10 years of PEKSCTG2

Look at my awesome illustration! Ok you don't have to read the rest now.

One decade ago the game that this log is attached to was released. You probably think I'm lying because of the upload date, but it was only 3 years later I decided to upload it to itch. For a while the only way you could get PEKSCTG2 was through a shady Mediafire link. If you don't believe me check the trailer upload date:

To say PEKSCTG2 is my greatest work ever would be totally dishonest with myself. Even a few months after the release of it I already had regrets about making it too long and difficult and hardly anyone had played it to completion. Getting word of it out seemed impossible too. "Hey come and play this game based on comics that haven't been relevant in years that's ironic but also isn't! Also it's full of my inscrutable inside jokes!" Uploading it to itch turned out to be an answer because as it turns out, unlike many sites of the current web, itch's search actually works and there are people looking for Kirby games for some reason.

I can't write a post about this without mentioning the name Meteorz, a Kirby Youtuber who I had no idea existed until late 2021 when I was spontaneously sent a link to his stream struggling against the final boss. Despite the incredible frustration he experienced he actually loved it and went out of his way to get his prolific subscriber base to play it, which is a gesture I thought was strange, but I appreciated it nonetheless. PEKSCTG2 had maybe 200 downloads total between the itch and mediafire links before he played it and now that number has increased at least sixfold. Meteorz even went out of his way to contact me for help with the secret banana locations. I thank him very much for helping spawn a bit of a cult following of this game, even if it's not what I would have done after playing.

My biggest regret with PEKSCTG2 is making it way too hard-- I kind of get the mindset that goes into games like I Wanna Be The Guy where you think "Games are too easy these days!" and make something crazy that only you can beat because you've learned it so many times. But it's admittedly pretty frusturating for everyone else and I really should have tuned the difficulty better! Too many people got filtered and they didn't get to see all the awesome jokes about vaporwave that are not dated at all. There was an update to the game early on that did change things around, but there weren't a lot of significant changes other than the skeleton chase is now very hard instead of insanely hard.

Regardless I think there is a certain sort of feeling that people get after playing PEKSCTG2 where it makes them very upset and frustrated in the moment but like it in retrospect. My friend Myste is the first person I know who beat this game like two days after I released it. They said it was one of the worst things they've played and later was like "I'm sorry I actually did like it thinking about it now." If anything I'm glad I made something that might not be the best but is at least memorable, and that was sort of the aim with PEKSCTG2. There are bad games, and then there are certain types of bad games where the experience sticks in your head so much you actually sort of love them. This happens a lot to people with stuff like Sonic 2006. I saw it happen recently with renowned streamers wayneradiotv and socpens playing Planet 51 The Game. It happened to me with The Grinch PS1 game. And it might have happened to you with my game, or you could be Noole the Cheep Cheep who speedran it for Meteorz's contest and still hated it and didn't even win, shout out to them.

PEKSCTG2 is not a totally dishonest game. Even if it makes fun of sprite comics and old internet speak it very much celebrates them too, with certain plot points being about characters who are antagonistic towards Kirby for being so old school, yet he wins in the end. But it's still a bit sloppy and embarassing to look at now with my old bad artwork and stolen assets. Sorry itoki hana for stealing your excellent cover. I made it in 10 months with what is now a very antiquated version of Game Maker while trying to balance school on top of it, even working on it on my laptop while on campus. But if you played the game at all or even watched someone else play it I appreciate it.

Game dev is not something I do super often but I am still interested in it as a hobby. A year and a half ago I put out Elly's Adventure, a top-down action game about a witch girl who blows up robots. It's considerably less difficult and maybe less memorable than PEKSCTG2 but I still think it's pretty good! The soundtrack is not original though I need to change that with future releases. I also published Funny Fish Game HD a while ago, a game jam winner (it was the only entry) that is like a legally distinct version of Finding Nemo for GameCube.

For now here's to 10 more years of any more games I can come up with, if any, and if there are then unfortunately Princess Sweetysour will probably be there.