10 Year Anniversary

Ten years. It has already been ten years to the day since the full release of Viscera Cleanup Detail. It feels like only yesterday (and yet so long ago at the same time), that we were putting the final touches on our crazy creation.

To celebrate and honor this occasion, we'd like to take a moment to look back and reflect upon VCD's history.

Thanks Be To Our Legendary Janitors

But first, we want to profoundly thank all of you, our loyal fans and valiant janitors throughout the years. From the first free release of VCD on ModDB, your numbers have swelled, and we have been continually impressed by how well-mannered and helpful our community has been. We have also been (and continue to be) astounded by your many creations on VCD's Workshop, which has continued to breath new life and ideas into the game and expand upon its universe.

We would not be where we are today without all of you, and the success of Viscera Cleanup Detail fundamentally changed our lives. So, we salute you, with our mops raised and our buckets filthy. May your buckets always be full!

As we work on and continue to develop a sequel, gradually getting it to a stable foundation, we are reminded of VCD's early days. So, let us take you back to the beginning... *cue memory fade*

How It All Began

Having just come out of development on Rooks Keep, and faced with the reality of it failing to be a commercial success (upon which a lot was riding), we sat down one evening in defiance of this outcome and brainstormed over dinner.

When the idea of a Space Janitor came up, it struck a cord and we immediately ran with it, going off at once and setting to work. We did not stop until 3:00 AM or so that night, and we did that for more or less 10 days straight in some kind of sleep-deprived and coffee-fueled frenzy of inspiration. By the end of it, we had a working concept and the basics of the game you know today. The name of Viscera Cleanup Detail was born, so to the point and dry as names go, it stuck, fitting the theme perfectly.

Flying in the face of the conventional release schedule of the industry, we made the very indie choice to released it for free on ModDB in its earliest (and incomplete) alpha form. People immediately liked it and saw the potential.

That following period of time was a blur, and as its notoriety soared beyond our wildest expectations we pushed to develop it further. We soon set our sights on Multiplayer Co-op, even though the physics proved a daunting challenge in this regard, and would continue to see work done on it right until (and after) the final release.

We put out several simple levels and then worked toward Evil Science, which marked the first paid-access portion of the game, thanks to the Humble Store. It wasn't long after that when we were given the opportunity to collaborate together with the legends at Devolver Digital and Flying Wild Hog on a Shadow Warrior spin-off.

We had a lot of fun with that concept, being especially impressed by the voice-over work they delivered for it. In the end, even though it had a bit of a time-crunch pressure to it, we came away quite pleased and proud of it. It showed us people were really into the concept of VCD as a whole, and naturally it inspired us further with the many other themes we could explore.

Enter Santa's Rampage. On the heels of the Shadow Warrior spin-off, and while developing the main game, we had a concept floating around in our minds that we just couldn't ignore.

The Christmas season was close, and it was the perfect fit. The main game was much broader in scope and we wanted to get something out there people could buy instead of waiting for it to be further along. In truth, we ourselves were so enamored with the theme and concept, we didn't even hesitate.

This was probably the most fun time we had working on VCD, and each of us was delighted to witness one-another's creations as soon as they were added in. From the Elves to Santa's backstory and bad habits, to the reindeer, fireplace and the beautiful set-dressing and outdoor scenery, this was something of a love-letter of ours to Christmas as a whole, only with a dark VCD twist.

We were thrilled when it proved to be a success, and we finally made good on our hobby-turned-career path which (up until this point) had been a dauntingly elusive dream of ours that few understood.

The Road to 1.0

After this, the work and experience spent developing Santa's Rampage and Shadow Warrior spin-offs immediately went back into the main game, and we soon set our sights on expanding the game's level portfolio. We continued to develop the game and finally pushed on into Early Access. We were then full steam ahead, trying our best to push out an update every week or second week. We had no shortage of ideas, but the feedback from our early players played a big role in focusing on some weaker areas, and we tried our best to incorporate their requests and quality of life improvements wherever possible.

Forging on, we made a number of new levels and gradually added all the features and tools you know today over the course of 2 years, including Workshop Support, paperwork and easter-eggs.

With our love of Santa's Rampage (which we still played each year) and ideas floating around in our heads for another spin-off now that the main game was reaching its end, we excitedly began work on a Halloween theme.

House of Horror was born. This one was once again a lot of fun, and we enjoyed packing it full of crazy little easter-eggs.

Unlike the other spin-offs, this one was developed when the main game was largely complete. We wanted it to be released on Halloween, and it just so happened that we finished the 1.0 version of the game around that same time, given that House of Horror played a large role in refining its final state. In retrospect, we should probably have spaced them out a bit and done more for the 1.0 release, but we had what we had and it seemed odd to just leave things unreleased at the time.

With the game now fully released, we still had some ideas rattling around, and saw no reason to not expand upon the game more, so we began work on a few extra free levels. We also began work on MacOS support, which (despite a huge amount of work, and to our disappointment) never lived up to our standards, and we were only ever able to offer limited support.

After some time spent dabbling on other projects while continuing to push out fixes, we returned to VCD. Not yet feeling we were done with it, and wanting to give our players more, we developed some ideas.

Enter the Vulcan Affair. A spin-off concept that, like the others, came together very naturally. We had tons of inspiration for spy-spoof concepts, and soon had a level to build on.

We went all out on this one, developing new disposal methods and interactive elements. We enjoyed this one quite a lot.

Not content to simply put out a paid DLC, we wanted to give players some new levels for free too. Our front-runner was Core Sample, with the other two (Pestilent Penitentiary and Penumbra) exploring some other ideas we had.

Penumbra was spawned from our desire to explore a completely dark level, but sadly we didn't have enough time to really do it justice along with all the others, so it fell a bit short in the end, giving it its now legendary reputation.

Viscera Cleanup Detail 2?

Finally, we come to today. With a long hiatus since we released the Vulcan Affair, we moved on to some other projects of ours that had been in the pipeline for some time.

However, VCD remained in our minds, and the parts of its engine we were not able to fully wrangle into submission left us with something of a sore spot. Coupled with the multitude of ideas we still had, and the march of technology making VCD show its vulnerability to aging, we set out to port it to UE4.

We soon discovered the work-load involved was immense, and eventually decided it was better to spend that time (and limited man power) pursuing a sequel with the heaps of new ideas and past knowledge we now had.

Now, we finally have a working foundation for VCD in Unreal Engine 5, and are putting the final touches on our first major level.

Having learned lessons from the original, we are using our knowledge to build upon the original and focus on the things that made it great. Adding new systems and mechanics that reinforce the core of VCD, and removing the less successful elements without losing the crazy stuff that made it great.

We are gradually working toward a showcase of what VCD 2 will be like before we put it on Steam. Firstly, because we value feedback, and secondly because it's a good semi-complete package to aim for at this early stage that will define a proof of concept. We hope to get there soon, but there has been a lot of ground to cover, so it's an ongoing process with a lot of hurdles we continue to overcome.

Conclusion

Thank you for coming on this journey with us, and thank you once again to all our amazing fans and supporters who have made this dream a reality over the years. You noble Janitors are the best! Truly a class act of custodians if ever there were.

Until next time. We hope you all keep well, and keep those floors/walls/halls/boots clean. Raise your wet mops high in celebration, and down a can of 'fat-man'.

Here's to ten years of being clean!