Inspiration for the Game
Hello there Introverts! In today’s Devlog we would like to talk about our Inspiration for the game! We will reveal our ideas and thoughts from the beginning of our development phase.
The inspiration came from the fact that extroverts and introverts are different, and we wanted to do something that celebrated that difference!
The introvert being the protagonist felt natural to a platformer, as we kinda had two ways we could’ve gone: a Pokemon-style turn-based battle collector where you collect introverts and force them to talk to each other, or this. This made sense to make first, but hopefully, we’ll get to do the other one in the future!
We wanted to create a funny game where you laugh with each other, not at others. It was important for us that the introverts, and the extroverts, were equal amounts of silly in their own ways. During development, we intentionally avoided words like “enemies,” in regards to the extroverts, as they’re not your enemy - they just like talking to people!
For us, the humor lies in the ridiculous lengths the introvert goes to avoid conversations with people, and the wild abilities of the extroverts. Obviously, the introvert will feel a bit more sympathetic, being the main character, but we’ve tried to dish out the silliness as even-handedly as we could!
In terms of graphics - We aimed to evoke the nostalgic feeling of Saturday mornings when we spent all our time watching cartoons. The idea was to create an experience where players could relieve those carefree moments with the sense of a new adventure in each chapter. We also were super happy to be able to get inspiration from the amazing artists who worked on the 90s animated shows.
About the story - We always knew we wanted to do a story about differences, and learning to understand and celebrate those differences. As stated, we wanted to create something that laughed with introverts and extroverts, not at anyone in particular.
With the “Saturday morning cartoon show” angle developing in the art style, it began bleeding into how we were thinking about the game as a whole. Since the game is all about differences, and learning to accept and celebrate those differences, we wanted to give you friends with their own differences and struggles, who could work as anchoring points for our themes.
We also wanted to do something that reminded us of being idiots in high school and wanted to try and capture that within the “cartoon show” boundaries we’d set for ourselves. We didn’t want to portray a party-filled, “adult” idealization of teenager-dom, but we also didn’t want to make them needlessly toothless. So, our characters commit petty crimes, joke about firebombing stuff, and mostly just hang out and play video games.
Thank you for your time, we hope that you have a lot of fun learning about our inspiration for the game!
See you in the next Devlog!