When I release this website, it means I’ve just released my new game, DUCKOUT! Releasing my website also means I must write at least one blog post. So, here we are. A lot of projects getting released at the same time, and it’s making me feel good about myself after months of juggling everything at once, struggling with imposter syndrome, and moving countries.
So… have you guys heard of the "God of Manga", Osamu Tezuka, the creator of Astro Boy, Message to Adolf, and MW?
For the layperson reading this, you might think I’m referring to a manga author that I personally like. But no, I don’t actually like Tezuka yet unfortunately, I’ve never read anything made by him (but I’ll change that really soon). My love for comics goes as far as knowing that without this man, mangas, animes, video games, marketing, and many industries would not be the same. He was the legend that other legends praised. Akira Toriyama once said, "Without Tezuka, I would not have become an artist."(This is not verbatim, don’t worry).
The point is, the man is the GOAT. He invented a lot of concepts that other legends used to create their work. There are awards named after him, and he changed the zeitgeist of his time.
Here’s a fun fact from Brazil: we have our own Osamu Tezuka. His name is Mauricio de Souza, the creator of Turma da Mônica, an almost 70 year old comic in Brazil that’s been passed down through my generation, my parent' generation, and even my grandparents generation. And believe it or not, Tezuka and Mauricio were friends!
Okay, but what does all this have to do with the DUCK from my latest game?
(Did you see I took 5 paragraphs to reach this point? Hi, this is how I work, I set things up and like to talk about stuff I enjoy. I need one more paragraph, then we’ll talk about the title).
Well, I once read that Tezuka used to draw a lot of “the same characters” in his stories. But when questioned about this, he said that he treated his recurring characters as 'actors.' This practice, called the "Star System", was created by Charlie Chaplin, referring to the idea of having a “character” play multiple roles in Hollywood films. Tezuka adopted this principle in his stories.
Got it? Okay, now we're up to speed on manga history.
In my last game, DUCKOUT (go play it, it’s 5-10 minutes), I created a duck model. It was the first time in 4 years of game development that I stopped and enhanced my modeling and rigging techniques. Now I can officially model, rig, export from Blender, and import into Unreal Engine without a hitch (ha ha). And that’s how The DUCK v1 was created.
When I made this beautiful creation, I had a rush of adrenaline: "I have to make a game using this, like, right now!" And so I began. At the end of July, I started creating DUCKOUT. I just wanted to make a quick game, something fun, a puzzle game with my identity. If you played to the end and got the fun ending, you’ll know exactly what I mean.
Another thing that pushed me to make DUCKOUT was a deal I had with my wife: "Finish and release one game, and we can make The Rat Game." The Rat Game is a story for another time, but you just need to know two things: 1) DUCKOUT was finished and released, and 2) The Rat Game is now The Duck Game.
Now, The Duck Game is not DUCKOUT. The Duck Game is a game I’m making with my wife, something we’ve been talking about for a year. It’s a game based on dialogues with NPCs, which I’m really excited to make because I want to try "Ink", the scripting language. It’ll be amazing if I manage to implement it because that way, my wife can write the dialogues outside of Unreal in a much simpler system. Plus, it’ll be a practice project for me to implement it into Sunshine Countryside, which I’m also working on. I’ll talk more about The Duck Game and the refactoring of Sunshine Countryside soon.
And in this new game, I’ll use The DUCK, the same duck from DUCKOUT. Maybe a better version, but it’ll still be The DUCK.
Will the story be a continuation? A prequel? Or maybe it’ll have nothing to do with DUCKOUT? I don’t know, but the fact is that I’ll use the same actor. I’ll cast him and think of him as a person, with desires, motivations, weaknesses, flaws, and see what kind of story I can come up with.
But here I am, rambling about a game I haven’t even started yet, as if I’m about to make the next Disco Elysium. The truth is, I JUST WANT TO MAKE VIDEOGAMES MAN!
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