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[Jay Tholen]

What is this garbage?

Dropsy is an open world adventure game with an emphasis on surreal atmospheric elements and environmental storytelling. It extracts the humor and rich narratives from classic DOS adventure games and places them into a unique exploration based framework.

Though its roots are in the point-and-click games of old, Dropsy will be an almost entirely text-free experience. There are still colorful characters to communicate with, but the dialogue is handled visually rather than linguistically. This is enhanced by expressive animation and detailed surroundings.

The goal is to allow the player to discover the narrative at their own pace. Solutions to puzzles will emerge organically as more is learned about Dropsy's world.

The Story

In addition to being a gentle soul, Dropsy harbors at least one miraculous ability: While his bumbling speech sounds like babble to your average human, animalkind understands it perfectly. This was discovered by his parents at an early age and put to good use in their circus as he grew older. The act gained widespread notoriety, and Dropsy quickly became a hometown celebrity.


The plot of this game revolves around the events following a deadly fire at Dropsy's family's circus, resulting in the tarnishing of his image as a local hero. Their tent now serving as a dilapidated makeshift home, Dropsy and his father struggle to survive by collecting scrap metal and taking (occasionally humorous) odd jobs.

You guide perpetually-carefree Dropsy and his faithful dog Eughh on an adventure permeated with humor, wondrous sights, and buried secrets. Bizarre, otherworldly events unfold as you discover more about the fateful fire and Dropsy's nebulous past.






Website: http://dropsytheclown.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dropsy/341621375923

More to come.

[devi ever]

Sounds like an interesting concept!  Would definitely love to see more concrete details on the gameplay!

[Jay Tholen]

Sounds like an interesting concept!  Would definitely love to see more concrete details on the gameplay!

Thanks Devi! Didn't expect to see you here! Can't wait for my Torns Peaker to arrive, it's gonna be allllllll over the soundtrack.

Aaaand since I'm on the topic, the OST will borrow from almost every relevant genre of the past 70 years. At its core, it'll evoke memories of an old Soundblaster card or FM Synthesizer, but fuzzed out guitars, organs, tape echo, 70's drum machines, vintage keyboards, ukulele, and jacked up drum kits will also have their place. Think Earthbound + Spaghetti Western + Anatolian rock. Or something.

I kind of started with the soundtrack. It's about ~30% complete.

Chris Schlarb will also be contributing to the OST. Chris is best known here as the composer for Nifflas' ambient puzzler Night Sky. His solo albums released under Asthmatic Kitty and work as half of experimental jazz duo I Heart Lung are quite rad as well, though.

Edit: More gameplay details will be up soonish.

[Cathay]

Hi,

This looks beautiful! The exploration, animals and babbling speech got me excited. Although I did let out a 'Oh dear god no!' when I saw the picture of the freakish clown. Is that dropsy? Also, I don't know if you were looking for another composer, but I'd love to contribute a track or two.

http://soundcloud.com/belinska/thetheatre1

http://soundcloud.com/belinska/bounce

B.

[Jay Tholen]

Hi,

This looks beautiful! The exploration, animals and babbling speech got me excited. Although I did let out a 'Oh dear god no!' when I saw the picture of the freakish clown. Is that dropsy? Also, I don't know if you were looking for another composer, but I'd love to contribute a track or two.

http://soundcloud.com/belinska/thetheatre1

http://soundcloud.com/belinska/bounce

B.

Yup, that's dropsy. :0) The whole thing started as a "Choose Your Own Adventure" on the Something Awful forums back in 2008.

Annnd I may actually be interested, but I'm at work right now. I'll listen later.

[devi ever]

Sounds like an interesting concept!  Would definitely love to see more concrete details on the gameplay!

Thanks Devi! Didn't expect to see you here! Can't wait for my Torns Peaker to arrive, it's gonna be allllllll over the soundtrack.

Fuck dude.  Ha ha.  I half wanted to pimp my pedals to you when I checked out your website just now and saw you were into music and here it is turns out you're one of the people waiting for my pedal pixies to finish up those Torn's Peakers.  Definitely drop me an email if you get a chance! [email protected]

[Jay Tholen]

Fuck dude.  Ha ha.  I half wanted to pimp my pedals to you when I checked out your website just now and saw you were into music and here it is turns out you're one of the people waiting for my pedal pixies to finish up those Torn's Peakers.  Definitely drop me an email if you get a chance! [email protected]

Sent.  


Update:

Spent a lot of yesterday trying to fine tune the dialogue system. Studying a lot about communication through symbols and icons. Some things are incredibly hard to express with a series of 22x22 px images. It's been fun to read about though, and I like the challenge. I'll upload a mockup of what I have so far later tonight.


Here's the full world map. There are additional dream worlds with smaller maps, but this is the core: http://jaytholen.net/worl.png

[devi ever]

VERY nice.  Reminds me a lot of the ol' 90's Lucas Arts style... so sexy!



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Throttle_%281995_video_game%29

[Cathay]

Hi,

This looks beautiful! The exploration, animals and babbling speech got me excited. Although I did let out a 'Oh dear god no!' when I saw the picture of the freakish clown. Is that dropsy? Also, I don't know if you were looking for another composer, but I'd love to contribute a track or two.

http://soundcloud.com/belinska/thetheatre1

http://soundcloud.com/belinska/bounce

B.

Yup, that's dropsy. :0) The whole thing started as a "Choose Your Own Adventure" on the Something Awful forums back in 2008.

Annnd I may actually be interested, but I'm at work right now. I'll listen later.

Hello,

Did you get a chance to listen? I feel that the 'Bounce' track has a certain evocative clownishness... 

[Jay Tholen]

Hi,

This looks beautiful! The exploration, animals and babbling speech got me excited. Although I did let out a 'Oh dear god no!' when I saw the picture of the freakish clown. Is that dropsy? Also, I don't know if you were looking for another composer, but I'd love to contribute a track or two.

http://soundcloud.com/belinska/thetheatre1

http://soundcloud.com/belinska/bounce

B.

Yup, that's dropsy. :0) The whole thing started as a "Choose Your Own Adventure" on the Something Awful forums back in 2008.

Annnd I may actually be interested, but I'm at work right now. I'll listen later.

Hello,

Did you get a chance to listen? I feel that the 'Bounce' track has a certain evocative clownishness...  

Arghh I forgot! I just listened. I'll be contacting you later. 

[Cathay]

Hi,

This looks beautiful! The exploration, animals and babbling speech got me excited. Although I did let out a 'Oh dear god no!' when I saw the picture of the freakish clown. Is that dropsy? Also, I don't know if you were looking for another composer, but I'd love to contribute a track or two.

http://soundcloud.com/belinska/thetheatre1

http://soundcloud.com/belinska/bounce

B.

Yup, that's dropsy. :0) The whole thing started as a "Choose Your Own Adventure" on the Something Awful forums back in 2008.

Annnd I may actually be interested, but I'm at work right now. I'll listen later.

Hello,

Did you get a chance to listen? I feel that the 'Bounce' track has a certain evocative clownishness...  

Arghh I forgot! I just listened. I'll be contacting you later. 

I look forward to it! 

[Jay Tholen]

UPDATE!

As previously mentioned, I've been working on optimizing my 'visual dialogue' system lately. This isn't a very fair representation of how it works because the (not yet complete) talking animations will add a lot of personality to the characters.

That said, I'm curious as to which symbol would be best to use for the line "I dislike vampires!" I started with the red X. Sent it to a few friends, and only 60% could understand what he was trying to say. In the game there's a lot more context around the conversations, but which one is best to you guys?

Option 1:


Option 2:


Option 3:

[surt]

I'd say definitely "Thumbs Down" as it pretty much means dislike unlike the others.

Loving the look of this bar the clown.

[Jay Tholen]

I'd say definitely "Thumbs Down" as it pretty much means dislike unlike the others.

Loving the look of this bar the clown.

I'm thinking of making the "figure out what the symbols mean" thing be a part of the puzzle solving. It fits in because Dropsy, by his nature, is a terrible communicator.

[Jay Tholen]

VERY nice.  Reminds me a lot of the ol' 90's Lucas Arts style... so sexy!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Throttle_%281995_video_game%29

Definitely. Full Throttle and Grim Fandango are two of my biggest influences. I sort of think of Dropsy as 40% Grim Fandango + 60% Knytt. If it's to be quantified.

[Cathay]

I also say thumbs down is the winner.

[Franklin's Ghost]

I agree with the thumbs down being clearer.

Also was wondering how your other devlog was going? Haven't seen any posts about it in awhile.

[Jay Tholen]

I agree with the thumbs down being clearer.

Also was wondering how your other devlog was going? Haven't seen any posts about it in awhile.

The Trembling Bridge is on hold until I finish Dropsy. I actually started work on this game before that one.

[Franklin's Ghost]

Thanks for the update and will be following this project too then

[RealityShifter]

Hey Jay, I really enjoy the art style can't wait to get the full immersion of playing it.