The Lizard Game Postmortem

Oh right the post mortem uhhhh here.

This post will contain unmarked spoilers. Reader beware.

1. How and why Lizard Game happened

First of all, I'd once again like to thank everyone for checking out this little project. It's really great how nice the response has been! I was really worried that releasing something outside of a Game Jam would lead to exactly 3 views and one 2-star rating, but that hasn't happened, and everyone's been really sweet. I can't respond to every comment and review, but rest assured that I'm reading all of them.

A special shout-out to the people who helped report bugs and made suggestions, you rock. I'm taking this stuff on board for the content patch.

In this post, I want to go over the project's history a little. How did it come about, why did it release at such a strange time and in such an unusual state, what was I trying to do, what can we learn from this. I also have some future plans for this game. Finally, there's some "DVD extras" at the end of this post - inspirations, further reading, and pointers towards some of the stuff this game is engaging with.

This is all really long and self-indulgent for what is ultimately a silly lil kink story, but that's what you sign up for when you open a post-mortem blog post. So strap in, buddyyyyyy

1.1 What I was trying to do here

So, Lizard Game. The obvious goal was lillards and gexckos, of course, as this is a transformation kink thing. "Cloning" and "twinning" are really cute, and I haven't dabbled too much in that before, so here it is. I tried to handle the mental shifts with a light touch - you sometimes see outright personality replacement in cloneTF content, but I don't like that sort of thing. (Some will go so far as to actually call it "identity death.") Not to yuck anyone's yum, but that's a bit much for me.

I did want to work in mental changes, though. That's why Harper works in this very specific way, as I also wanted to work in some game mechanics that tie in with the transformation. (Giving more space to Harper is the player's choice, and I like that. It hits better. You do it to yourself.)

Some have noted that this seems to gesture towards plurality, with the way you end up with an evil lizard dom living in your head, and yeah, that was one of the ideas at work here. Explicit textual plurality wouldn't be my story to tell, I don't think that'd be appropriate, but it's a reading that the text does support - if only as a gesture in that direction. I like getting real deep on questions of identity, and this is an interesting angle to explore. Besides, I would like to be a badass space bitch, thank you very much. I can deal with the tail.

The kink stuff wasn't the only goal, though. It's a silly horny game, but that's not the only thing it is. I enjoy it when sci-fi that gets a bit weird with things, and I love taking an existing sci-fi trope and looking at it from a new angle. Lizard Game does this with a grab-bag of things that you find in pulpy fiction - hiveminds and evil empires, pirates and space magic, ancient lost technology and the succession of powers. Good stuff. I wouldn't say this game "deconstructs" or "subverts" them, but one goal was to take off the cover and look at the engine, so to speak. In a way, Lizard Game is as an action RPG without the action part, and a Metroidvania without the exploration. It's the sort of thing that happens in the quiet spaces between action segments.

If the Utilikin series is a soft-utopia (where problems exist but are being adressed and everyone is broadly okay), then Lizard Game takes place in a soft-dystopian setting (where systems are actively falling apart, but you can take refuge from empire, and action can be taken.) There's darkness out there, but the lizards are doing okay for themselves, and the NORMAL ending at least offers a road towards a solution. (If a very difficult and winding one.) Storytelling!

1.2 The parts I liked

So, while I'm patting myself on the shoulder, I think we can move on to the self-review stuff. What parts of the game, broadly speaking, achieved their design goals?

First up, the gameplay. I've made a few point-and-clicks in my day, and I think this is almost where I want them to be. I've never liked the inventory puzzles and verb-guessing that you'd get in classic 1990s adventures, because this so often crosses into moon logic, so I never implemented that stuff. I think focussing on the dialogue system makes more sense. The interjections in particular are new to this version of the game engine, and I think they do add a lot. (The model for this is obviously Disco Elysium. Which, yes, is a point-and-click.) This deserves its own section, so I'll have more to say about this further below.

Speaking of the dialogue system, how about the little wiggle bloops and emoji speech bubbles? This is a bit of a hack, since it lets me avoid actually drawing animated sprites. But I think it works, it's a charming way to add character to the conversations without adding too much work. I stole this from Golden Sun, on the GBA. (I'm not sure if Golden Sun invented this trick, but it's where I picked it up.)

The writing here was a bit more ambitious than it usually is, in my games. The levels of sci-fi bullshit have increased, some of this game's plot points are taken directly from the most hated parts of the Star Wars prequels, and the NORMAL dialogue in particular is pretty far out there. But I think it came together nicely, people have liked the NORMAL stuff. And if you don't like it, well, you can complete the game and kiss some lizards without really needing to engage with it. But it's there if you want to go looking, and I think this is a good compromise. There's a fairly straightforward pulpy sci-fi plot happening here, but if you take the time to dig and investigate the socio-economic context, it gets more complicated.

Also, there was a lot of writing! Like, a lot. There are 40,447 words total in the script, as per wc -w. That's a slight overcount, because some of these words are things like flow control statements, but still, it's a new personal record. The game itself isn't actually that long, but there's a lot of small bits of reactivity and incidental little mysteries to track. (What's this business with the beacon autoresponder, anyway? The answer is out there. No really, it is.) Some of the dialogue is also really rare, and won't be seen except under very specific circumstances. (For example, USE OF WEAPONS has an interrupt during the first conversation with the Pirate Queen, and there's just barely enough EXP available to see it. Same for MACHINE 2 and the nerd.)

Furthermore, the art has improved quite a bit. I'm not much of an artist, probably won't ever be good at it, but I've figured out a pixel trick or two. The outdoor spaces work a lot better than they usually do, and some of the indoor spaces are unusually detailed. I like the multifunction room, and the space dungeon that it connects to. Not adhering super strictly to vanishing points has improved the look overall.

Oh, one more goal with the lizards. I wated to really scramble the genders and gender presentations there. Put them in a blender, see what happens. People really seem to like Ryan (we love a super chesty he/him) and that's been great to see. So I think this was a success, and part of the credit for the lizard designs absolutely has to go to Kat's sketches, those are great. Beyond the lizards, I also like how our resident very-much-not-a-cyborg turned out, and I do also have a soft spot for an unexplained space orc. With some characters, like Sbeve and Il Capitano, I gave myself licence to get a bit silly, and I think it worked. The game strikes a delicate balance between kink, comedy and real hardcase sci-fi bullshit, and I think I managed these well.

Finally, speaking of gender - how about the gender ratio? The lizards and the crew of the Analogue 47 both have an even split - a she/her, a he/him and a they/them. The pirates have two he/hims and a she/her, but this is balanced out by the characters who only show up in specific endings, with two she/hers and one he/him. This leaves us with a 5/5/2 split among characters who are actually on-screen, not counting the player. (Cpt. Rodriguez is an AFAB enby in my head, not that it matters any.) It's a fairly minor point, and it's not quite entirely even as far as screen time is concerned (as both the secondary protagonist and primary villain are she/hers), but I like a balanced cast. It's not difficult at all to pay attention to these ratios, professional authors have no excuse.

1.3 Some things I learned about Skill Checks

Okay, different topic. As I've said up there, I'm mostly happy with the gameplay. But the design does have a big weak spot, which we should talk about here. This is most visible in the fact that most people will have to reset their skill allocation at some point.

Mechanically, Lizard Game is centered on unlocking extra actions (mostly dialogue options) via skills. There are two basic ways to implement such a system. One is the "lock-and-key" design, where an action is either available or it isn't - this is the system used in Lizard Game and Fallout: New Vegas. The other approach is a "skill roll" system, where all actions are always available and always have some chance to succeed, with your skills acting as modifiers. We see this in games like Disco Elysium, Baldur's Gate 3 and Fallout 3.

Personally, I dislike the "skill roll" approach. The excitement of succeeding on a very unlikely roll does not, for me, balance out the immense frustration of failing on an easy one. If I've specifically built my character to be good at picking locks, then I want them to *pick locks,* not have an increased chance of possibly succeeding maybe. Failure isn't fun. Baldur's Gate 3 does a much better job here than Disco Elysium mostly because of the Inspiration system, which allows for re-rolls, but the teeth-grinding frustration of failing easy rolls is still there.

But the "skill roll" system does have an advantage, which is that players can't ever lock themselves out of the plot. With the "lock-and-key" design, there's always a risk that the player picks a combination of skills that can't get past a certain obstacle. Designing around this is surprisingly difficult - for example, in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, plot-critical computers can never have a security rating of 2 or higher. This is because of the "lock-and-key" design of the hacking skill. Ideally you'd want any build to have some way to solve any given problem, but that sort of design is difficult, and it's beyond me for now.

"Skill point" systems don't have this problem, because there's always a route towards re-trying a roll until you succeed. This can be done by cheesy methods (players can and will save scum) or through explicit mechanical support (Disco Elysium lets you unlock previously failed white checks.) It's not something you want to rely on, but it does keep the game from becoming unwinnable.

Games with many independent systems, like the Deus Ex series and Baldur's Gate 3, also have the advantage of a universal fallback system. In these titles, you can always resolve your problems through violence. The combat system is such that great player skill can compensate for lacking character skill, you can always cheese your way through.

Lizard Game doesn't have that universal fallback, and it doesn't have rolls you could save scum. Hence, the mind-scrubber! The player can reset their skill point allocation whenever they choose, with the caveat that lizard points can't be turned back into skill points. (This does mean you can lock yourself out of the NORMAL ending, but this is intentional, since it's just such a weird and unlikely set of circumstances.) I think this works okay, though I think next time I'll give the player some early indicators of which specific skills will be useful on which specific paths. Maybe have the "begin the endgame" option available right in the starting area, with clear (and very high) requirements. That could be cool.

There are some other refinements to be done here. The skills having different costs and growth formulas does technically help to make them more distinct, I like the implications carried by the very high cost of USE OF WEAPONS. I don't think it's worth the added friction, though. The Disco Elysium approach probably works better - you earn EXP by doing stuff, once you have earned enough EXP you level up, and then you get a skill point with each level. That's probably clearer. I think this works overall though.

2. Why Lizard Game almost didn't happen

Of course, the point of a post-mortem isn't just to praise yourself. It's important to look at the mistakes you've made along the way, so you can learn from them. And oh boy this project offered quite a few learning opportunities.

2.1 Bad planning

First of all, this took way too long to get released, and it was almost scrapped at several points. Part of this was just due to life stuff - I've alluded to this before, but the past two years have not been easy. I'm fortunate enough to have a very solid day job, but it takes up a lot of mental bandwidth. When issues in my private life stack on top of that, I can become overwhelmed. (Don't feel too bad, a solid 60% of the perpetual disasters are my own fault.) That's kinda what happened here.

I couldn't finish the project for Lewdie Jam 2, as I originally planned to. Then I also failed to do it for TFJam 2024, as was my fallback plan. And once I started missing deadlines... well, it became easier to miss more deadlines. There were weeks where I was nominally "working" on the project, but all I really did was sit there and feel guilty. I'd get maybe two lines of dialogue written, one of which I'd have to scrap because it was terrible. And that would be it. It's easy to fall into a pattern of guilt and procrastination and, yes, burnout.

So eventually, I set myself a hard deadline. I would publish whatever was done by the end of my winter vacation, no matter the state it was in. If that meant releasing an unfinished demo, then I would release an unfinished demo.

But I did it! I got it done just in time! Once I set this deadline, I finally started to make significant progress. The game was nominally in development for a bit under half a year, but if we're being honest, most of the work happened in the last six weeks. The content was finished by January 7th, just as my vacation ended, and then I spent evenings and lunch breaks on polishing and testing.

For the future, I want to pace myself better. I need to be kinder to myself, and more mindful of my capacities and limitations. There's this idea of the hard-working artist out there, which I think appeals to a lot of indie devs and other solo creators. To be filled with holy purpose and boundless energy, working infinite hours. fuelled by nothing but black coffee and dry ramen, burning yourself up in the name of creating the Perfect Work. Romantic, yes, but not good or healthy or sustainable.

I need to learn to treat myself better, both for my own sake and for the sake of my work. And that goes for all of you as well! Be kind to yourselves!

2.2 A whole mess of event flags

Alright, that's the big picture. How about something really specific next?

In my previous games, I used a single variable to track the story state. Called either "story state" or "story stage," I could never keep these straight. Lizard Game, instead, uses a long list of flags that refer to specific events, just specific event flags. While the story's progression is still broadly linear (Prologue -> Day 1 -> Morning of Day 2 -> Afternoon of Day 2 -> Lizard -> Finale), there is much more side content, and there are many small things that change based on other small things.

Werewolf Detective, my previous game, did already have a system like this, with all of its tags and flags. But the core structure was much more linear there. You rarely unlock anything in previously-visited locations, and the skill advancements happen at very specific points in the plot. (Superfans may also recall that the initial release of Werewolf Detective had a broken event flag that would cause you to travel back in time, which should have been a warning sign.)

This offers more flexibility, but you also have to pay much more attention to state management. You have to remember which flags to check when, and which events have which preconditions, so you don't end up with paradoxical states. The "lock-and-key" approach to the skill system adds another complication, since you can't really assume that the player has a specific configuration of skills at specific points. Most of the EXP is granted by story events, which helps, because you can assume a certain minimal skill loadout. But you still have to pay a lot more attention to possible paths through the story, which complicates things.

The lesson here? You need to plan this stuff out. A few notes scribbled on an envelope don't suffice, you will lose track of things. Use software to keep actual notes.

2.3 Testing, and lack thereof

This flows nicely into my next point - the testing. I did some, and caught a lot of what would have been game-breaking bugs, but it wasn't really enough. I got them fixed rapidly once the game was out and people were reporting them, but it shouldn't really have gotten to that point.

A lot of this really was because of the weird development schedule, and the complicated internal structure with too many moving parts. One way to address this could be to simplify the structure again (the plot does ultimately remain linear.) Another could be to just let more testers loose on the thing, who will think to poke at things that I know in advance won't do anything.

Ideally, this is where I'd like to say that I'll rope in friends for testing in the future. But I haven't had any success with this in the past. I'd love to make more collaborative projects, but this always seems to fall through, for a variety of reasons. I'm sure it can be done, but I remain skeptical. We'll see! I do want to do more QA in the future, we'll see what form that will take.

3. What's next

So, release week was kinda bumpy. I think we've established that. But v0.4.0 has been out for a while now, and it appears to be quite stable.  There's a few bugs left and the grammar is still wonky in places, but nothing truly critical.  Barring any game-breaking bugs, I expect the next update will be the big **content patch** that I've teased before.

3.1 The Road to v1.0

The v1.0 release will bring further engine refinements, some new content, and a few minor rewrites. There's a few image placeholders left that'll need to be swapped out - I'm still waiting on the finished art there. I've also had people report performance issues on specific platforms (e. g. Web Build on Windows Firefox), which I will have to take some time to investigate. (It's probably a shader. It's always a shader.) There are also some dialogue flags that could stand to be cleaned up, though I don't think it's ever possible to actually trigger the wrong dialogue. That sort of thing.

Regarding the rewrites, I mostly want to expand on certain minor plot points. There's a few weird bits, like the inability to talk to the captain while in disguise, and these will need rewriting. (The dialogue with the captain relies on the Blue-Haired Pirate being present, which he isn't when you go there in disguise. So I just need to write a second set of dialogue. Breaking her out isn't realistic, but this should actually be discussed, not just implied.) I also want to add in more interactions relating to the player character's new body, since it's very possible that you're getting your gender very scrambled there. (Nothing big, but there could be more flavour text here and there.) Perhaps some minor rebalancing regarding the Lizard Points, but they mostly achieve their design goals.

There's no set timeline for this yet, but I'm thinking later this year. There are other things I need to take care of first, and my life always seems to fall apart during February, but "by late summer" should be realistic, assuming the illustrations are done by then. At that point I think the game should be approaching a state that I'd be happy to call "v1.0," but we'll see how much bugfixing will still need to be done after that.

This concludes the discussion of the project itself. I hope it made for interesting reading. The final two sections are basically our "DVD extras" - some thoughts that I couldn't fit in elsewhere, but which I thought might be neat.

3.2 The setting

Do I have further plans for these lizards? In short, probably! There's more that can be done with cool space lizards, and the game suggests a lot of hot-and-heavy activities without actually doing them. That could be changed in the future. There's also a few obvious sequel hooks in here, like what's actually in that mysterious box (rest assured that it's not a pure MacGuffin), or what happened with all those ancient empires that were defeated.

I have no concrete plans for when I'll make something else in this setting, but I'll return to it sometime. I did want to set up a world where I can do more edgy stories, and this will serve it well. The canonical ending will probably end up being the NORMAL one, that has the most plot hooks.

3.3 Inspirations and further reading

This game draws a lot of inspiration from classic science fiction. Some of that's because it appeals to me personally, but some of it is tied in with the Themes of the story.

A big obvious inspiration was, of course, Metroid. Rhynn Harper is a bit of a Samus Aran type, brackets lizard version. (Brackets horny version.) A game seems to have happened on this planet in the not-too-distant past - you've even got the village on top of the dungeon with a convenient warp point, Dirtmouth-style. Presumably the lizards (who weren't lizards yet) were providing goods and services to Rhynn Harper.

The NORMAL stuff draws inspirations from two specific sources. One is Disco Elysium's two more poetic skills, Inland Empire and Shivers. The other is VALIS by Philip K. Dick. The citations here range from the relatively obvious (the pink light) to the ridiculously cryptic (the name of the League corvette, the fact that the Pirate Queen is not a fish and does have a gun.)

There's nods to other science fiction as well. For example, shipping company "Tichy Interspace" is named for a character from Stanisław Lem's works, the astronaut Ijon Tichy. The game also namechecks Perry Rhodan directly, a real franchise that's infamous for just how much of it there is. One novella per week, every week, since September 1961. (The issue number that Teli gives in a semi-hidden dialogue branch lets you figure out the exact year this game takes place.)

Other than that, the game is mostly just pointlessly European. A common assumption in sci-fi is that the future is just Space America, culturally and politically. (Futurama did a great parody of this with its "Earthicans.") So, in Lizard Game, this is very much not the case. The League of Systems resembles a cross between NATO and the EU, and exhibits the sort of political dysfunction that's common to European countries. The details are sledgehammer subtle - the "Dixième Republique" and "Erefen" being barely even disguised. I amuse myself sometimes.

There's some personal stuff in this game. All of it is very minor, and some of it is just for me, or certain people close to me. I'll point out the two mechanics who show up in the PEACE and NORMAL endings, though. These designs are nods towards two dear friends who are no longer with us. I'll see you on the other side.

So... that's all I had for thepost-mortem. See you in the comments if there's anything else you're curious about. For now, thank you for reading all of this. If you're in the mood for even more text, I recommend Becky Chambers. Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is only a vague inspiration (mostly in the existence of sex lizards) but it's real good.

Last but not least... trans rights.