keep in mind any and all questions can be forwarded to the same address, should you want to hear the answers from me and the team on any subject, and an RSS feed is still available in the footer of our webpage to never miss an update.

Our sole question-asker today is Attila, returning from last time, who asks the following:

Q : Bro, like, I’m pretty confident in myself to assume that you wouldn’t be stupid enough to actually use AI, especially when it’s literally emulating the…Ríáz Móólá, who we all despise after the bitchass injunction he pulled against Argo and Dora. So I have to ask, how did the fuck you incur the wrath of god that you get accused of ai slop this early?

A : I thank you for your confidence in us not emulating the-one-who-shall-not-be-named-to-avoid-any-possible-litigation. I can confidently say we have managed to clear the astoundingly low bar of using zero generative AI in any area of the project, be it writing, code, art, or anything else, even for placeholders. Our code repository is public, and besides the little writing and art you can see in the devlogs, you’ll be able to see our work in the vertical slice and note the absence of generated slop in the finished product.

Our current placeholder texture, the brainchild of Sab.

Now that this baseless accusation based on a screenshot of a friend of the team who does not have repo access is taken care of, note that drama is broadly irrelevant for us – it’s no longer a skill in the game – so we haven’t gone for any Nilsenist-Mazovian grand purge of the discord, nor opened any top-secret channels, because we don’t have anything to hide besides spoilery stuff, and we’re no longer thirteen years old. Anyone in our server is welcome to snap and post all the out-of-context screenshots they like, we’ll work on the game all the same. 

The positive thinker in me sees this as an opportunity for transparency – if we do anything bad, you’ll instantly know about it.

PS: The team member who jokingly suggested downvoting a comment was promptly shot.

And that’s all for today. Tune your RSS readers on this here pale frequency in two weeks, for an exclusive look at more skills. In the meantime, pour yourself another cup of pristine, desired, exquisite and luxurious water.

Verbosely,
Skullhead McShay
Professional Goobster, Amateur Serious Person™.