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High on Life, a game where you use talking guns to stop humans from being sold as drugs, is the newest title from Squanch Games, a development studio founded by Rick and Morty<\/em> co-creator Justin Roiland, When I played their last game, Trover Saves the Universe<\/a>, a few years ago, I was surprised by how naturally Roiland\u2019s brand of improvised dialogue translated to video game form. Characters would ramble on as long as you stuck around to listen, and I would find myself standing in certain spots for upwards of five or six\u00a0minutes, just listening to Roiland (who voiced many characters, Trover included) riff on one joke over and over again. While High on Life and Trover are two very different games, Roiland\u2019s style of comedy is featured heavily in both. When I got a chance to talk to Roiland (and design director Erich Meyr), I was surprised to learn he originally wanted this game to have a different direction.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t really want to do the main gun,\u201d Roiland says. \u201cI was trying to get out of it. But the team was like, \u2018no, you have to do it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Meyr interjects and echoes the team, \u201cIt\u2019s kind of our signature at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n Roiland ultimately agreed to it because the team pushed so hard. \u201cI have to be wrong if everyone else is saying that,\u201d he continues. \u201cSo I was like, alright, I’ll do it. And I knew that it would be helpful from a production standpoint for me to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n The player fires Kenny, the gun voiced by Justin Roiland.<\/p>\n They explain that Roiland did so many voices in Trover Saves the Universe because it was originally temporary dialogue meant to be replaced later in the development cycle. The team ultimately decided to keep it in, both because it wasn\u2019t worth the work to rerecord all of it and because they thought it was funny enough already.<\/p>\n \u201cTrover was like 70% improv, 30% script, probably something like that,\u201d Roiland said, unsure of the exact ratio. \u201cThis game is definitely the opposite. But there\u2019s still fun improv.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEspecially with the guns,\u201d Meyr says. \u201cA lot of the guns do improv.\u201d<\/p>\n The guns in question are High on Life\u2019s main narrative gimmick. As you explore the world, you find a series of talking guns with different personalities, each voiced by a different comedian. I asked Roiland about the casting process for such an odd set of roles, and he said they mostly knew who they wanted before even starting.<\/p>\n \u201cJB Smoove was definitely someone I wanted from the get-go,\u201d Roiland says. \u201cTim Robinson was another\u2026 our head writer Alec Robbins is friends with him. So he was just like, \u2018hey do you want to do this?\u2019 and [Robinson] is like, \u2018yeah, I\u2019ll do it\u2019 without even really realizing what he was getting himself into.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Gus, pictured here, is voiced by JB Smoove.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Betsy Sodaro got the role through an audition, rounding out a cast that Roiland says is the same level of quality as a good animated comedy series. That said, the narrative design in a game like High on Life is far more complicated than the linear dialogue of an episode of Rick and Morty<\/em>.<\/p>\n For example, a mechanic this game shares with Trover is \u201copt-in\u201d dialogue. It\u2019s what Squanch calls a scene where players can leave at any time, even when the other characters are still talking: the player is in charge of how much of the dialogue they want to experience, and NPCs respond to their behavior appropriately. Squanch Games\u2019 work on Trover gave them an idea for the structure of those types of scenes and made the writing process smoother.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can stand near them, and they\u2019re aware that you\u2019re there, and then when you leave, they\u2019re aware that you\u2019re leaving,\u201d Roiland says. \u201cWriting all that stuff is just thinking about how the player could potentially interrupt or re-engage. If they do something, how does the NPC respond?\u201d<\/p>\n An example of this in High on Life is in a section where the player meets a group of aliens called the Mac and Cheese Brothers. Typically, a player would approach, meet the brothers, and decide how to act. However, Meyr says, \u201cWhen we were playtesting, we had someone who just from a distance shot a special ability and blew them all up before even meeting them. And we\u2019re like, \u2018okay, well, that\u2019s a thing someone might do, right? Let\u2019s write a line for that.\u201d<\/p>\n As much work as they\u2019ve done predicting player behavior, Roiland says he could see them going another year just adding more details. The project was so ambitious that they tripled the studio\u2019s staff from about 20 to 60 to pull it off, and they still cut plenty of content.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s tons of stuff,\u201d Roiland says when I ask what didn\u2019t make it in. \u201cWhat’s interesting about those, though, is that sometimes you’ll come back to them\u2026 For sure on Rick and Morty<\/em> there’s episodes in just about every season that were dreamt up in like season one or two that we have gone back [to] with fresh eyes\u2026 and then suddenly it clicks.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Justin Roiland, founder of Squanch Games.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s actually surprising how much we did get in,\u201d Meyr says. \u201cA lot of ideas are like kind of nuts.\u201d He didn\u2019t mention it here, but one of the most surprising things that did make it in were four full-length movies licensed to appear in the game and play on TVs in the background. The two developers didn\u2019t want to list specific cut content in case it comes back one day, but I can\u2019t help but wonder \u2014 if four full movies made the cut, what didn\u2019t?<\/p>\n Today, the game is finally done and available to the general public. For Meyr, this is an exciting time.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s great to see it so complete, you know,\u201d Meyr says. \u201cBecause there\u2019s so many cycles of focusing on what\u2019s broken\u2026 and then in this last month, you kind of have to take your little dev goggles off and be like, \u2018Oh that\u2019s the game, right?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Meyr says his favorite thing to do after one of his games launches is to watch streamers play it. Before Twitch, they would have to wait for reviews and then maybe hear some people mention it online, but watching someone tackle it on launch day is \u201cmuch more immediately gratifying, which is just really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n After hearing about Meyr\u2019s passionate love of launch day streamers, Roiland pauses for a moment, then says, \u201cYeah, I don\u2019t do it.\u201d When I ask why, he says, \u201cI’ve lived it and seen it so much that like, I’m good. I’m good. I’m excited people are playing it\u2026 I just need some distance.\u201d It\u2019s not an opinion exclusive to games either \u2014 he feels that way about all of his creative projects. He and Meyr also agree that it takes them a few years after launch before they can properly enjoy a game they\u2019ve worked on.<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re not satisfied with this project, though. \u201cI’m really proud of where we landed with this one,\u201d Roiland says. \u201cAll the crazy ideas, it’s just insane. The team has been working insanely f—ing hard. It’s cool because we all have been living with this thing and believing in it for years and years.\u201d<\/p>\n High on Life is out now on Xbox Series X\/S, Xbox One, and PC and is available on Game Pass on those platforms. For more on the game, check out our rooftop interview from earlier this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n High on Life, a game where you use talking guns to stop humans from being sold as drugs, is the newest title from Squanch Games, a development studio founded by Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Ro…<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1862,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":{"title":"Justin Roiland Almost Didn\u2019t Voice The Main Gun In High On Life - ITTeacherITFreelance.hk","description":"High on Life, a game where you use talking guns to stop humans from being sold as drugs, is the newest title from Squanch Games, a development studio founded by"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322880"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1862"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322880"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":322881,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322880\/revisions\/322881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.gameinformer.com\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/body_default\/public\/2022\/12\/13\/515ef13c\/oldtown_high_on_life.jpg\")
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