Hey there!
We hope you've been keeping safe, well, and happy in a year that becomes more demanding and unusual with each and every passing day. While we can't do much to help, we hope that our new puzzle / tower defence game Rip Them Off will provide some fun, lighthearted relief to you and your friends.
Speaking of lighthearted relief, what are your thoughts on that there CAPITALISM?!
Of course, Rip Them Off features a healthy dose of satire on the subject, with the overbearing "Board" demanding that you rip off the keen shoppers (or "Dupes") as much as you possibly can. Now, we've had a few questions from the community in the last few days wondering where the idea for the capitalism satire theme in Rip Them Off came from — so we thought we'd answer a few of them here today!
*For full disclosure, this Q&A was answered by Ava and Mat of Lozange Lab only - there was categorically no input from any "Board" or "Board"-like entity that would call into question the validity of the following answers.
*Ahem*
Right then...
Did Rip Them Off always feature the capitalism satire angle?
We didn't start development by saying "hey, let's make a capitalist satire game". The starting point was these little Lemmings-like characters moving forwards on every street, then finally invading the whole city in a very chaotic way.
Then came the idea of having them enter and leave different shops in their path, and after many different ideas and iteration, the satirical angle surfaced. We decided to accentuate this angle, and Rik, who worked on the texts, seemed to have a lot of fun writing the tongue-in-cheek sentences when we approached him with this idea.
What was the primary inspiration for the satirical theme?
As our prototype was evolving, we had to take a step back to the basic concept of a flow of people walking in the streets, and the idea of "people selling useless items for other people to happily buy them" naturally came about. We found that it was giving an interesting angle to the game, and brings a lot of funny elements to the game.
We think it's quite fun to have business-oriented vocabulary in the game, with these notions of profits, expectations and milestones, all treated with a tongue-in-cheek tone of course!
Whose side should we be on, The Board or the Dupes?
We're going to let everyone have their own opinion on that once they play the game in September! ;)
Rip Them Off raises a few questions, though. Do you really need to always win more money? Do you really need to defend these big corporations? Do you really need to buy all these items? Why do people follow a trend? We don't want to make the player think too much, or feel uneasy about it, it's all suggested with a humorous and light tone.
Also, as it’s a game with a lot of trials and errors, we decided that losing should be treated in a light and funny manner too. That’s why, in addition to the miffed message from The Board when you don’t meet the profit objectives, we added cute minimalist scenes saying "on the bright side The Dupes seems happy and free from their shopping obsession…for now!".
Don't tell The Board, but from the very start we were emotionally attached to the little characters, we were on their side and didn’t want them to be seen as the waves of enemies in more traditional tower defense games.
If there was a message that you wanted to send with the satirical nature of Rip Them Off, what would it be?
Isn't having fun more important than having more and more money?
Rip Them Off is not intended to have a strong ethical message, our goals with the capitalism satire elements is mostly just to make the player smile!
We do love the contrasting, but always very serious messages from The Board when you win or lose in the game though. Losing money is catastrophic for them, but they couldn't care less about the Dupes. Perhaps we can encourage players to think about the way economics work, and hopefully by presenting this different perspective, make them feel empathy for the Dupes.
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So there you have it. Asked and answered and The Board still have no idea we were talking to you...
In all seriousness, thank you for your interest in Rip Them Off, and if you haven't already, please do add the game to your Wishlist on this very page - just there on the top right! Wishlisting our game is so helpful to us, and will allow our hard work to be seen by so many more people, which in turn means we'll be able to keep making games that we know you'll fall in love with.
Thank you, and stay safe.
Ava and Mat x
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