Released last month, High on life 2 by Squanch Games is the sequel to the biggest, wildest and funniest comedy shooter 2022 High in life. This time around, Squanch added more of everything and tried to top the previous game’s over-the-top moments and action. But in doing so, they produced a 10,000+ page script, pushed the boundaries of fair use, and almost created a boss fight too far-fetched to pass console certification.
In an email interview with Squanch Games narrative director Alec Robbins, I asked about a boss fight involving an alien sleazebag (voiced wonderfully by Richard Kind) who uses advanced technology to shrink so small that he can climb into your battle suit and into High on life 2the menus. You then have to fight this bastard in the game’s menu and pause settings. It’s awesome, but it also seemed very difficult to create, which Robbins confirmed.
“The Muppy Doo fight was tough to put together – it was a classic case of having to make your own bed and having to lie in it,” Robbins said. My city by email. “Very early in development we had the idea of a fight where the boss shrinks and enters your suit and menus, but figuring out exactly how to make that work gameplay-wise was a huge challenge. »
During the fight, the enemy boss starts tinkering High on life 2The actual settings of the game, doing things like changing the game’s language, which made some at the studio nervous.
“At times, we weren’t really sure if we’d be allowed to do these things while still getting certified for the console versions, because you can’t really freely adjust the game’s settings while we’re integrating those same settings menus into gameplay. I’m really proud of what we did there. It was a big change, and I think we really succeeded. Big thanks to Richard Kind’s performance as Senator Muppy Doo – he tied it all together.”
The story behind High on life 2the intro is great Another difficult technical obstacle involved High on Life 2 amazing introductionwhich moves quickly between different moments and scenes. This introduction acts as a tutorial, explaining what happened in the first game, and informing players of what has happened in the world since that original game. “There’s a lot going on at once,” Robbins admitted. The narrative director says that he and High on life 2 design director Erich Meyr are both “big fans” of Blendo Games’ 2012 narrative tour de force. Thirty flights of love and I wanted to emulate this game’s use of French New Wave style jump cuts. It wasn’t easy.
“There’s a reason games don’t do jumps often,” Robbins said. “It requires instantly loading a whole new environment. But we wanted to try, and it seemed like an exciting way to make a montage of everything the player and their family did that sets the stage for our new story. Getting the pacing right was the biggest challenge – at one point it was actually twice as long! I recorded a recording of it in Adobe Premiere and edited it down to the essentials to try to make it as impactful and effective as possible.”
This intro also contains a lot of optional dialogue that players can simply ignore if they wish. The entirety of High on life 2 is filled with what feels like hours of optional dialogue and jokes. This made me wonder how many voice lines there are in the game.
According to Robbins, who did not have an exact number, the script for the sequel is more than 10,000 pages long. One of the main reasons for this is that almost every conversation in the game has to have seven different responses from your talking weapons. The crazy thing about all of this is that, according to Robbins, Squanch only has “about 5” authors total.
Squanch Games could one day make a mystery game Much of this writing is presented in one of the High on life 2Best moments of: A murder mystery evening that makes the player the detective who must solve the case. Robbins told me that games like Obra Dinn, Golden Idol, The Outer Wilds and Disco Elysium heavily inspired this segment of the shooter.
“We got out of our comfort zone there, that’s for sure,” Robbins said. “It’s a big ask for the player to take a break in the middle of a Loss-esque FPS to suddenly stop in their tracks and resolve a whodunnit, but we were really excited about it. We also let you skip it completely if you’re not in the mood, which helps. And when I asked if the team would be willing to create a full mystery game, Robbins said “in a heartbeat” and that he hopes it can happen one day. “We had a good practice here.”
©Sqaunch Games Something else he and the team have a lot of practice and experience with after making High in life and its sequel: Parody Law. When I asked how High on life 2 gets away with one Spawn-themed claw machine or a space variant of Rainforest CoffeeRobbins says it all comes down to his “solid understanding” of fair use.
“I have a deep enough understanding of fair use and parody law to know what we can do, and I’m grateful that our leadership team is willing to take these risks as a joke,” Robbins said.
“In the first game, we included a lovingly recreated 3D Applebee’s without asking anyone. Sometimes someone catches wind of what we’re doing and asks us to stop or change something, but usually we go for it. Spawn is one of the [those parodies] we included him in both the first game and its DLC, so he became sort of a good luck charm like John Ratzenberger is for Pixar. We still have comedian Jon Daly coming to do his Frasier impression. The Crane Machine came from one of our designers, Jerry Belich. It’s one of my favorite jokes in the game.”
High on life 2 is now available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. You can read our full review here Or check out tips for the game here.
