The dialogue reads exactly like every single mid 2000's instaant messenger roleplay as written by a crack fanfic author. Someone in the comments compared it to Terry Pratchet was it? Lol, lmao. Rofl, even! No, that's some hardcore toxic positivity and the trend really shows. The story is an infinitely more interesting parallel to Dustborn and the like, topics and flaws an all. Yet it's most redeeming feature entirely due to what I think is the real selling point of the game: Fascinating worldbuilding.
Sure, it's not some elaborate high IQ epic carefully woven by some kind of mastermind but it doesn't have to be. Sometimes a light touch is preferable. Or just objectively better. (Sometimes ya gotta let it simmer far too many emotional moments have the tension and investment drained out of them by sledgehammering details that the reader has already picked up on like 20 minutes ago, bruh keep up) For example, in one of the early scenes it's mentions that the screaming sirens of approaching police units are getting closer. And you just nod along and go like yeah, makes sense they did mention that fisticuffs in the parking lot would be illegal a- BUT! Then you realize OH WAIT THEY MEAN THE SIRENS ARE LITERALLY SCREAMING MOUTHS ON THE COP CAR THAT's FUCKING METAL.
But then you run into instances like outside the church where someone unironically calls the main characters "[slur]s." First off, if you're gonna censor a word just fucking,... censor the word? Second, why is that even something being given any focus to? The best dialogue in the game comes in the form of each character giving themselves their own unique internal monologue/pep talk each different day. And yet they imply or explicitly mention far darker themes,... who are we offending that we have to be so dishonest about the themes being covered here? If anything I'm more offended by being coddled.Just ask Brad! All in all, it honestly just makes me wish I could decompile the game and just read the script. As it is, besides the extremely user unfriendly saving and loading and having to start entire chunks over and slooooooowly wade through them to see variations, the game is already kind of a slog to get through.
Worth $10? Maybe optimistically? Both this and the sequel for $25? Not a chance. I'd be demanding a refund. At that point just buy the tabletop version.
Got this game through the “No ICE in Minnesota” bundle. Absolutely LOVED it. When I’ve got the money I want to check out the sequel and the TTRPG, this is exactly the kind of disaster gay shit thats up my alley.
Also, played it on Linux and didnt encounter any bugs :3
Is “Bound by Ash” complete? It says that it will have six episodes, but the last update talking directly about episodes only mentions the release of episode 4.
Enjoying the game! not very far into the story yet but thought I'd mention that I managed to get stuck during the fight with the white-hat-fash playing as Cass. Got knocked into the top left corner next to another mech and couldn't move, didn't seem to be any way to unstick or progress from that.
Hi, thanks for your question! The game opens with a scene of some characters drinking at a bar (and the aftermath of that encounter), and there are passive references to alcohol through the rest of the story. Depending on the route you take, there may be a quick scene in Episode 6 where a character drinks.
Hi! I forgot to update my address for the Kickstarter for the RPG. :((((
I sent you an email through BackerKit. Hopefully there's still time! Just wanted to hit you up here just in case you see it faster, cuz I'm so so so excited for the game! <3
(Feel free to delete this comment (or I can) once you see it!)
PS: if it's too late, no worries, it's completely my fault. just crossing my fingers here! 😬🤞🏻
Had fun with this. The writing was quite enjoyable, but the mech combat was kind of not fun, but at least its skippable. It did hamper my enjoyment of the game quite a bit when you're at the part you cant skip though.
mac os, downloaded the game about 20 hours ago. after the in-game "oh no it's dark and now it's bright again" thing was happening, the combat that immediately followed i led with lianna and i couldn't see. ran off a cliff three times and decided to skip the combat hoping it would fix it, led with cass next time for on top, and still couldn't see (and couldn't run off a mountain this time either).
I got this in the racial justice pack and it was one of the first games in the pack I downloaded and I Do Not regret it!! The art and story were absolutely delightful, and I absolutely love the characters! The dialogue felt real, and although the combat did get repetitive after a while, I love the concept of it. This game has had a genuine effect on me emotionally, and I just want to say thank you for making it
Okeydoke Boomer. Though I feel like something like this judges you as much as you're judging it. Not all works are completely accessible to everyone, and no one is entitled to all works being completely accessible to them. With some works, you either have to adapt or simply admit they aren't for you. If you can't do that and you blame the creator? That makes you look silly.
You remind me a little bit of Terry Pratchett and I mean that in a good way. If there's a type of *mancy that plays around with expectations, this is something that Pratchett excelled at. His works would often play around with high-concept yet very meaningful jokes which sort of had a life of their own and lived beyond their humour value. I feel like Extreme Meatpunks Forever is a bit like that.
It throws you into a bizarre, somewhat post-apocalyptic(?) Biopunk world of strangeness without any explanation. It treats you as though you're a resident of this world and you already understand most of what's going on. It challenges you to adapt to the craziness around you. The characters talk in something reminiscent of Millennial/Gen Z text-speak and while that might seem strange to someone today, it's not at all a stretch to think that the vocabulary of tomorrow could be formed from that culture. If nothing else, it's meant to appeal to it.
It's not meant to "make sense" in a contemporary sense because it isn't contemporary—it's an extrapolation. Good Sci-Fi does this. It's like windows on spaceships, yeah? If, for whatever reason, a Sci-Fi lacks them then people complain as they expect the setting to be familiar. Even though there are many reasons to skip having windows in spaceships. I certainly could go over all of the reasons but a cursory googlin' into a show like The Expanse would cover most of the bases.
I mean, when people think of Sci-Fi they think of anime robots or jet fighters in space. They don't really think of myrid digital life forms existing within a network of dyson spheres designed to house virtual realities as that's a much more resource efficient way of living than most others and it'd extend the life of the Universe by not having most life living in very resource inefficient ways.
A lot of people don't do well with this sort of thing though, if even one strange concept is implicitly included without a duly exasperating explanation to make it all simple and objective? They bounce off of it.
I find the questions fun and I welcomed the chance to adapt to this gay disaster world.
I think it might come from being neurodiverse, downtrodden, traumatised, dysphoric, abused, and having the introspection to recoil in existential terror at the things I've been through but I'm not shaken by something like Extreme Meatpunks Forever. To the contrary, I'm excited by it.
I'm hoping in one upcoming episode we have an Otherkin-adjacent character who identifies more as their meatmech than they do as themself, and doesn't enjoy getting out of it to interact with people as a human. I'd love that. I mean, that's how I am myself—Otherkin—and it's always wonderful to see any kind of representation for those like myself. A Universe such as this one is as good a place as any.
Just a passing hope, anyway. Thank you for a great time! I had been watching someone play this but I've now bought it myself to have a bash at it and because I want to support you.
game is way too boring, only got up to episode 3, too much dialogue and there were LOTS of cringey parts, fighting wise also very annoying and lacked substance. This game is not worth $10
THIS WAS SO GOOD!!! This is the first game I've ever commented on but I just had to let everyone know that it was amazing! I loved the story and the gameplay was just challenging enough to be interesting but not too challenging that I wanted to quit (although I did say some of the words before they came on the screen because - F*CK). And the music was sick!! Loved it!! <3
soooo gooooddd! the writing is good, I think its honest and brash but its not immature or anything that some commenters have said. the combat is a little stiff, but luckily skippable so you can get all that meaty goodness of dialogue. the music is incredible I think each character has a different instrument play the main melody for the combat music? i love little touches like that.
Hi! I'm sorry if this has been answered elsewhere, but I can't figure out how to transfer my save file from this game to the sequel. I'm using a Mac, and both games are installed through the Itch app. I loved season 1, and I'm very excited to play season 2 :) Thanks!
Hello! The game should automatically import your S1 save for you, as long as you played through S1 on the same computer and haven't moved the savefile.
Thanks for getting back to me! For some reason, my S1 save file was in a folder called com.Company.ProductName in my Library, so I think S2 wasn't recognizing it? I tried running S1 again, and it created a new folder in the Library with a different name, so I dragged the save file into it and now S2 likes it :)
This is a great concept, I wanna like this game so badly. But the game play is so difficult, I can't even make it past the first combat example that they give you in the tutorial. It's too hard, I've had to give up. The enemy wouldn't stay down long enough for it to make a difference, the player mech was too slow. If the first fight is this frustrating, I don't think I can make it through the rest of the game. For a game about killing fascists, it is incredibly difficult to kill a fascist. This looks like a really good game, I really wish I could play it.
I really want to like this game. I like the characters, I like the music, I like the dialogue, I love everything about it, except the gameplay. The actual combat is an unceasing slog. I can't dodge, I can't tell when an enemy is going to swing and get in first or get out of the way because my swing is the same speed and my movement is so slow. And, given that this is a game about fighting fash in meat mechs, I can't skip the parts where I fight fash in meat mechs even if it gives me the option.
I'm sorry, I really do want to appreciate this game, it's just agonizing once I actually start to play it.
I was unsure about this game, because it just seemed a bit gory for me! However, I ended up loving this game! I adored the characters, the story was fascinating, and the music was out of this world! I'm hyped for season two!
Hi, thank you for playing! This is a common suggestion, and one we've taken into account for the development of Season 2 (along with some other QOL updates to the dialog system, including a text log and dialog skip)! We appreciate your feedback :)
Hi all! I can't quite figure out if this game is supposed to have native (Mac) controller support? For some reason, I thought it did, but I can't get it to work. If it doesn't, no worries, but it would be good to know for sure! Thanks!
It worked! And thank you for creating this game. I have never experienced speculative fiction that felt so real. Queerness to the core = rad (in every sense of the word). One more question though: Where is the Mac save game file located? Wait, one more: I am assuming Season 2 will be a separate purchase, but will any decisions made in Season 1 have an influence on it? Wait, still one more! I had a look at Season 2, and the meach (meat + mech???) animations look dope, but there seems to be a pretty radical departure in the character design. You have probably commented on this elsewhere, so could you shove me in that direction? Thanks again!
The mac savegame file should be located in ~/Library/Application Support/Heather Flowers/EXTREME MEATPUNKS FOREVER/save.mpx -- I'm not 100% sure on this since I don't own a mac, but it's the likeliest place to find it.
Season 2 will be a separate purchase, and your decisions in S1 have a number of effects on the game's story. Not just the big decisions, too -- lots of little decisions have a way of coming back!
The reason for the departure in character design is twofold. First, S2 has a different character artist (Ryan Rose Aceae, who also worked on GENDERWRECKED), and second, everyone's been trekking across the wilderness for over a week now and the wear is starting to show. Like, they're just sleeping on the ground. None of them are feeling or looking great at this point, and the artstyle has been updated to reflect that.
Thanks for your responses, Heather! I found the save file. You’re basically right, except the folder in Application Support = com.HeatherFlowers.EXTREMEMEATPUNKSFOREVER, in case anyone else is trying to find it!
This scratches an itch like only one other game I've ever played. Brilliant soundtrack, brilliant story, brilliant characters. It's rough around the edges, but in a way, that only improves it: you're closer to the metal, or in this case, the exposed, bloody muscle. Deals with heavy topics in a way that I'm very interested to see continued in the second season (get hyped!!!)
If you're looking for a polished game this is super not that. If you're looking for the weirdest game about mechs, this might be close. it has great writing, and a world that is horrifying and normal and strange all at the same tim.
The gameplay isn't great, except that it super kinda is?? I will never get tired of *teleports behind a fascist* as ROOTS AMONG ASH like im the bodily incarnation of the nothing personnel meme.
Oh also this game has some GOOD mech names. And then you meet Brad and somehow that makes his mech name even better?
The name was what caught my attention but the plot and characterization were what sold me. This game is a blast and a solid start to my adventure through the Racial Justice bundle. (Also, Brad is a whole mood.)
It has a lot of elements I like. The plot seems interesting, the characters could be really likable with some development, the world is cool, but..
It has much more that I don't really like.
The dialogue is written like a group chat, and that really REALLY doesn't flow into what is supposed to be an out-loud conversation. I mean seriously, keysmashing, 'u/ur' and 'LMAO'?? It just makes it impossible to read without cringing at least a little bit. Added to that, the dialogue just seems kinda janky, and unrealistic. The characters don't really interact in a way that flows. Then there's random fights that don't make sense, and are resolved within minutes, and it all just adds up to make unsatisfying and un-enjoyable dialogue.
The story is another thing that doesn't really flow. Now, I absolutely could've missed something, I am tired, and I apologise if I did. But from what I gathered playing the game, you're sort of thrust into this world with very little world-building or information, so you feel slightly disoriented during the game. You're waiting for more information about the world to be divulged, but it never is. Reviewing the story and adding in some more backstory and info could go a long way to improving this game, and how immersive it is.
Then there's the look of the game. I love the hand-drawn characters, but the backgrounds and the fighting scenes just look.. Bad. But then again, appearances are purely opinion based, and if enough people including the developers like it, then that's alright.
Finally, the gameplay with the fighting scenes could be improved a bit. I think what you have now is a really good base, but it just feels like it needs something. Maybe add more of a damage system instead of just pushing enemies off of cliffs? Or remove the strange drifting effect, like your characters are running around on ice rather than dry ground. All in all, the fighting mechanics are good, but could be even better!
I apologize if any of this comes across as rude or upsetting, I'm just giving as much constructive criticism as I can. I really would like to see this game improve and do well!
That being said, I think you can totally save it for the next 'season' of gameplay! With a few edits and changes this could be made into a really enjoyable game. Just please consider practicing your dialogue writing, and fiddling with some aspects of the gameplay. This game is an okay start. But it could be a great finished product. There's definitely some potential here!
Picked this up in the bundle for racial justice and this game was just a blast! The characters were charming and dynamic, the setting was a high octane fever dream, and the music was wicked as hell. Excited for season two!
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The dialogue reads exactly like every single mid 2000's instaant messenger roleplay as written by a crack fanfic author. Someone in the comments compared it to Terry Pratchet was it? Lol, lmao. Rofl, even! No, that's some hardcore toxic positivity and the trend really shows. The story is an infinitely more interesting parallel to Dustborn and the like, topics and flaws an all. Yet it's most redeeming feature entirely due to what I think is the real selling point of the game: Fascinating worldbuilding.
Sure, it's not some elaborate high IQ epic carefully woven by some kind of mastermind but it doesn't have to be. Sometimes a light touch is preferable. Or just objectively better. (Sometimes ya gotta let it simmer far too many emotional moments have the tension and investment drained out of them by sledgehammering details that the reader has already picked up on like 20 minutes ago, bruh keep up) For example, in one of the early scenes it's mentions that the screaming sirens of approaching police units are getting closer. And you just nod along and go like yeah, makes sense they did mention that fisticuffs in the parking lot would be illegal a- BUT! Then you realize OH WAIT THEY MEAN THE SIRENS ARE LITERALLY SCREAMING MOUTHS ON THE COP CAR THAT's FUCKING METAL.
But then you run into instances like outside the church where someone unironically calls the main characters "[slur]s." First off, if you're gonna censor a word just fucking,... censor the word? Second, why is that even something being given any focus to? The best dialogue in the game comes in the form of each character giving themselves their own unique internal monologue/pep talk each different day. And yet they imply or explicitly mention far darker themes,... who are we offending that we have to be so dishonest about the themes being covered here? If anything I'm more offended by being coddled.Just ask Brad! All in all, it honestly just makes me wish I could decompile the game and just read the script. As it is, besides the extremely user unfriendly saving and loading and having to start entire chunks over and slooooooowly wade through them to see variations, the game is already kind of a slog to get through.
Worth $10? Maybe optimistically? Both this and the sequel for $25? Not a chance. I'd be demanding a refund. At that point just buy the tabletop version.
Got this game through the “No ICE in Minnesota” bundle. Absolutely LOVED it. When I’ve got the money I want to check out the sequel and the TTRPG, this is exactly the kind of disaster gay shit thats up my alley.
Also, played it on Linux and didnt encounter any bugs :3
The thumbnail reminds me of Figure from Roblox Doors lol
Is “Bound by Ash” complete? It says that it will have six episodes, but the last update talking directly about episodes only mentions the release of episode 4.
Yes, "Bound By Ash" is complete! All six episodes are out; I just didn't make an itch post about all of them.
Thank you! Looking forward to checking out both the video games and the TTRPGs.
By the way, I meant to post this on the “Bound by Ash” page. However, the comment section is disabled. Just thought you should know.
hi! Is this the final installment of the series or is another one coming?
Hi! There are two further installments: EXTREME MEATPUNKS FOREVER: BOUND BY ASH and EXTREME MEATPUNKS FOREVER: THE ROLEPLAYING GAME!
gotcha! So there aren’t any other extreme meat punks coming later in the future?
Not at present! Maybe someday though :)
Thank you!
Enjoying the game! not very far into the story yet but thought I'd mention that I managed to get stuck during the fight with the white-hat-fash playing as Cass. Got knocked into the top left corner next to another mech and couldn't move, didn't seem to be any way to unstick or progress from that.
Hi Heather! This seems super cool.
Can you explain how big the alcohol content is? I struggle with that particular kind of content quite a bit, so I'd like to know <3
Hi, thanks for your question! The game opens with a scene of some characters drinking at a bar (and the aftermath of that encounter), and there are passive references to alcohol through the rest of the story. Depending on the route you take, there may be a quick scene in Episode 6 where a character drinks.
Thank you!
Hey this kicks so much ass I love it!
It's so good! I'm absolutely looking into season 2!!!
I love this game so much and the amputee rep made me happy cry. Thank you.
Hi! I forgot to update my address for the Kickstarter for the RPG. :((((
I sent you an email through BackerKit. Hopefully there's still time! Just wanted to hit you up here just in case you see it faster, cuz I'm so so so excited for the game! <3
(Feel free to delete this comment (or I can) once you see it!)
PS: if it's too late, no worries, it's completely my fault. just crossing my fingers here! 😬🤞🏻
Hi, thanks for the comment! We'll see what we can do :)
Fun little story and rough art visual novel. Probably not a thing for everyone, but you can see the efforts the designers put into it.
Had fun with this. The writing was quite enjoyable, but the mech combat was kind of not fun, but at least its skippable. It did hamper my enjoyment of the game quite a bit when you're at the part you cant skip though.
I loved this game! The story gets kinda crazy but the characters and dialogue are great. I also appreciated the option to skip combat :)
Not my cup of tea... But it works great.
hey is the screen supposed to go black when i'm halfway up the mountain in chapter 5 or what bc i can't see anything
Hi! I think you may be running into a bug. What OS are you playing on, and when did you download the game?
mac os, downloaded the game about 20 hours ago. after the in-game "oh no it's dark and now it's bright again" thing was happening, the combat that immediately followed i led with lianna and i couldn't see. ran off a cliff three times and decided to skip the combat hoping it would fix it, led with cass next time for on top, and still couldn't see (and couldn't run off a mountain this time either).
Oof, I'm sorry to hear that. What version of MacOS are you running?
I got this in the racial justice pack and it was one of the first games in the pack I downloaded and I Do Not regret it!! The art and story were absolutely delightful, and I absolutely love the characters! The dialogue felt real, and although the combat did get repetitive after a while, I love the concept of it. This game has had a genuine effect on me emotionally, and I just want to say thank you for making it
AM OGN SU
Okeydoke Boomer. Though I feel like something like this judges you as much as you're judging it. Not all works are completely accessible to everyone, and no one is entitled to all works being completely accessible to them. With some works, you either have to adapt or simply admit they aren't for you. If you can't do that and you blame the creator? That makes you look silly.
yeah honestly I didn't like the game at all
You remind me a little bit of Terry Pratchett and I mean that in a good way. If there's a type of *mancy that plays around with expectations, this is something that Pratchett excelled at. His works would often play around with high-concept yet very meaningful jokes which sort of had a life of their own and lived beyond their humour value. I feel like Extreme Meatpunks Forever is a bit like that.
It throws you into a bizarre, somewhat post-apocalyptic(?) Biopunk world of strangeness without any explanation. It treats you as though you're a resident of this world and you already understand most of what's going on. It challenges you to adapt to the craziness around you. The characters talk in something reminiscent of Millennial/Gen Z text-speak and while that might seem strange to someone today, it's not at all a stretch to think that the vocabulary of tomorrow could be formed from that culture. If nothing else, it's meant to appeal to it.
It's not meant to "make sense" in a contemporary sense because it isn't contemporary—it's an extrapolation. Good Sci-Fi does this. It's like windows on spaceships, yeah? If, for whatever reason, a Sci-Fi lacks them then people complain as they expect the setting to be familiar. Even though there are many reasons to skip having windows in spaceships. I certainly could go over all of the reasons but a cursory googlin' into a show like The Expanse would cover most of the bases.
I mean, when people think of Sci-Fi they think of anime robots or jet fighters in space. They don't really think of myrid digital life forms existing within a network of dyson spheres designed to house virtual realities as that's a much more resource efficient way of living than most others and it'd extend the life of the Universe by not having most life living in very resource inefficient ways.
A lot of people don't do well with this sort of thing though, if even one strange concept is implicitly included without a duly exasperating explanation to make it all simple and objective? They bounce off of it.
I find the questions fun and I welcomed the chance to adapt to this gay disaster world.
I think it might come from being neurodiverse, downtrodden, traumatised, dysphoric, abused, and having the introspection to recoil in existential terror at the things I've been through but I'm not shaken by something like Extreme Meatpunks Forever. To the contrary, I'm excited by it.
I'm hoping in one upcoming episode we have an Otherkin-adjacent character who identifies more as their meatmech than they do as themself, and doesn't enjoy getting out of it to interact with people as a human. I'd love that. I mean, that's how I am myself—Otherkin—and it's always wonderful to see any kind of representation for those like myself. A Universe such as this one is as good a place as any.
Just a passing hope, anyway. Thank you for a great time! I had been watching someone play this but I've now bought it myself to have a bash at it and because I want to support you.
Thank you so much for your extremely kind comment, and for supporting the game!
game is way too boring, only got up to episode 3, too much dialogue and there were LOTS of cringey parts, fighting wise also very annoying and lacked substance. This game is not worth $10
MEATPUNKS MEATPUNKS MEATPUNKS (i loved it so much we need more gay disaster representation in games and this does it so well 🤍) ALL OR NOTHING
THIS WAS SO GOOD!!! This is the first game I've ever commented on but I just had to let everyone know that it was amazing! I loved the story and the gameplay was just challenging enough to be interesting but not too challenging that I wanted to quit (although I did say some of the words before they came on the screen because - F*CK). And the music was sick!! Loved it!! <3
Thank you for playing!! I'm so glad you enjoyed :)
soooo gooooddd! the writing is good, I think its honest and brash but its not immature or anything that some commenters have said. the combat is a little stiff, but luckily skippable so you can get all that meaty goodness of dialogue. the music is incredible I think each character has a different instrument play the main melody for the combat music? i love little touches like that.
Thank you for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed :)
Hi! I'm sorry if this has been answered elsewhere, but I can't figure out how to transfer my save file from this game to the sequel. I'm using a Mac, and both games are installed through the Itch app. I loved season 1, and I'm very excited to play season 2 :) Thanks!
Hello! The game should automatically import your S1 save for you, as long as you played through S1 on the same computer and haven't moved the savefile.
Thanks for getting back to me! For some reason, my S1 save file was in a folder called com.Company.ProductName in my Library, so I think S2 wasn't recognizing it? I tried running S1 again, and it created a new folder in the Library with a different name, so I dragged the save file into it and now S2 likes it :)
Huh, super weird. I'm glad that fixed it!
This is a great concept, I wanna like this game so badly. But the game play is so difficult, I can't even make it past the first combat example that they give you in the tutorial. It's too hard, I've had to give up. The enemy wouldn't stay down long enough for it to make a difference, the player mech was too slow. If the first fight is this frustrating, I don't think I can make it through the rest of the game. For a game about killing fascists, it is incredibly difficult to kill a fascist. This looks like a really good game, I really wish I could play it.
sigh
I really want to like this game. I like the characters, I like the music, I like the dialogue, I love everything about it, except the gameplay. The actual combat is an unceasing slog. I can't dodge, I can't tell when an enemy is going to swing and get in first or get out of the way because my swing is the same speed and my movement is so slow. And, given that this is a game about fighting fash in meat mechs, I can't skip the parts where I fight fash in meat mechs even if it gives me the option.
I'm sorry, I really do want to appreciate this game, it's just agonizing once I actually start to play it.
I was unsure about this game, because it just seemed a bit gory for me! However, I ended up loving this game! I adored the characters, the story was fascinating, and the music was out of this world! I'm hyped for season two!
iu
IDK where to give QOL suggestions, but is it possible to implement a skip to end of line function for dialogues? The text moves slower than I read it.
Hi, thank you for playing! This is a common suggestion, and one we've taken into account for the development of Season 2 (along with some other QOL updates to the dialog system, including a text log and dialog skip)! We appreciate your feedback :)
I'll just say, I'm glad this game exists.
as my bff avgn would say
i piss pant
I was expecting something way different
Hi all! I can't quite figure out if this game is supposed to have native (Mac) controller support? For some reason, I thought it did, but I can't get it to work. If it doesn't, no worries, but it would be good to know for sure! Thanks!
Hi! Unfortunately, the game isn't set up for controller support. Thank you for asking!
Thanks Heather! I’ve set up one of those controller mapping doodahs, as my carpal tunnel is acting up. Hopefully that will work!
It worked! And thank you for creating this game. I have never experienced speculative fiction that felt so real. Queerness to the core = rad (in every sense of the word). One more question though: Where is the Mac save game file located? Wait, one more: I am assuming Season 2 will be a separate purchase, but will any decisions made in Season 1 have an influence on it? Wait, still one more! I had a look at Season 2, and the meach (meat + mech???) animations look dope, but there seems to be a pretty radical departure in the character design. You have probably commented on this elsewhere, so could you shove me in that direction? Thanks again!
I'm glad you enjoyed! To answer your questions:
Thanks for your responses, Heather! I found the save file. You’re basically right, except the folder in Application Support = com.HeatherFlowers.EXTREMEMEATPUNKSFOREVER, in case anyone else is trying to find it!
This scratches an itch like only one other game I've ever played. Brilliant soundtrack, brilliant story, brilliant characters. It's rough around the edges, but in a way, that only improves it: you're closer to the metal, or in this case, the exposed, bloody muscle. Deals with heavy topics in a way that I'm very interested to see continued in the second season (get hyped!!!)
If you're looking for a polished game this is super not that. If you're looking for the weirdest game about mechs, this might be close. it has great writing, and a world that is horrifying and normal and strange all at the same tim.
The gameplay isn't great, except that it super kinda is?? I will never get tired of *teleports behind a fascist* as ROOTS AMONG ASH like im the bodily incarnation of the nothing personnel meme.
Oh also this game has some GOOD mech names. And then you meet Brad and somehow that makes his mech name even better?
The name was what caught my attention but the plot and characterization were what sold me. This game is a blast and a solid start to my adventure through the Racial Justice bundle. (Also, Brad is a whole mood.)
this game is... almost good. Almost.
It has a lot of elements I like. The plot seems interesting, the characters could be really likable with some development, the world is cool, but..
It has much more that I don't really like.
The dialogue is written like a group chat, and that really REALLY doesn't flow into what is supposed to be an out-loud conversation. I mean seriously, keysmashing, 'u/ur' and 'LMAO'?? It just makes it impossible to read without cringing at least a little bit. Added to that, the dialogue just seems kinda janky, and unrealistic. The characters don't really interact in a way that flows. Then there's random fights that don't make sense, and are resolved within minutes, and it all just adds up to make unsatisfying and un-enjoyable dialogue.
The story is another thing that doesn't really flow. Now, I absolutely could've missed something, I am tired, and I apologise if I did. But from what I gathered playing the game, you're sort of thrust into this world with very little world-building or information, so you feel slightly disoriented during the game. You're waiting for more information about the world to be divulged, but it never is. Reviewing the story and adding in some more backstory and info could go a long way to improving this game, and how immersive it is.
Then there's the look of the game. I love the hand-drawn characters, but the backgrounds and the fighting scenes just look.. Bad. But then again, appearances are purely opinion based, and if enough people including the developers like it, then that's alright.
Finally, the gameplay with the fighting scenes could be improved a bit. I think what you have now is a really good base, but it just feels like it needs something. Maybe add more of a damage system instead of just pushing enemies off of cliffs? Or remove the strange drifting effect, like your characters are running around on ice rather than dry ground. All in all, the fighting mechanics are good, but could be even better!
I apologize if any of this comes across as rude or upsetting, I'm just giving as much constructive criticism as I can. I really would like to see this game improve and do well!
That being said, I think you can totally save it for the next 'season' of gameplay! With a few edits and changes this could be made into a really enjoyable game. Just please consider practicing your dialogue writing, and fiddling with some aspects of the gameplay. This game is an okay start. But it could be a great finished product. There's definitely some potential here!
Picked this up in the bundle for racial justice and this game was just a blast! The characters were charming and dynamic, the setting was a high octane fever dream, and the music was wicked as hell. Excited for season two!
Thank you!