Humor and Apocalypse Cow
One of the lessons I learned from Void War (too late, unfortunately), is that video game humor needs to be pretty broad. Subtle, tongue-in-cheek humor has its place, but the designer needs to assume that the average player won't "get it." It's hard to convey that in a game, when the player is more concerned about their own interactions. And maybe I just wasn't as funny as I thought. As a comedian, I'm a pretty good programmer, I guess.

But I keep trying. Because I'm stupid that way. Apocalypse Cow is definitely more broad in its humor. I mean, come on, it's got EXPLODING COWS! And groan-inducing puns! What's not to like? Well, a lot, potentially, depending upon how horribly I screw it up.

Fortunately, the artist I'm working with is absolutely brilliant and has packed tons of humor into even his concept sketches, really capturing the flavor of the game that I'm hoping to achieve. I thought I'd share a couple of these here, because I think they rock. Now, these are very rough sketches - so in fairness to him, I'll also post a link to his finished 2D art for the game that I posted up during the summer.

Progress on the game is slow, though I hope to have all the levels "feature complete" within about three more weeks. They are still filled with awful stand-in programmer art which I'll be gradually swapping out as content gets complete. At this point, I can't offer an ETA, as I've blown my own deadlines already and I'm re-calculating schedule right now. Originally, this was going to be a "quick and dirty" game, but I found myself loving the project too much, and found myself really expanding the interactions and challenges. That means a lot more custom code (and new content). And lots more opportunities to totally ruin the game!

But I'm having a lot of fun with it. Which I may use to console myself when the game bombs and I'm mocked by indie developers and gamers alike across the entire world. But I've been there, and done that. But at least it'll have some awesome art.

Labels: Apocalypse Cow

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:31 AM (Permalink)