Grumpy Gamer

Who doesn’t enjoy a good history lesson? I know I do. Oh please let there be a test at the end.

Let me take you back to 2018. We had just released Thimbleweed Park, finished all the ports, done an update, and I am thinking about something new.

I was regularly going to Daniel Cook’s Seattle prototyping meet-up and trying to come with a new game to show every two weeks. It was my personal game jam.

I created a lot of odd games, one was a huge multi-screen breakout game, the other was a narrative game about someone being lost in a cave. The cave was procedurally generated and there was literately no way out. It also included a procedural swearing engine.

I was also working on a little top down pixel art rpg game, but is was missing something. I went dinner with some other game designers at PAX that year and buried in a conversation someone said something to how they try and come up with wacky ideas for their new games.

The next morning I woke thinking about the screen always scrolling, never stopping and the player needs to keep up. I hurriedly made those changes but it still didn’t feel right.

Trying to aim and run while the screen scrolled felt like cognitive overload. I switched it so the firing and targeting was all automatic and the player just had to run, avoid enemies, and grab things for upgrades.

There was a frantic energy to the game. The perfect party or steaming game.

I finished up the prototype and took it to the prototyping meet-up and it was a big hit. Lots of laughing as the death was narrowly avoided and the screen never stopped moving.

I was feeling pretty good about the game and decided to move it from a prototype to a real game. I knew I needed an artist but didn’t have the money to afford one.

By pure coincidence I was talking to a new steam-like platform just coming on a scene about Thimbleweed Park and figured I’d ask about this game. I put together a quick video and a pitch email.

You can see the video below.

To my surprise they said yes, gave me some money and I was off.

Side note: I recently did an interview for Death by Scrolling and they wanted to know if I was inspired to make Death by Scrolling after playing Vampire Survivors. Except for the auto-fire this game isn’t much like Vampire Survivors and I have to been working on it since 2018. So… I love Vampire Survivors, but no.

I worked on the game for about 9 months and really struggled with progression. The core game was still a lot of fun but everything I put onto it to make it a deeper game wasn’t working.

It was round this time that the possibility to make Return to Monkey Island came up and it seemed like an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

I was struggling with the game I called simply called “Runner” and it made sense to returned the money I had taken and move to Return to Monkey Island.

I took all the engine improvements Derek and I had made and built Delores in prep for Return to Monkey Island all based on the Runner engine (but without the tile rendering).

«INSERT MAKING RETURN TO MONKEY ISLAND MONTAGE HERE»

Return to Monkey Island wrapped and I was once again thinking about something new. I had the idea of taking the pixel art tile engine from Runner and making an old school Zelda game (the only Zelda games I like).

I hired an artist, brought on Elissa as a designer and we were off.

A year into the game it became obvious that making an open world RPG was a lot of work and we didn’t have the resources (money) for that.

I thought about Runner, dug up the video and sent it to Elissa and said “What if we made this? We could have it done in a less than a year.”

She loved it and her epiphany was to forget about deep progression and just make it like an arcade game. In and out quickly and retain all the frantic fun of the original.

As I was thinking about the game’s name Elissa died from the scrolling and the text “Death by Scrolling” appeared and she said that should be the name of the game. Perfect.

A quick name change and Death by Scrolling was (re-)born.

The theme of the game being about stuck in purgatory and purgatory being taken over by investment bankers and corporations for profit took hold and provided a nice framework for narration.

A lot came together at the end and it all just made sense.

It’s a game about greed and the never ending grind in life and death for more and more. The absurdity of social media even make an appearance when you die.

The game is mirror into the world we live (and die) in.

Death by Scrolling

Pop quiz

1. What was the original name of Death by Scrolling?
2. What city was the prototype meet-up in?
3. Who did I bring on to help with design?
4. What game did I make between the prototype and Return to Monkey Island.