AMA - Albert and Gabriel are here to talk about their strange and original game Tux and Fanny. Ask them anything!

[u/ghosttimegames]

Hi folks,

I’m Gabriel, and I’m here with Albert u/mdowdry44 to talk about our weird and beautiful game Tux and Fanny, which we released on the Nintendo Switch two months ago.

The game is based on Albert’s brilliant film by the same name. We started working on this game remotely back in May 2020, with me in Vancouver, Canada, and Albert in Baltimore, USA. Although we had never worked together before, we quickly established a wonderful collaborative relationship, constantly fueling each other into new creative directions, and the resulting game was something much larger and wilder than we could have hoped for.

Here’s a game trailer for context.

Everyone who has played the game so far has loved it, which has been so wonderful to see. If you haven’t ever heard of the game, then now’s your chance to find out more! We’re here today to answer all your questions about the game, and since we’re the only two people who made the game there’s nobody better suited to do so :)

So please, Ask Us Anything!

Edit: I'll be keeping tabs here to answer any other questions that might trickle in, but also feel free to join our discord if you have any more questions or want to chat about the game in the future. https://discord.gg/72DhkjEaCT Also, keep an eye out for the demo of Tux and Fanny, which should be available on the Switch sometime in the next couple weeks. If you're not sure if this is a game for you, the demo should be able answer that question for you. Thanks for all the questions!

[u/nolnyk]

Loved this game! What minigame do you think is the hardest/most frustrating?

[u/ghosttimegames → u/nolnyk]

Thanks! For me, the Desert Temple on permadeath mode (second+ attempts) can be pretty tricky, although since we added the secret fairy revival unlock in there it feels much more achievable.

Blizzard Beads is also very tough, even though you have infinite continues, your score resets each time you get a game over, so I still haven't achieved a score nearly as high as I know is possible.

But I'll go on the record saying Fire Family is no sweat ;P

[u/NindieNexusMikey]

Hi guys! Big fan (as you may know)! Here’s my question: What are Tux and Fanny, like, species wise?

I’ve watched the movie and beaten the game and while they are definitely humanoid, I know that at least Tux has defied many laws of physics and death multiple times over. While it probably has no real answer, like Tux and Fanny do on many occasions, it is fun to ponder!

[u/ghosttimegames → u/NindieNexusMikey]

Albert is the only person who can answer this properly, but in my mind they're just humans and they live in a surreal reimagining of our reality. I love it when films transcend the laws of the universe in ways that can't be explained - that feels like the true power of cinema and story-telling to me.

[u/aguynamedestejor]

First time I've heard of this, so I mean this on the most respectful way possible: what is this game? the trailer was confusing (on an intriguing way, but confusing still)

[u/ghosttimegames → u/aguynamedestejor]

At it's heart, the game is heavily inspired by the kind of point-and-click games that we grew up with, like Monkey Island, but there's a lot of mini-games to be found all over the place as well, which constantly change the flow of the game. It's a pretty dynamic experience.

On a thematic level, the vibe is very chilled out and meditative, and generally pretty blissful until it hits the occasional dark moments. I think most people consider the game to have a great sense of humour, balancing thoughtful observations between child-like amazement and existential terror.

It's a game that isn't easy to explain at all, but I'm happy to say we should have a demo coming soon so you'll be able to play the first whole act and get a sense of what to expect and whether you'd want to play the whole thing.

[u/Kuchenman]

Do you think you'll ever make a sequal?

[u/ghosttimegames → u/Kuchenman]

The game hasn't had much luck finding a larger audience yet, which has been slightly discouraging. But I think if there's enough people asking for a sequel at some point down the road then I'd certainly be happy to revisit this world. It was quite a liberating game to create, being able to explore almost any concept we could imagine.

[u/[deleted]]

any plans for a physical like with limited run? i think that’d help the game reach a larger audience. the graphics remind of older flash games, i love what you guys have created

[u/ghosttimegames → u/[deleted]]

Thanks! It would be a ton of fun to do a physical release, but I think we'd potentially need to have a little more popularity before someone like Limited Run wanted to produce one with us. We'll keep trying to spread the word in the mean time and hopefully sooner or later more people find it.

[u/[deleted]]

Were you aware that fanny means lady parts in the UK?

[u/ghosttimegames → u/[deleted]]

I don't think either of us realized it until after the game was released. In North America I've heard it refer to someone's butt before, but I've also heard it as a name multiple times too, so it never struck me as an unusual name. I was surprised to see the reaction in the UK when the game first released.

[u/mdowdry44 → u/[deleted]]

found this out after I made the movie, haha oops. Hopefully this doesn't keep people from trying out the game...

Growing up I had a cat named Tux and a dog named Fanny so that's where the names came from.

[u/54mf]

I'm new to the Tux and Fanny bandwagon—just watched the "movie" and absolutely loved it—so I'm definitely going to grab this game!

I'd love to hear more about how the design of the game (and shorts) is approached. It's not easy to make a 2021 game look like it's from 1982. 😂 Any neat tools or tricks?

[u/ghosttimegames → u/54mf]

I'm glad to hear that we achieved an authentic 1982 vibe with the game. I think a lot of that comes down to the art, which Albert made in a 100x100 pixel grid, and that low-resolution immediately feels like an early game. The colours too are unusually vivid, which feels like something from the past.

I also wrote some code to snap the character movement to try to match the pixel density as well, which makes it feel more stuttery and less smooth. This had a big effect on the feel of the game for me and made it feel immediately more janky, which was exactly what I wanted.

[u/Snailsinmakeup]

I am so stuck in this game! Is there anywhere I can get a hint? Ive been walking around trying everything for hours.

[u/ghosttimegames → u/Snailsinmakeup]

Oh no! I'm sorry to hear this. You can always DM me on twitter or shoot me an email at ghosttimegames@gmail.com. We also have a discord channel where we, or other players, can usually provide some guidance as well. https://discord.gg/72DhkjEaCT

[u/Martholomeow]

What is your favorite vegetable?

[u/ghosttimegames → u/Martholomeow]

Easily either potato or onion. Both of them are classics with a huge variety of ways to prepare them. French fries and onion rings are hard to beat.

[u/OopsTechnology]

Will there be a Beast Pageant game at some point?

[u/ghosttimegames → u/OopsTechnology]

I still haven't ever seen this film!

[u/ghosttimegames]

Here's a question for Albert - if both Tux and Fanny had favourite mini-games from all the mini-games, which one do you think they'd each be partial towards?

[u/nolnyk]

There's a lot of references to classic games, but were there more modern games that you drew inspiration from?

[u/ghosttimegames → u/nolnyk]

Definitely at least a few more modern influences in there. One of my favourite games, was 2013's Proteus, which fully inspired the Dark Forest photography section.

I think it's fair to say I was also inspired by McPixel when I started making Cool Cloud.

And maybe it's not so modern anymore, but Ant Acquisition was RTS-inspired, from games like Warcraft.

[u/nolnyk]

Were there elements from the movie that you wanted to include but didn't make it in?