If it's not a bother, I was hoping to posit a few questions to you.
First, will there be any backstory about Mezz revealed in later developments? Even with NSFW games, I still appreciate learning about each character.
Second, is "Mezz" a pun on "mesmerize," or merely a coincidental name choice?
Finally, will there be any moments where Mezz wants to do something sexual without being hypnotized first? I know the main selling point is hypnosis, I'm not judging; I'm simply curious due to wanting to know more about his original personality.
Overall, the game looks interesting, and I look forward to seeing what you do in the future. Also, Mezz is adorable.
No bother at all, love it when people are thinking a little more about the games beyond the immediate.
There will definitely be story and setting development, and some degree of seeing who he is as he interacts with things, but I hadn't planned an elaborate back-story, no. Mezz is a fairly simple character, and that's partially on-purpose, as the player avatar. But in general it's more about where things go, rather than where they came from when it comes to him.
No, but I love that it works out that way. I think it's actually that long ago in the depths of time there was this artist called Muzz I kinda liked, and when I was trying to come up with a name some synapses deep in my memory crossed and mis-fired and my brain spit out "Mezz." No other relation though, it's not actually connected in any way. I just like the sound.
As for non-hypnosis sex, definitely with Scratch eventually (sorry, spoilers, but come on :D). Possibly in one other situation as well, given the way you worded that, but that won't be for a loooong time.
And thanks, I agree. Just imagine the way the little ears bounce when he's takin' it :D.
Also, while we're talking the game and references, there's still one in there no one has caught. One of the graffiti. Too obscure I think, but let me know if you catch it.
I came across some graffiti outside Mahir's place, which appears to reference to John Dowland. I was able to understand the rough gist of the Latin phrase, but I do not know much about music history, so I had to do some research on that.
If that is not the reference you were referring to, then is it the graffiti that says, "It's hard to draw a sexy rabbit" or however it's worded? I could not find the definitive answer, but some research has lead to claims that it originated from Jazz Jackrabbit, although I am unsure in what way; one source claims it was a weird easter egg in one of the games' credits.
On the note of backstory and personality, I really appreciated the dialogue in the garden. The fact Mezz seems so surprised by real trees and grass shows how physically scarred their world is, and also shows a subtle emotional side to the normally cocky Mezz, even if he immediately goes back to being cocky afterward.
Oh ho, got the Dowland too! Very good. You may wish to keep an eye on that going forward too. But yeah, I was thinking of the Jazz one. It's a "complaint" by the game's animator in the Instructions section. I'm curious what this "research" entailed though; it sounds like some others have made the connection? Nicely done though.
And thanks, I definitely will continue to have stuff like that; not huge exposition dumps but just little hints of "Here's how this character reacts, given who he is and the setting." Glad you enjoyed that.
I found an OpenForum thread from 2002 that was, from what I can tell, a guessing game about video game quotes. The text is slightly hard to read, coupled with me being dyslexic, but I was still able to find a reference to the quote. I searched up Jazz Jackrabbit screenshots and videos, and one stream recording of the game made the same claim about this quote. I couldn't see it in the credits, but again, that could be due to my dyslexia acting up; I can sometimes skip entire paragraphs, which is why I try to remember to double-check everything I read.
I'm sorry for suddenly jumping back into our conversation, but I had another weird and sort of morbid question.
I won't specify where it's said, as I don't want to accidentally spoil too much for other players, but there's a piece of dialogue that says Mezz "trimmed down the ranks" of the gangsters. Is Mezz a no-kill kind of hero, and this dialogue implies he simply hurts enemies to the point of being out of commission? Or does he sometimes hit hard enough to kill? Even what amounts to a well-crafted stick can cause catastrophic damage if swung with enough velocity and into the right areas of the body.
I know this sounds extremely morbid, but I always am curious if combatant (especially armed) heroes follow a no-kill rule or not.
Side note, does Dragon's Breath cause physical damage to hyenas after long-term abuse? I know it's already shown to cause mental disturbance (not even counting suggestibility in other species), but I can't stop thinking about how a drug like that would ruin a person's body over time.
I've intentionally left it vague. It's mostly video-game logic: you can bring a giant buster sword down on someone and bring their HP down to zero, but they're not dead, just "defeated", whatever that means. Making it explicit that he's murdering every single one of the enemies seemed like the wrong tone, and doesn't quite fit his character. To be clear though, Mezz isn't Spiderman/Batman, he's perfectly fine with killing (though you should probably picture it as a more cartoony killing, rather than him drenched in blood or something). It's just that he's somewhat of a stealth character, so he USUALLY favors knockouts; he sees killing as sloppy and unimpressive, but not off the table. You don't live your whole life in the ruined city and not kill. Even Scratch probably has a few notches (though I'm not definitively specifying there). But Diezel and Khazeem for example are 100% dead in the appropriate endings, and it's at least somewhat Mezz's fault.
Now, does all this mean that that bit of narration about "trimming the ranks" means he ended them all, or just crippled them for a while? Whichever you prefer, though I think my intention was more toward the latter; again, he prefers not to kill because it's sloppy, and doesn't fit as well with the "hero" identity/delusion he's crafted for himself. He is, like all good people, trying to live up to a somewhat unattainable ideal. But he's not unrealistically hard-line about it.
As for Dragon's Breath's potential for physical damage, the answer is that it's never been fully determined. Anyone who's not a hyena either ends up a sex slave (which tends to have a fairly...unimpressive career length) or ends up wandering off before training is complete and dying because their sex obsession and empty-headedness leads to the neglect of basic self-preservation: starving, tumbling off a high ledge, picking fights they shouldn't, etc. Anyone who IS a hyena goes crazy with violence and paranoia, and is murdered by other enterprising entrepreneurs before any physical signs of damage manifest. In the few cases where slaves/"Entertainment" have survived several years in their new roles however, no clear evidence of physical harm from the drug has manifested. But keep in mind that for "fresh meat" the drug is only used as an ensnarement and training tool for conditioning, then discontinued once the new assets are ready, so there's no continual abuse that might lead to further damage. Mahir only uses the clicker in the end.
ALSO: Was thinking over my comments on Mezz's name and realized I'm forgetting my own...lore? Dev lore? Originally I was going for a musical theme in naming for the first game, though I gave up on it pretty quick ("Diezel" is a brand of amplifier for example). "Mezz" is a reference to Mezzo, as in Mezzo Forte. "Medium". Get it? Cause he's short?
I actually was kind of curious if there were more music references hidden around, as there was the Dowland graffiti, not to mention the title "Serenade." I completely missed the name references for the characters, since I don't really know much about music at all, let alone brands or types of instruments.
I get what you mean about ambiguity on enemies' fates, and I appreciate that it's not just a concrete "kills everybody or nobody" dynamic. Aaaand because I'm deranged, when you said "more cartoony killing," I envisioned Mezz replacing one of Mahir's cigarettes with a stick of dynamite.
Ho boy, getting into esoteric Jazz lore a moment here: No actually, not Dean Dodrill. He did the excellent opening animation on Jazz 2, which still gives me chills to this day, but like the music (where the new tracks on 2 were done by the amazing Alexander Brandon, later to be of Unreal and Deus Ex tracker fame, but the first game's score was by Robert A. Allen), animation and styling for the characters in general was done by Nick Stadler on Jazz 1. Kind of a sad story: he went to school for animation, hoping to work on big movies and shows, and took the gig with Epic as a stepping stone, a quick stop to gain experience on his resume. Finished up, they offered to let keep him on, but he was set on going on to "real" work in entertainment. Aaaand then Toy Story happened, and suddenly no one would hire new animators if they couldn't do this new 3d thing. As a side bar, that MIGHT also be why so many games, especially edutainment titles in the late 90s had such lush 2d animation: There was a whole crop of traditionally trained animators that couldn't get jobs in the industry anymore, but the gaming world was thrilled to have them, as multimedia and CD ROM was just becoming a thing, and it would be eons before PCs could do decent real-time 3d.
He ended up doing illustration work for an LGBT magazine for a while (I believe he was gay himself) and then just kinda faded from public view. In hindsight, ouch, should have stuck with Epic, though I'm sure that would have had its own issues.
Heh, but yeah, lot of fun stuff in that game. Very jank in places, but beautiful art and music.