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Heather Flowers had a busy 2018. Early within the 12 months she teamed up with Ryan Rose Aceae to launch the good Genderwrecked after which in a while she launched her episodic tour de power Excessive Meatpunks Without end. This to say nothing of the smaller initiatives she additionally discovered the time to make and launch final 12 months. We’ve talked about Heather’s work earlier than on the weblog, however we’ve by no means talked to the dev herself. That’s, till now. Heather was form sufficient to reply a few of our questions on Excessive Meatpunks Without end now that the finale has been out for a number of months. Learn on for Heather’s ideas on working episodically, expertise made out of meat, and what’s subsequent for the Meatpunk universe.
Let’s begin with the fundamentals: Who’re you and what’s Excessive Meatpunks Without end?
My title is Heather Flowers. I am an impartial recreation developer from Oklahoma. One time an previous man taught me how you can struggle wild canines in an alleyway. Excessive Meatpunks Without end is a visible novel/mech brawler about homosexual disasters beating up neonazis in large robots product of meat. It is set on this alternate universe model of the American Southwest known as the Hellzone, the place most expertise is made out of meat. I’ve seen some individuals name the world of Meatpunks a dystopia, or post-apocalyptic, and I do not really feel that is fairly correct. If that is the way you want to learn it, then it is a legitimate studying, however the function of that world is to be simply as dangerous as our world, however in far more apparent methods.
You initially launched Excessive Meatpunks Without end with two episodes and have subsequently added 4 extra. What’s it been like working in an episodic mannequin?
Episodic fashions are tough to get proper, particularly as an impartial developer. I am glad I made a decision to go for it, because it offered a large amount of neighborhood engagement over the course of the sport. Moreover, the episodic mannequin supplies a built-in construction: you instantly know roughly how a lot content material you want to put in a given episode to make it work. Every customary episode takes roughly a month to make (the finale took two and a half months simply due to all the brand new characters and mechanics it provides in), so it is undoubtedly a whole lot of work, however I personally really feel prefer it’s a rewarding mannequin for a recreation like this, the place neighborhood engagement is extraordinarily essential.
What made you need to inform this story episodically?
It was, admittedly, at first an experiment. There are only a few indie episodic video games, and most of them put out an episode each few months moderately than each couple weeks. As soon as I bought going, although, I discovered it to be an excellent construction for telling an extended story. After making the choice to make the sport episodic, I wrote up a doc detailing the complete six-episode plot arc of Season 1 inside a pair days, and was capable of follow that actual design doc’s manifest for the complete size of the sport. Splitting the sport into episodes allowed me to focus intently on one episode, then the following, and so forth. So one large initiatives grew to become, in a way, six a lot smaller ones, which is a distinction my mind likes very a lot.
Along with making the Meatpunks recreation, you wrote a Meatpunk Manifesto. How does your worldview inform the manifesto, and the way did that translate into the sport?
My worldview is actually this: the world is in a really dangerous place proper now (what with world warming, imperialism, the ever-strangling vampiric hand of capitalism) and lots of days it is a battle to even survive. It is very straightforward to really feel hopeless, and that is an comprehensible feeling, however we are able to by no means cease preventing for what is true. It would not matter whether or not we “win” in the long run, as that is out of our particular person palms. What’s essential is that, it doesn’t matter what, we by no means cease preventing to do good. The rationale I made the Meatpunk Manifesto is as a result of I might grow to be pissed off with style actions resembling cyberpunk through which defeatism performs a large half: saying that the world is horrible due to these large firms, and that we are able to survive, however making an attempt to struggle is pointless as a result of we’re like bugs beneath their ft. They neglect how terrifying a swarm of bugs could be in the event that they’re unified in the direction of a singular purpose. The manifesto was a mission assertion for the sport: what I used to be going to check out, the aesthetics I deliberate on incorporating, what I felt was moral observe for recreation growth.
You’ve teased on Twitter that there’s extra Meatpunk motion coming in some unspecified time in the future. Do you could have any thought what that’s going to seem like?
Completely! I am unable to spoil EVERYTHING down the road, however I’ll say this. EXTREME MEATPUNKS FOREVER: Season 2: Sure By Ash is at present in pre-production, with a deliberate Kickstarter launch early this summer time. It follows our heroes from Season 1 as they journey via the bloody mountains of Rozarx, assembly previous buddies and new enemies on their quest to steal the solar. Moreover, I’m engaged on a Meatpunks tabletop role-playing recreation, a Meatpunks comedian (set within the ghost-ridden panorama of Twister Valley), and some different bits and items I feel individuals down the road are going to get pleasure from. I actually love this universe, and I need to spend as a lot time creating in it as attainable, plumbing its depths.
Lastly, do you could have a favourite character?
Oof, a troublesome one to wrap all of it up!! Out of all characters, I actually like Emily, the eldritch horror teen fuel station employee. She has a whole lot of persona within the quick period of time she’s onscreen, and when her scene ended I *actually* needed to only hold her as a part of the principle solid, however I’ve different plans for her. Out of the principle solid, I’ve to go along with Sam. He is so regular and so bizarre on the identical time! I really like writing him.
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