You’re trapped in time. The same day won’t stop repeating itself, even if you ask it really nicely or, you know, die. You have absolute freedom. What do you do?
Garbage Day is an upcoming Steam hopeful inspired by the film Groundhog Day and this infamously godawful bit from Silent Night, Deadly Night 2. Think Groundhog Day‘s time loop, except set in an open-world video game. And this, apparently, isn’t just any open world. It’s designed to be hyper-interactive, down to every last in-game computer and cereal box.
This part is, to me, especially enticing:
“In this game you have to explore and interact to find out how to get out of the time loop. You are open to do anything you want, kill innocent people, go to work, watch tv, go to the park, etc. I don’t want to spoil anything, but you’ll be surprised how open ended this game is.”
Slowly but surely, you learn more about the inner workings of your endless space-time hamster bubble, and that influences interactions you can have with NPCs and the game world.
So basically, there are tons of possibilities, and you’re free to fuck around with each of them as you see fit. Go to work, hang out, try to fix your busted computer, chat with neighbours, etc. Still though, I can’t help but wonder if, through the ancient art of GIFs, the game’s creator is trying to tell us something, give us a clue about a way we can play the game:
Maybe, like… hmmmmm.
Or, what if… yeah, maybe I’m onto something here.
Nah. Never mind. I don’t see any overt commonalities. None whatsoever.
Moving on. Garbage Day will be out in a few months. It looks super interesting, if you ask me. What will you try to do first? Me, I’m going full pacifist, because I’m not A SHEEP who does everything some dumb GIFs tell me.
(jk, I totally am)
Comments
25 responses to “Kill Everyone. Go Back In Time. Do It Again: The Video Game”
A game where you can watch TV, go to work, murder a bunch of random people for no good reason with a disturbingly high number of lethal weapons in civilian possession, then rinse and repeat?
So… basically, America: The Game? Okay, got it. Staying far away from this one. Also, didn’t Postal 2 already come out, like, more than a decade ago? ALSO also, more basic blocky pixel people? There’s more to modelling than dropping a pastel texture onto the default square mesh and announcing “done”…
People are hard. Also, if you are just a programmer block people and animals can be created entirely programmatically.
People are not hard! They’re my specialty, and there’s no shortage of references; being able to program them doesn’t excuse poor aesthetics. Tired of ugly games passing off lazy development as “indie” style. That’s just gonna give me a bad rep, start making “indie” a dirty word again…
Just because you’re good at people, doesn’t mean everyone else is. Me, I wouldn’t know where to start to model a crate. Once I worked that out though, I could probably work out how make some basic blocky people. And if I was working on my own game, I probably couldn’t afford to hire someone to model for me.
Aside from that though, I kinda like the non-textured aesthetic this thing has. It’s cartoony.
But that’s just the thing – I didn’t start off good at making people; when I first started I could barely make a crate either. Now, I can spend a full work day and make a decent looking cartoon person, the more time the better; but I “tested” myself and made a block pixel-y person – it took me just a few minutes to create the mesh and add simple pastel textures. There is something to be said for actually taking that time to learn the craft and apply it; if I could do it, it really can’t be that hard. If you’re really serious about game development, there’s no excuse not to put in that time – I could just dump my “minute man” in and call it done, but, no. I won’t. I’ve gone through three revisions of the MC already, because I didn’t like her look!
Aesthetics aren’t an excuse; my own game uses a cartoon style. But, my character has fingers. Detail; definition. The textures work very well with the shading; it’s not just rehashing the basic blocky “style” and hoping to get away with it, because “indie” and “minecraft” or “crossy road”.
I’ll put it this way: it’s as if you were a sculptor, and despite all the time, money and effort you put into creating your masterpiece – some neckbeard comes along, gets a government grant, paints sheer black onto a canvas, calls it art, adjusts his fedora and is then officially done.
honestly if you can tell a good story what does it matter if the “aesthetics” aren’t picture perfect. its like saying dont bother reading books they are printed on paper! paper is boring! im good at creating complex granite objects that i then painstakingly hand chisel word onto.
Alright, when I first read your comment, I thought you were being silly, but upon watching the video I agree. The art is very lazy. THey did a good job with the lighting though. Also, the character’s outstretched limb looks amusingly phallic.
Commit suicide. Didn’t work for Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, but I always wonder when watching that movie (it’s a classic), how far you’d have to be pushed to do that in the hope that you would die rather than just wake up in the same day again.
I’d use the time to watch movies, play video games, take road trips, learn/practise sports and hobbies, read. I think he does some of this stuff, Italian, pottery and bowling or something? But I’m sure you could get a good 6 months in at least. The only bad part would be not being able to keep records such as writing, email, photos, you would need to finish every game in a day or cheat to skip levels. WOW, Minecraft and Cities: Skylines would be effectively useless.
“You are open to do anything you want, kill innocent people”
Uh… am I the only one concerned that this is the first thing to come to mind when given the choice of anything?
Plea stop killing ppl. They didn’t even spawn with weapons!
Coyote backpack scoreeee! XD
You’re not the only one. It’s pretty messed up.
It doesn’t look ‘that’ open ended… Unless you just call shooting everyone open ended
It works for CoD
So what’s the difference between this and Hatrid? Besides “kill everyone” being the objective in Hatrid rather than an option in this?
No but that game’s appalling and this one isn’t
Clearly.
Exactly. Hatred is black and white. This game has bright colours.
Bright colours make wanton murder and destruction simply for the fun of it ok.
Gg. Censor release in Germany, Aus, UK… Now all you can do is pick up hedgehogs.
Reminds me of Edge of Tomorrow – That had mini game on Android that was quite addictive trying to find the perfect speed run
My first thought was Edge of Tomorrow as well. Didn’t realise there was an Android game, I’ll have to look that up.
Just checked and it is still on the play store. Hope you enjoy 🙂
Reminds me of Postal/2.
Thanks for a heap of gifs from the video we just watched…..
Looks interesting.
Hmmmmmm interesting concept. I shall keep my eye on this.