thispolo devlog

development blog for everything related to thispolo and their games. you can find out more at our website here: https://www.thispolo.co.uk/

[thispolo]

Tags Galore

Here's a couple of tags that'll be useful for sorting our stuff:

#devlog - Regular updates about development and all the fun that entails, hopefully every Monday. May include videos, who knows.

#announcement - Big boi posts, such as new content for people to play.

#music - Posts tailored to any original music that we make.

#musings - For thoughts & feelings surrounding game design, the world, and pigeons (are they even real?)

[scootyin2d]

🎷Wrote BGM without permission 🎷

not too long ago I was looking for new music commissions. but everyone thinks i'm exclusively a chiptune composer cuz people only really know me from OneBit.

so i stole footage from Lelu and wrote some alternative music i felt would go with it. went with something old timey

(the game is called Lelu, check it out on Steam)

[thispolo]

Something different this time! This is the protagonist for a future game idea titled Strangegame, or: The Greatest Game I'll Never Make. A foreboding twist on the JRPG genre.

It is a story about orphan children defying the fate given to them. The protagonist will be fully customisable but your back story is always the same:

You are about 13 yrs old and a recent orphan. Your home life before being thrown into the foster system was an unhappy one but you persevered in spite of this. Now cast into an strange and foreign world, you struggle to make new friends, but continue to refuse the fate society has laid before you.

Hope you like it!

[professor-ketanami]

Busy as hell schedule this week, but I really want to celebrate reaching affiliate!!! Tuesday + Saturday will be a shorter stream, but Wednesday, join me for both celebration and discussing future plans for the channel!

[thispolo]

Something Wicked This Way Comes...

Hi all! Going to start shifting these posts to start talking about the new game project we've been working on, including fascinating stuff concerning game engine work and how to approach engineering of these complex systems in a slightly different way than you might otherwise see out there in the wild.

For now, I thought I would show off screenshots from the Printersim nightmares, cus they're horrifying neat!

"At the ends of the Earth, we were promised..."

"That we must only give them our focus..."

"That we must only give them our time..."

"That we must only give them our understanding..."

"That we were gifted the placement of our feet on this Earth..."

"To be a cog in their machine and nothing more, fit only for rust."

All fun and games from this game about printing a report off for work.

Keep fighting the good fight. Keep being original. Keeping making what you love - peace.

[thispolo]

Life, uh, finds a way... to get in the way!

Oh boy, it's been an age, huh? Life does what it does best which is that it does do things that get in the way of doing things.

Also, I realised what I wanted to talk about... REPORTS!.. In Printersim. Mostly because I think it's some of the funniest writing in the game.

So, in the game, you have to print off a report. If you don't do it in time, you lose everything. No surprise there, huh? Welcome to the rat race, friends. To do so, you use your trusty EasyPrint 3000:

Look, I won't bore you with the details on how to actually print stuff off at least not in the way you can bore your hand off trying to open a cartridge package. The important thing is you CAN print, if you so wish (the game has multiple endings, go figure). So, once you've done the necessessessaries and got your printer ready, then it's time to hit that print button.

Oh yes, there's even a computer with applications on it. Wild, huh? It's like we couldn't stop scoping things until we could scope no more. It's good though, I wouldn't have the game any other way. Really makes it feel unique... Anyway, you print and... BOOM!

Our very first report page. Yetp, this is it. This is what LIFE is all about: tiger teaming, periscoping, global assessments, vis-a-vis.

You can keep printing, actually. There's a total of 60 pages in the game (I would like to add an update to the game at some point where you can easily read the report once you complete the game, because it's fun to read). You can keep going and read even MORE pages:

That's page 6. As you can tell, we know everything there is to know about Report Printing. Let's continue!

FUCK!!! :D

[thispolo]

Life

Oh boy, it sure is there. But as life ticks on, so does Gamedev... Slowly and silently. It's there, hidden amongst the trees like a sad stick bug. Secretly... it scuttling within the walls of our homes. Lurking just beyond our reach, beyond our limit of perception, cast in a veil of atomic soup our brains fail to comprehend.

That's life. That's ~*gamedev*~.

Oh, and I finally got around to consolidating all of my raw devlog footage onto our main channel, check it out:

It's about Postsim - a sequel to that other game I keep mentioning about printing or whatever.

[thispolo]

A Deep And Troubling Deception...

Food. We all cook it, eat it, and know it. OR DO WE?

Allow me to observe the various delicacies in my reverse-engine (fridge):

Yes, D E A R R E A D E R, this game has food! Beautiful pixellated food - just the way mother used to make. We have:

Eggs;

Lettuce;

Eggs;

Milk;

Eggs;

Sausage;

Butter;

Eggs;

And so much more.

Eggs;

There's actually a little known fact about how food works in this game... When you find yourself frustrated following the selling, flogging, trading, transferring, and auctioning of your Prized Family Heirlooms or your "Print-U-Save Patented Ultra-Thick Pile floor Carpets [so thick you can't get the fucking food out] For The Home (TM)", like so:

Then just go rub-a-dub-dub some food on your damn face, oh boy!!!

~becomes~

Look at that! Way less angry. So good... don't worry about the fact you sold Great Aunt Gladice's 400 year old pocket watch. No. Don't worry about it. Silence now. Shh. SshhSsshhh..

-OKAY-

There's actually an even greater secret hidden behind this thin veil of pixels and code. And that secret sits right within 300 MHz and 300 GHz -- I'm talking microwaves, baaaabbbbbyyyyyy.

I just put some eggs in the microwave. Then, check this out. I can close the microwave (I know) and cook the eggs.

And... unsurprisingly (or perhaps, surprisingly for those that don't know, never microwave eggs like this. Not even joking):

We get a friend fried egg. Once again, how the character speaks and describes things is tired entirely to his rage...

Hey, you know what would be funny? Let's microwave those potato chips (or crisps for my UK readers). That'll be hilarious. Maybe they'll explode. Who knows? That's the great thing about this microwave that is definitely a microwave, it definitely microwaves things. Okay, let's see what we get...

I am now blasting the chips... annd....

What the FUCK!!!

[thispolo]

I love writing!!! And making games.

*whispers* Psst, come closer. Yeah, you... I'm talkin' to you. Wanna know a cool little secret? Okay. Get this: you can't whisper in text.

My penchant for non-sequiturs aside HOYL FUCK IS THAT THE GAME I MADE?

Yeah, yeah it is.

Let's talk puzzles. I dunno about you, mysterious reader, but I love them. Puzzles that is. Some would say I am a puzzle game fanatic. So much so, I'm not allowed in board game shops because I kept eating the pieces.

In Printersim, there are many puzzles of the point-and-click variety. Rub thing on thing. Click thing to get thing. Wrangle a hypnotised monkey into a wrench. You know, the classics. For example, how the shit do you get these scissors down?

They don't seem too high so in theory you can just pick them up. Let's give that a go.

Oh. Great. How come they're in ceiling in the first place? Did Michael Jordon try to cut some paper by executing his wonton desire for the sickest slam dunks? Me too buddy, me too... Literally all the time. I'm great at ballbasket.

Okay, so, we have a variety ways to knock them down. Enter my one of favourite mechanics (another design choice we chose early on):

~Multiple Puzzle Solutions~

I am a big fan of this. It is however, a double edged dildo: if you're not careful it can sometimes feel like you're brute forcing it in and after a much needed trip to the ER, no one is very happy. Multiple puzzle solutions need to feel like solutions.

So how would you solve it, Dear ReadeTHE ANSWER IS YOU KNOCK IT THE FUCK DOWN WITH LONG SHIT.

The power of the hat stand, babbyyyy. Let's go solve some more puzzles!!!

Did you know this game has a Printer in it? I know, calm down. Before you can print anything off you need ink cartridges. So, you go grab that them bad boi from the local Print-U-Save (for all your printing needs).

Oh boy!!! Let's add them to the printer!!!

Oh fuck!!! Why would anyone do this to me!!!

Now, I leave this to you

~Dear Reader~

how do you get the cartridges out of the pacTHE ANSWER IS YOU GO GET SOMETHING MEGA SHARP AND OPEN IT THE FUCK UP.

tHEN YOU use your Kitchen Axe on your cartidges

just drag that axe on the packet

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[thispolo]

This man became a sell-out and with these 5 tricks you can too!

Oh.... DAMN! Do you own things? I sure do. If there's anything I love doing, it's owning stuff. I can put it on my shelves, I can wear it on my body, I can shove it in my mouth hole. Boy howdy, do sure love owning things.

But you know what I love more than owning things? It's selling my shit for cold hard cash baby using my very own Moneybin!!!

Don't be deceived, dear reader, I am not throwing my items in the trash can. No. I am throwing them in the Cash Can, because this puppy literally prints money. More than my printer prints at least.

See? Do you see?! I can get $12 for my umbrella wait whAT YOU'VE GOT TO BE SHITTING IN MY FACE. I BOUGHT THIS PREMIUM BUSINESS (100% polyester) UMBRELLA FOR $98 YOU ABSOLUTE DAYLIGHT FU-

So... in Printersim, you can sell stuff. Cool huh?

But even cooler is the fact that we made the very deliberate design choice early on that you can sell *everything*. And we do mean, *everything*. It also wasn't a headache to get working -- fancy that!

Look, I sold the printer and all I got for it was this lousy ennui.

This makes the game unwinnable. Yes, you have to go and buy it back if you wish to win. No, the only thing you gain from doing this is -$99 in your bank account. Cool.

Actually, there's some interesting puzzles that emerge from picking stuff up and selling it. For example, some things hide other things. Behind your wardrobe, you find the coffee bag you stored in your dry wall that you kept in case of "emergencies".

Talk about relatable. But it doesn't stop there.

The oceans of insanity are a frontier few choose to tread while your character on the other hand has decided to go skinny dipping.

And boy howdy, he's not stopping any time soon. As you can see, he has sold most of his stuff and even solved the most notorious puzzle in the game.

But guess what, ~*DEAR READER*~, you can keep going. You can keep. selling. your. stuff.

Some things are not so easily removed. You actually have to go and find a screwdriver and a chair if you want to remove those hard-to-reach places.

Once you get these items, you can remove lights, you can remove shelves, you can remove your hands, you can remove your fridge, and you can even remove-

Oh.

[thispolo]

A game about making friends

Remember when I said that this game (the one I made, you can find it by checking my blog description), has a lot of dialogue in it. Well, it does. Loads. So much so, you can actually speak to people in it. Boy howdy!!

This is the store clerk. He clerks stores. He doesn't seem to have a name and his name tag is blank, so go figure. He's not important anyway, he just exists for you to buy your sweet sweet printing products. Mmmm, ink.

You get amazing dialogue such as this one all the while the same beautifully disgusting shop tune plays. Over. And over...

Oh and you actually get dialogue options. Yep, you heard me. For the first time ever, this game has DIALOGUE TREES!!!

You can try and have small talk with him. It's great. But, ultimately, he doesn't seem all too impressed...

Man, what an asshole! Here I am, expecting him to serve me and when I try to break the thick consumer-retailer atmosphere, I'm met with a blunt response. You should meet me with a smile and excitement the customer is always right and always show me your happy side because *I* had to travel here on MY time to get MY printing products for MY report because the customer is always right you should be happy dammit! If I wasn't here spending my hard earned cash then you wouldn't even have a job that you could to sell your body to the customer is always right in the first place. How entitled are you with your grumpy face looking like I am the 1000th person you've seen today making small talk with you. Well guess what buddy, you should be thankful I'm even trying to talk and treat you more the customer is always right than the wage slave you actually are!!!

Oh, my bad. Sorry...

...

So... there's another cool feature in the game where you can give the Shop Clerk items (don't give him fire). Here, let me give him my umbrella.

Oh wow! Custom dialogue for (nearly) every item. You can do this with most things (don't give him fire).

The game will prompt you in several ways after completing certain events that the Printerman is perhaps into making music. He also likes reading. You can actually give him a book, and he finds it surprising that you Do Actually Care (don't give him fire).

God knows why he's so surprised to find a book he's never read before and definitely has nothing to do with the gross amounts of lore and intrigue around this character (don't give him fire). None whatsoever. Nothing. Nada.

In completing this quest, you eventually get the gayest cutscene in the game.

Bye.

[acornbringer]

I just shared a video montage showing off some of the new mechanics and areas I have been working on these past few months.

It's visible for free members and patrons alike so go have a look! Link in my bio✨

[thispolo]

yo, this looks very cool

[beekeeperspicnic]

Behold! An unexpected teaser trailer for my cosy Sherlock Holmes point and click game The Beekeeper's Picnic

I made this (...very quickly) for a fun event originating on BlueSky called The Game Awards for Games Who Can't Afford the Game Awards, but since it's over now I thought I'd release it here!

I've got a longer and more polished release trailer in the works, but for now enjoy this!

Wishlist on Steam | Itch.io Demo | Discord |

[thispolo]

Love the art, wow :o

[thispolo]

Oh boy here I go again!!!

I still have too much to talk about. And no, I'm not stopping. And also no, I don't know why we have two hands.

Anyway, indie games, I make 'em and I did indeed make a game about a Printer and Printing. This time, I wanna talk about E M A I L (I'm building up to the pièce de résistance don't you worry).

So, in this game there's also an e-mail functionality. Unfortunately, you cannot reply to emails because I didn't want to remain in code-hell and conceptual-hell forever. I will, however, continue to stay in funky-hell.

I should mention that the driving design philosophy behind this game was akin to "you can do that in the real world, so you should be able to do it here" with no desire to scope any of this down. I both love that the game defies convention in this way and doesn't attempt to artificially extend replayability through fucking skill trees.

You can also receive email. Check this out:

How cool is that!! Words!!! The email reads, in full:

"Hey all, Hope you enjoyed the office party last Friday. Was great to see Jeff from accounting off, and we wish him well. We're sure he'll do well in human resources. Kind regards, Paul Bateman"

Enlightening. Trust me, the writing doesn't get better than this. It was only years later I would realise this is actually how people speak to one another in offices. All artifice, no juice.

People even reply to one another, mainly to give the game a little bit more colour. Make it feel real, y'know. That kinda thing.

A mechanic such as this was only possible through massive algorithmic break-throughs -- the likes of which would make Mark Zuckerberg say something like "Oh, Fuckerberg!" -- allowing the literal emulation of the human brain to be captured at the software level and definitely is not scripted or anything like that. I'm also keeping it to myself.

Of course, anyone with e-mail also knows that with great power comes great capacity for one's spam folder. Here, you can actually say yes and waste invest $100. Neat.

There's a lot more to this mechanic which I could continue to harp on about and I will. There's puzzles. Extended lore dumps. Funny interactions. Eradication of employees. Standard office talk. You'll have to play the game to see all of them.

Maybe you'll even win a pet... rock?

[frank-game]

We made a font for our game, it's called FrankBit UI!

It's released under an Open Font License, and it's downloadable for free on Fontstruct. Just make sure to download it as a TrueType Font and not an OpenType Font so it doesn't smush.

Cheers!

[thispolo]

I like cats and I like fonts. Sign me up!

[thispolo]

Text omnomnom

There's a lot of text in this game. I forget how many words, but too many. You can find text through items, dreams, events, interactions, and email. You can even find text... in YOU.

Most of it was written over the course of ten years. As such, some parts of it are better written than others. You can actually right-click to get some flavour text on every item.

Mmm, flavour. For example, you get text for your priceless antique grandfather clock (don't sell it, ok). You can even right-click again and get even MORE flavour text.

Fuck yes, flavour text is at the lifeblood of all point-and-click adventure games. Without it, there would be no "Ask me about Loom".

But wait, there's more! There's a rage mechanic in the game, which you get when you sell things. Sell enough, your Rage hits a point where the text *changes*.

Oh *boy*, I love it when the text changes. This is my favourite part. The character stops being enthusiastic, and starts being a bit more curt. Less put-together. More splayed out like an angry rug.

If you keep pushing your character to the brink (you do this by selling stuff (seriously, don't sell the fucking clock, ok)) then the text changes even further.

Oh my yes. Here, we've hit the pinnacle of writing in the game. I am also 5 years old. At this point, the character has disregarded all the fakery of appearing like a sound member of society. The gears of abject misery have ground him down and now, after being forced to sell everything he loves, he finally has to confront the reality of the situation. He is a sellout, both in body and in soul. He probably doesn't even care about flavour text either.

Also, it's some of the funniest dialogue in the game.

And yes, I wrote a lot of it. And no, I don't know what that means for me when I'm writing stuff like "LET ME INSIDE YOU" about bedside cabinets. It's best you don't try to work it out, either.

AND DON'T SELL THE GOD DAMN GRANDFATHER COCK AAAA

[thispolo]

Yet Another Post

F U G time to give this another go.

Okay, one other thing in that aforementioned game that I really like - there's a working music player.

The amount of effort to get this in was grossly disproportionate to any sort of benefit it provided. It was a glorified soundtrack-machine.

And it was entirely worth it.

It gives the game a bit more of an identity that's its own. In fact, we liked it so much, we made it necessary to winning the game (sort of) - it causes you to gain less rage while its on. So, uh, I guess in the end it did provide a lot of benefit.

This also meant we could now force the player down a grueling Easter-Egg hunt if they didn't want to lose. The sort of hunt that makes you feel alive as you smell your monitor. The sort of hunt that forces you to sell your bed. You know, the good things in life.

Actually, dare I say this was one of those additions that gave the character a bit more personality, where previously there was none, as we were now forced to explain why they owned a music player.

A PerfEctlY NormAL HumAN and theEir MuSiC PlayER

(I should mention that the soundtrack is entirely original and written by a friend and myself).