Major Update Ahead

This game is now called "子非鱼“ or

"Blame The Tikatallik"

above image from JayShellingArt: https://examiningtheodd.com/2016/09/12/h-p-lovecrafts-top-10-moon-scenarios/

below image is generated with DALL-E 2

Old Man and the Shadow Over Innsmouth

a fishy twist to Momentum that basically reworks the whole game, I'm still keeping the grappling hooks though.

As I continued working on the game, updating the animations and move-sets, I came across a struggle: I couldn't stop making parallels to games like Ultrakill or Turbo Overkill, where the main character is also some kind of hyper-mobile robot/cyborg assassin who runs around the map with a ridiculous movement speed while gunning monsters down. And this really bothers me.

Not only I was trying to not falling into the trap of "hey this feature looks cool in the game so let's add it in", but also I want to make something that would fit better with the melee combat nature of Momentum, which I would say might require something more "grim", comical, or even ridiculous than what I have right now. Therefore I decided to shift an angle of this development towards adding new weapons & combat patterns, along with new enemies and maps that fit into a theme that could potentially fit better to what I was trying to make.

After a long discussion with my friend Daniel on a Thursday night, we went from talking about what we really liked from Ultrakill and Turbo to what I want for this game, and eventually I thought that it would be cool to draw some inspiration from my favorite horror genre: Lovecraftian horror, mix in a little bit of post-apocalyptic sci-fi, a little bit of Bloodborne, and a little bit of crazy nonsense... And yeah we're keeping the grappling hook mechanics. In combine, I have this imagery in mind:

In the future where the deep ones (humanoid beings with fish, human and amphibian-like traits) have invaded the land, a deranged old fisherman/sushi chef, wearing a VR goggle to keeps the remaining of his sanity in check, slash his way through waves of land-walking fish monsters with his strange weapons/tools.

“子非鱼，安知鱼之乐?”

If you translate this sentence word by word, it would be "if you're not a fish, how do you know the happiness of being one?" Casting aside the discussion about if this argument is a sophistry, I've always liked this quote since the first time I read about it in 5th grade.

To me, it means that I might need to really be in one's perspective to understand his/her/its intentions, actions, and furthermore: values. And I want to at one point deliver that idea in this game.

Our main character is ruthless: a maniac sushi chef that feasts on the flesh of his aquatic enemies with no remorse. On paper, our guy is bat-shit insane: I mean why would you ever do that? That's why I decided to make this game a first person experience. As you play through the game, charging into hordes of enemies like a madman, I want you to really run in the shoes of the main character.

But what about the fish? Why do they attack you? How did they get their legs? Where did they learn their DROPKICK techniques? Who are they worshipping? ... These are the stuff I want to present more as I, as a developer, explore more about this concept/game as I further develop it. Maybe "you" really are what "you" eat, with more fish meat consumed the main character eventually can become one of the landwalkers? Could this be a choice you can make in the end? Or I should incorporate this as part of the combat mechanics? The answer to these questions in my head will be addressed as I progress further (and depended on how much time I have).

But as far as I go with these hysterical imaginations, I want to settle on a name for this project instead of what I was (momentum). So the Chinese name will be called 子非鱼, meaning "you are not a fish" if you take it out of its original context: just like the first part of the game being "you" swinging down these "mindless" goons with no hesitation.

Before I've found a better name, I'm calling this game "Blame The Tiktaalik" (Tiktaalik is the type of fish that first walked on land, so yeah maybe all of this carnage would've been prevented if that guy didn't decide to take a peek out of the water).

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