Let's Watch Steamboat Willie!
Two film nerds sit down for a comfy evening watching old movies. Next up is Steamboat Willie, and they quickly take to bickering.
By the time the cartoon is over, one of them will be dead.
Features
- One classic cartoon from 1928, obtained legally and presented uncensored,
- Auto-advancing gameplay, game ends when Steamboat Willie does,
- Full Voice Acting,
- Original Jazz Soundtrack,
- Convenient web playable build...
- ...Or download for best quality!
- Content warning txt document,
No Good ending?
Cast & Crew
- Voice of Lee - Juniper Lee Thalia Watkins
- Voice of Niles - Josh Wells
- Team Lead, Writing, Coding - Alexis Royce
- Sprite & Concept Artist - May Sparrow / queenburd
- Audio Director - Floweramon
- Composer, Piano, Voice - Kayla Price / Rainbow_Cookies
- Bass, Horns - Jade Decker / twigxcabaret
- Drums, percussion - Adair Greysen
- Mixing intro/outro music - Sophie Hissen
- Copywriter - Victor Lownie / windienine
- Coded in Ren'Py
Soundtrack available on Bandcamp!
For more from these characters:
Download
Development log
Comments
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Where's the content warning text document?
An amazing little game tbh, written with snappy wit as usual from this team <3
Oooh thank you so much for playing! I'll get this saved to my watch later. :3
what a delightful game!! very stylish and fun to replay! i'll definitely be checking out your other work!
Thank you! Making short jam games is such a joy, and I'm really happy with how cohesive the style turned out. I hope you have fun with some of the other games!
What a fantastic game! Strong writing, amazing performances, incredibly stylish on every front, and with an cute, cheeky message. Loved it!
Thank you so much! I really wanted to make something short and punchy, and I couldn't be prouder of the work that every member of the team out in. They were really firing on all cylinders for the whole month, and it was amazing to get to watch it come together!
Cheeky, fun, and incredibly stylish--really enjoyed this! Fantastic work, team!
Thank you! "Cheeky" is absolutely what I'm going for when I write Liam! ^u^
Ahhhh, I knew I would enjoy this! I just didn't know how much... The music has such a wonderful vibe to it, and the back and forth between Liam and Niles just flows so well, both the writing and the performances! Also, the background design... going to give a finger kiss that'll make the chef on the pizza box proud. I am so happy the extras include concept art because I am going to study these to bits...
And for the story/gameplay itself, because ooooh that is the meat!
Knowing where these guys originated from makes the copyright talk so fascinating. It's the human condition to take things we like, take them like sportsballs, and smack them around to see what happens. It's wonder to see these two in action again, and I believe in Liam and his future mecha-mouse works. And the loops were done so well? Enough variation to keep interest, but still in a framework that has a wonderful ominous atmosphere. The little bonks that happen when you click on something that's not clickable was a highlight for me, strangely enough. Also I almost thought that there was going to be some Stalling-strats going on with the Mickey-Mousing, but in hindsight that might have been too much for a month jam's work perhaps?
In summary, amazing work! I want to make some pizza now too...
Thank you so much! I hope that the concept art does help; I set up a schedule before the jam started, so we had plenty of time to try out ideas before we had to finalize things. Giving yourself space to iterate first is really important; great art never comes out right on the first try. I mean, I say that, but May's especially fantastic at initial concepts, as you can probably tell by how much of the art in there is theirs! They very much inspire me to do more sketch work in general!
And yes; I'm glad that folks that have been following Lee and Diegesis for a bit can see that extra bullet point regarding the use of copyrighted works. Often, things can be a solid jumping off point for making something that is VERY different from the original. What does it matter if you are or aren't making pizza anymore, so long as it's tasty? XD
This is wonderful! I must admit I don’t really get where it goes initially, but the slow zoom out draws you in and you can’t stop watching. Excellent work all around (like anything you have released, truly).
Hey, thank you! And no worries if the script is a little oblique; I'm glad that the camerawork is there to give a sense of direction. I wanted to learn to communicate more through visuals and atmosphere, so that means it was on the right track! :D
Thanks for playing! ^u^
Film is certainly serious business, and so is pizza.
Though, it would have been nice if we could manually advance through the dialouge.
Yeah I wish I’d been able to figure out how to pause or advance the video; hopefully in the future that’ll be a feature present in the engine. I’m not sure how much call everyone else would have for more bespoke video playback controls, but then I wouldn’t have wasted a week trying and failing to wrangle them myself 😆
And pizza is very serious business, at least the toppings!
this was such a cool experience! The art and framing are just absolutely gorgeous, and the dialogue is fun and snappy. Plus the voice acting is really well done, so even when I'm replaying the VN, it doesn't feel like it's dragging at all.
Overall, it's super cool! Very creative and super fun :)
Thank you so much! The voice acting is definitely vital to this game; my partner nearly refused to playtest it until the lines had been added, they said that trying to read along in a timed manner was exceptionally unpleasant! 😆 It also made the last days of debugging a lot more fun for me; since when I was down to my final passes and was fine-tuning the timing, I couldn’t skip either! I’m very happy to hear that the dialogue is still snappy; I really didn’t want to ruin the director and actors’ hard work with bad editing!
haha, i can see how that wouldn't have been as fun ;_; but it totally paid off I'd say (i know i'm kind of repeating this again but) everything really came together so well at the end!! Props to you and the team :D
This is such a fun concept for a VN! I love the framing of it all, and the camera movements, and the art is very striking despite being all black and white. The bickering is a lot of fun, the dialogue feels realistic and charming, and the VA is really good too!
I've never read anything quite like this before, so it was a fun experience. Thank you for sharing it!
Thanks for playing! I wanted to get a little experimental and see what Ren'Py could do! There's a lot here that I think wouldn't work in a longer game, and for a little while I was scared that the format would end up too different to be fun, if someone was expecting something more traditional.
The bickering is more of the same from me though, I'm afraid. Man, I love writing bickering couples! XD
The bickering is so good... 10/10 got to be one of my favourite things haha
And this really does feel very different from all other Ren'py games, it's very stylish and well put together! I probably wouldn't want to play a longer game that I can't click through at my own pace, but in a short game like this it woks well!
Made a video
YOOOOO I was hoping that this would be up your alley! Adding this to my Watch Later list for after work. ^u^
We had a lot of fun with it so hope you enjoy watching the video
I must know... What does Niles think of pineapple on pizza...
Gods that was somehow equally charming and unsettling. The aesthetic was wonderfully on point! The buildup of the music and the background gradually zooming, the small details in their sprites you pick up on over time-
Recommended experience! No Tumblr AU shutposting allowed~
Heeheehee, perhaps rather expectedly, Hawaiian pizza is one of Liam’s favorites, and depending on your choices in NonPlatonic Forms, you can force Niles to buy one for him. 😆 Niles might grumble, but I think he secretly likes it.
And thank you! I think charming and horror go together really well, but it can be hard to pull off, so I’m really glad to hear we got it right in your eyes!
👀 Oooh, I’ll check it out! Thanks for playing!
THE LAST PAGE OF ART IN THE EXTRASSSSS????????????
All I'll say is, if you liked it you should check out the main game these characters are from, NonPlatonic Forms. (if you didn't, then ignore me XD)
I deffinetly will ive never heard of it. off topic I think there is a rat in my wall its making very loud noises
unfortunately never mind. I have a feeling it would be triggering to me but great art nonetheless! Also I'm a female lesbian so not really my thing .. .
That's fair! I'm glad you were able to enjoy these fun characters in this little spin-off at least ^_^
It’s complicateeddddddd XD
The game is really interesting. The way the camera and characters move looks great, and it’s really cool to see the screen follow my mouse. Nice work!
Thank you so much! Getting the parallax movement working with the camera dolly was a little wonky at first, but I'm pleased with how it turned out.
how do I get a good end???
On your first loop you'll always get the bad end, then any loop afterwards has the chance to get the good end. On your 2nd loop (or whichever you're on right now), whenever you get the choice, be oppositional to Niles, don't agree with him.
well this was a delightful way to end my evening :3
Happy to make a Monday memorable. 😁
This game is so interesting! I really dig the concept, can't wait to play more of it!
Thank you! I didn’t want to make a game using Steamboat Willie unless I felt confident in the idea. Thankfully my team understood the silliness, too! XD
THIS GAME BLINDSIDED ME???!! WOW. GREAT WORK.
Thank you! Great job breaking free!
The presentation is immaculate, Voice Over is really high quality, but the music really stood out! Bravo to everyone apart of this, it's very enigmatic :))
Thank you so much! I’m so grateful to have worked with such an amazing team on sound! Kayla’s Jazz had me enraptured the moment she DMed me, both of the VAs were immediately my top picks for the characters, and getting to sit and listen while Floweramon directed them was just plain astonishing. This barely felt like a jam; everyone was so smooth and cool to work with!
That's amazing I'm so happy for you! Consider me a fan- I can't wait to see more of you and your crew's work <3
oh shit a new alexis royce game let's goooo
Whoa this comment took me by surprise, the idea that anyone would think or say this is incredible. Makes me feel seen in a great way. Thank you!
i got the case of the serialized killer in a package for palestine fundraising and i adored it!!! was very happy to see in my notifs that you made another game :))
well i know whats on my to play list this week
It’s a nice quick one! 😄
Haven't played it yet, hoping to play it on stream, but thank you so much for the email to make me aware of this
Hey, thanks for letting me know that you didn’t mind! I hope you have fun; and let me know when you’re going to stream it! I’ll pop into the chat if I’m free then. 😁