I’m slaving away at my new game Truth, Justice and Spandex, and I’ve come to the point where it’s…playable. Not just “I can start the different puzzles and finish them,” but more along the lines of “if I just get some more art and make some sound effects I’ll have a working demo that I can release to get feedback.” In fact, the programming and game design is starting to look pretty okay, so I’m concentrating on writing dialogue for the first episode, Cometh a Hero. In fact, I just finished a little exchange that will occur when you beat the first “boss”:

PLAYER: Take that, you vile miscreants! Prepare to do some heavy time.
THE HEAVY MOB: Oh man! Not again… We just got out two weeks ago!
THE HEAVY MOB: Maybe crime doesn’t pay after all…
PLAYER: You can say that again!
THE HEAVY MOB: Maybe crime doesn’t-
PLAYER: Don’t.
PLAYER: Off to the slammer you go!
PLAYER: Well, that’s that!
PLAYER: I have a feeling that Vigilance Valley will be a quiet and peaceful place now!
NARRATOR: Unfortunately, our hero is a lousy fortune teller.

I know, I know – I’m no Oscar Wilde. But in all honesty I’m not trying to be; in fact, I’m outright stealing ideas and clichés! Can you spot the Bananaman references, for example? Or the joke stolen from Dragon Half? The game will be riddled with subtle and not-so-subtle hints at various comics and superheroes, and in order to make it work I’m trying to make the game – and its story – highly clichéd and tongue in cheek. I hope that people will appreciate a dry, mellow kind of humour along these lines.

…And I hope that the clichés won’t merely be seen as clichés due to lack of interest/innovation.

Speaking of superheroes and clichés, if anyone hasn’t read Ruben Bolling’s amazingly awesome God-Man, go do so right now! Go here for a brilliant example of the comic, or check out the fan archive here. God-Man is an omnipotent superhero…which of course renders him invulnerable to every threat, and capable of anything. The comic is an obvious caricature of Superman at the height of his powers, but also takes a swing at just about everything it can.

Go read it now! I promise that you won’t be disappointed, or my name isn’t Nietzsche-Lad!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Indie Games, Spandex Force. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.