Rare new content & legacy rewards, including previously-rotated Pass+ items Rarest rewards, usually featured on the Treasure Realm Bounty banner At that point, we became thankful that Tholen went with his clown idea, rather than making a game about something like a press-eating shark.The Mecha Prime Zero Bounty is only available from patch 13.10 to 13.12. It was just then that Tholen remembered that he was sitting on a couch next to an actual, real-life clown named Dropsy. He’s definitely a clown…but I’ve been working on the game too long, he’s real to me.” I almost see like a real person, a whole different thing. “A lot of people think I must either like them because of the game or really hate them, and I’m a little bit neutral on them now. “I don’t particularly like clowns a lot,” said Tholen. Tholen continued, talking about how his relationship with Dropsy the character grew over development. My speed would pick up a lot when I would go by that dumb painting.” “And just seeing that painting – I vaguely remember even what it looks like – it was really just uncomfortable. “When I was a kid … I distinctly remember a painting against a wall,” Tholen said. While the designer agreed with the room that he was largely neutral at this point in his life, he vaguely remembered one instance from his childhood. The game may be delightful, but not always happily so.Īfter all this take of big top tents and creep factor, I pressed a little deeper for Tholen’s personal history of clowns. Dropsy’s dream sequences become bloody landscapes, and certain characters seek to take menacing advantage of the happy-go-adventuring entertainer. The hellish dreams of Dropsy the Clownĭespite Tholen’s instance his game pivoting more in the direction of acceptance of clowns, the later portions were much more overt in their horror elements. From there, players unlock further “hug puzzles” and flesh out the world. Tholen stated that he didn’t want any “throwaway” characters, making background characters appear rife with clichés until Dropsy finds a way to warm their heart. Much of Dropsy revolves the fallout from the clown’s hug blitzkrieg. One of these early on in the game revolves around finding a starving homeless women in the back alley of a church, and getting her a sandwich from the house of worship despite the harsh choir leader’s objection. Simple, one- or two-step puzzles that take Dropsy from meeting someone to wrapping his finger-less arms (yep, still creepy) around them. “At least to get a hug from them.”Īll optional puzzles in the game are what Tholen calls “hug” puzzles. “The various characters in the game, they all have different ways that you can … earn their trust,” said Tholen. That vibe drives most NPCs in the game to either disregard Dropsy’s genuine attempts at helpfulness, or outright run away from him in terror. The jovial clown’s survival despite the odds granted him more than an eerie vibe, along with a quest to find out what really happened. A few years prior, a circus fire destroyed much of Dropsy’s big top. The public’s general fears Dropsy as a sort of local urban legend. “Both people learning to accept Dropsy, and then Dropsy getting around the fact that basically no one likes him in the game.” “ has turned into more of a thing about acceptance,” Tholen said. That initial hook, Tholen hopes, will give way to a larger experience about acceptance. Particularly given the character’s blood-red face makeup and three, broken yellow teeth. The final game is a point-and-click adventure your inventory is a baggy set of pants.Īccording to Tholen, the very act of having a huge as Dropsy’s chief interaction with others has drawn players in while giving his game that disarming upper crust layer. The surprisingly wide-reaching lore of Dropsy and the world around him, told primarily through postcards and Dropsy’s hand-drawn memories of his interactions with others, remained constant despite the genre shift. That original, self-described “walking simulator” helped by a 2011 Kickstarter grew to gradually include more and more traditional adventure game elements. “I feel like that’s just carried over and I really don’t mind it still being there.” “I really feel … the creepiness that was originally there back in the old forum game is just residual, and purely because of his looks,” Tholen said.
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