🍅TORSO TENNIS release date announcement!

Exclusive reveal for the Tomato Club:

TORSO TENNIS is launching on Steam in 4 weeks on Wednesday, September 24th!

I’ll be sharing this on social media next week with a new trailer.

• If you see the post I would love if you could share it around!
  

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TORSO TENNIS: The Final Month

As I mentioned in July’s newsletter, TORSO TENNIS underwent a “Jam week” to try to get the final bits of content into the game. I’m happy to say that the game is in a really good state. We’ve gotten some good playtests in and the game is feeling ready for launch.

Here’s a peak of a few new Limbs and a Tattoo that made it into the game recently:

Mustard - Complete your SNAK build by firing off Bonus Serves when Serving on top of obstacles, like TRASH.

6th Limb - gives you an extra limb slot at the cost of two tattoo shop visits!

Stomper - Complete your Dino build by firing off Bonus Serves when stepping on obstacles like Shells, Critters, and RIPs

The only gameplay thing left to do is re-work the CHEEZ set. I’m not quite happy with its combo-ability and unique characteristics. Expect some more fun CHEEZ builds soon. Other than that, the only stuff left is Balance, Bugfixes, and putting the final touches on the soundtrack!

The next email you get from me will be on launch day, see you then!

Climbing through Frustration

This month I was playing through Shadow of the Colossus, a game about climbing giant beasts and slaying them. Coming back to the game over a decade later made me appreciate it in a new light.

My fully-formed prefrontal cortex now makes it actually possible to sit with Shadow’s more frustrating moments and push through the discomfort when you aren’t sure how to approach climbing the colossuses. colossi? Either way, the game has a quiet beauty that encourages you to test your patience, push through, and find solutions.

I was enjoying Shadow of the Colossus at a leisurely pace, playing through a single Colossus encounter per day, savoring the immense feeling of relief and satisfaction that washes over you with each giant slain.

Before long, I was derailed in my daily colossal progress by another game about climbing towering obstacles: PEAK.

I thought this cooperative climbing game would be good for a few silly laughs during game nights with friends. I was wrong. This game has absolutely gripped me over the last few weeks. This game is a work of art.

The way each day’s climbs are procedurally generated and not deliberately authored makes them feel like a wild force of nature towering ahead of you. There are no prescribed paths in PEAK. It is a puzzle to solve, but not one with any clear or correct answers. In that way, it is more challenging than Shadow of the Colossus. But in most ways, it is more forgiving than Colossus. You have friends to help you. You can come to a group consensus about the best path forward rather than testing your will by repeatedly throwing yourself at a high-pressure climbing puzzle with a single obscure solution.

I thought a lot about the similarities and differences between these games and came up with a graph. Enjoy:

These two games about surmounting difficult obstacles have me thinking about my upcoming game launch. I look forward to completing the climb and seeing all of you on the Peak on September 24th!

Friendslop: A Weekend of Fun

Friendslop: a derogatory term for the wave of cooperative games like PEAK that have followed in the wake of the hit Lethal Company. I personally think it’s a humorous reflection on how difficult it is for most friend groups to complete these games before the next big one comes out… By the time you’ve found time to play again, the next Hot Slop has arrived.

Despite seeing this term online a lot, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone use it to genuinely express disgust for this genre. Maybe it’s best if we envision it as a loving nod towards good times with friends that don’t cost an exorbitant amount of money?

• Friendslop: The cheap pizza you order during game night with your buds.
• Friendslop: Sitting down to see a movie with your chums that you already know is horrible, getting ready for a night of laughs.
• Friendslop: A poorly-executed dinner you cook for your pals that makes you the butt of a joke about overcooked noodles for the rest of your life.

But the thing about most of these Friendslop games is… they are really good. And they are cheap. Seeing a derogatory term applied to PEAK initially tilted me (I just described this game as a Work of Art in the last section), but I think the virality of the phrase comes mostly because of the response of outrage against it.

I really like Aggro Crab’s response in their Reddit AMA about their game:

What’s so bad about a weekend of fun with friends?

Enjoy the slop!

Thanks so much for reading the newsletter!

You can also respond directly to this email if you’d like to get in touch with me and tell me how things are going for you!

<3 Michael

https://www.toomuchtomato.com/

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