I'm still goin'!

The short and sweet: 

• I am making great progress on the game.
• I am taking a month off for my honeymoon.
• The game will be worth the wait. 

The long and savory: 

       Isn’t it funny how quickly time passes us by? It seems like just yesterday that I began developing Corn Sausage RPG. For the uninitiated, Corn Sausage is a comedy adventure video game starring Cool Guy, an avatar for the player who must navigate a hostile and absurd world to locate the three Legendary Mattresses to decorate their room. 

     I made the thing in a month initially, and it was fine and swell. It led me to meet many cool people and some great friends. That was the end of 2022. Then, at the end of Spring 2023, I decided I was no longer satisfied with the thing. It was OK, but not what I knew it could be. 

     So I rolled up my sleeves and got to work. Instead of padding out the game’s length, I’ve been polishing what’s already there. It’s turning out splendidly. I’ve spent most of my time researching game design principles. Well– that’s what I wish I could say. 

     The reality of the situation is that, at the end of last year, I was kidnapped and taken hostage for ransom. I was sitting at my desk, as I am now, working like a dog to bring everybody this game they’ve been waiting for, when three large and sweaty figures broke into the office. 

     They screamed and hollered at me like ferocious apes. To this day I couldn’t figure out a single word they said, but I know it was in english. They beat the snot out of me and stuffed me into a humongous burlap sack that smelled of bile. There was another guy in there already. He introduced himself as Deacon and caught me up to speed with a wild tale:

     Our captors were disgraced repo men who had been let go due to some scandalous posts they put on some backwoods forum and were taking revenge by abducting their bosses’ loved ones. Deacon was the darling son-in-law of the company’s CEO. He’d been kidnapped a couple days prior. They hauled him in that sack without food or water or rest. The day after they nabbed Deacon, they grabbed another poor victim, Rodney, but they threw him into the sack head-first and his skull smashed into Deacon’s hip bone. As it happens, Deacon had a steel hip on account of a birth defect, so Rodney died instantly and without suffering. That explains the smell in the sack, I guess. 

     Because the disgraced repo men badly needed cash to make this scheme at all worth it, they used a police database to find someone who looked enough like Rodney. Me. 

     Here’s what happened next: We were kept in an industrial facility outside of Detroit. They dolled me up and dyed my hair and forced me to train my voice for the next month and a half to imitate the late Rodney. On an Oovoo call with Rodney’s mother, I pretended to be Rodney and put a hell of a show on, if I could say so myself. I told her that I loved and missed her, and begged her to send the repo men her money so that we could reunite and be happy again. 

     And thus we come to the next monkey wrench in the damn scheme. Rodney’s mother, it turns out, hated him with a fiery passion. She yelled and screamed at me what must have been decades of built-up frustration. She accused me of being a coward (though she used a much more explicit term) and rightfully deduced I would never have said such sweet words to her had I not been kidnapped by these foul ogres of men. She hung up. 

     I was left sitting there with tears in my eyes. At this point, I had fully convinced myself that I was Rodney. I wanted to prove my mother wrong. I grabbed Deacon by the shoulders and whipped him around, bringing his steel hip directly into the biggest repo man’s right temple. Blood sprayed out of his left ear and he was down. Deacon then sprung into the air, did a somersault, and with both feet kicked the second repo man’s groin. His balls exploded on impact.

     The third repo man’s pupils shrunk to the size of atoms. He gulped, sending his adam’s apple from the very top to the very bottom of his throat. Deacon and I locked our fingers, ran at him as fast as we could, and clotheslined him at the neck, severing his C7 vertebrae from his C6. 

     We lit the facility ablaze and never turned back. I walked the whole distance from Detroit to Rockford, where Rodney’s mother lived alone in a fabulous but ugly McMansion. As I approached the door, I felt a nagging doubt. There’s no need for me to do this. I began to turn around just as the door opened. It was her. She stared at me in awe. She was crying. She apologized to me.

     I stood there, covered in ash and blood, thinking about my next move. Of course, I told her off. She hurt my feelings. She called me a foul word. She didn’t deserve a son like me. I told her that situations like that in which I was kept force us to see reality a bit more nakedly. I meant every word I said to her on that Oovoo call. In addition, I told her I regretted how poor of a son I was to her all my adult life, that I was ready to be better now, but after having to rescue myself, I wanted nothing to do with her. I spit at her feet and walked away. 

     Until now, that was the last time I thought about her and Rodney. It brings up some terribly complicated feelings that I’m not sure I’m ready to examine fully. 

     At any rate, through remarkable coincidence I reunited with Deacon in the Discord server of some Twitch streamers who checked out my game, DZPG1 and Riggy2k3. If you’re still reading this, I recommend giving them a follow. Class acts. 

     It turns out that Deacon is also interested in game development. We teamed up to create Good Stew, and collaborated with another cool fellow named Nexus to create The Rats' Promise for a game jam. It ended up being a fun game and we have plans to work together again in the future. 

     In the meantime, we’re all fiddling away at our own projects. Mine is Corn Sausage. Deacon’s helping me fix up some art, and Nexus is producing some kick-ass music for it. 

     I’m also working on a whole exciting new turn-based combat system. It feels delightful, so far, and I’m beyond excited for people to try it. 

     But progress must come to a pause now. I’m getting married next week, and then I’ll be away on honeymoon for some weeks after that. I’m looking forward to the adventure. I hope you can go on an adventure or two with some people you care about this summer. Hell, take one on your own. Go out and meet new people. I believe encountering exciting experiences with other human beings is the most important thing we can do with our lives. But you have to seek them out. They will not come to your door, unless they are trying to sell you something. 

     I’m sorry for the lack of updates. I genuinely did not think anybody would be interested in devlogs for this, but my Itch analytics are telling me some people are swarming the game’s page like moths to a lantern. I’ll try to do something a little bit more conventional at a regular rate when I get home in July. 

     Remember: some times may feel like they will never end, but they always do. Savor your happy moments. I’ll see you soon. 

Love, Adam V.