Clash: Robot Detective - Baristas and Bonuses

Welcome back to the biweekly hype updates for Clash: Robot Detective - Complete Edition's Steam release! Last week, I talked a bit about the main game: where it came from, why I like it, etc. Today, I want to look at the extra bits that were added specifically for the Complete Edition: the behind-the-scenes trivia and the post-main-story chapter, Steel Barista.

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Yes, behind-the-scenes trivia is awfully self-indulgent. But I hadn't planned on it. I was trying to figure out how to code the "Play Bonus Story" menu button to show up only after the Main Story was completed. That code consistently crashed the game. So, biting back the frustration, I tried a different approach. What if the button was available, but just gave the player a reminder to finish the Main Story if they hadn't? That worked great: click Bonus Story, a black screen would pop up saying "You can't play this yet" and then boot the player back to the main menu. Then I though, "Wouldn't it be funny if Clash popped up and yelled at the player for trying to play the chapters out of order?" So i slapped one of the Clash sprites in there. At that point, I figured it would actually be kind of neat if there was a whole secret scene for players to find. Didn't want it to be story-related, in case the player missed it. So the trivia thing just kind of fell into my lap: it was easy to write out, it was fun to ramble about the making of the game, and it was just a neat idea. Then I felt bad about making it potentially missable, so I added some code that gave people who had finished the main story the option to pick between the trivia and the bonus story. Et voila! A nice chunk of bonuses dedicated to trivia, which had never been in my plans to begin with!

This was a very long-winded way to say "I pulled out of my rear end."

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The bonus story is based on a couple of different interactive fiction pieces I wrote for a couple of different game jams. Both did very well in their respective competitions, and both added to Clash's character in ways I liked. My main idea with updating Clash to the Complete Edition was to bring these stories back to the main canon. This meant refining and editing them both, as well as adding visuals. Neither of the interactive fiction games had these.

The bulk of the story is patterned after Steel Barista (and is named as such). It was submitted to a jam with the theme of 'cliffhanger.' So it had to end in one. That theme made me think of mysteries and noir detectives. Which, of course, I already had one: Clash! I wanted it to be more tightly-paced and lower-scaled than Robot Detective, so instead of running around a high-tech cruise ship Clash would just be running around a city. I had trouble figuring out the story from there until I got to reminiscing about high school. In 11th grade, we read a very specific Agatha Christie book (which, if I tell you the name of it right now, will spoil the whole story). When I read that book's twist, I was both amazed and furious; I almost threw the book down the hall in sheer emotion! Then I thought, "I wonder if I could pull that twist off? Let's experiment and see!"

I also wanted to give Clash a conundrum. He is a nice robot man. TOO nice. Dangerously close to Gary Stu levels of nice. What if he had to make a tough decision? A decision between doing the right thing or doing what he wanted to do? A choice between reason and passion? Could he do that? WOULD he do that? That was my cliffhanger: no one will know what Clash chose. I don't even know what he would have chosen. I refuse to say what his canonical choice was. That's up to you to decide.

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The epilogue for the story is a heavily-edited Curious Set, which due to the content of that story NEEDED to be heavily edited. In this story, Clash and my self-insert character Victoria "work together" so that Clash can learn more about himself and the passionate side of humanity. It goes off the rails from there.

So the epilogue stays firmly on the rails (if you want to read the off-the-rails version, you will need to be an adult and you will need to go to itchio and find it yourself). But that whole "a robot not built for romantic endeavors will not understand them, but wants to know because he needs to understand why humans let their romantic endeavors lead them to crimes of passion" angle was one that I wanted to keep in the canon. It sums up a part of Clash's character: he constantly wants to learn. He wants to understand so that he can do his job better and help others more efficiently. And maybe he gets a little too attached to the people in his life. It happens.

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And those are the bonuses! Two weeks from now will be the third hype update. In it, I will talk about some of the smaller details that make Clash Complete worth looking in to. Also, general Christmas well-wishing. Because I'm that kind of person. :-)