Please do not.

I mean, don’t. That would be a really bad thing to do because you’re lovely. Rather, Die For The Economy is an upcoming game from the ever lovely Tea Monster Games. I have mentioned it in passing before, though at the time it wore the provisional name of “Office Escape”.

Regular readers will already be aware that I’m an enormous fan of the stuff Jeff makes – Jack Dragon and My Nuclear Octopus are a pair of my fave smaller new arcade games and games and Berzerk is one of my all time fave games so obviously a distinctly anti-capitalist, pro union take from one of my fave devs is going to make the list.

Anyway. I really wanted it to happen because, selfishly, I am desperate for more Berzerk games. There’s surprisingly few and fewer still that I enjoy revisiting. So to nudge things along a bit, I offered to throw a few things in to encourage Jeff along the way.

Lemme at it, lemme at it

After leaving a bunch of unfinished stuff behind me as I try to wrestle with the absolute shitshow of the past ten years, I’ll freely admit I was concerned I might flake again so tried to keep things as low key easy as possible just in case. I didn’t really want to throw another one on the pile if I could avoid it! I’ve got enough.

Jeff’s been absolutely lovely and incredibly patient with me as I’ve worked to find a route towards doing stuff again and they’re not alone. I doubt I’d have the courage to even give it a go at all without the encouragement of Ko a short while back (buy Cecconoid, it’s fantastic), and honestly, considering how long I’ve felt out the game it’s been nice just having folk believe I can do anything whatsoever, never mind be trusted to do it well.

Anyway, to keep things doable (and to remain a tolerable human being) I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to rush in and try and change a load of stuff. Jeff’s art just needed a little tidying up, a bit of colour, maybe the odd extra frame of animation to smooth things out, nothing too drastic. So whilst I might well have been tempted to try and throw myself into a rework, it’d be creating needless work, disrespecting the work Jeff’s already done (which doesn’t need a rework) and I’d probably be an intolerable tosser as well.

That’s pretty much what I’ve done. Where there’s a line that can be tidied, tidy it a bit. Where it keeps the character of Jeff’s work not to fiddle, hands off, Rob. It’s normal stuff for people who do work for hire stuff, I’m sure. For me and being used to the control of building everything entirely to my taste, a bit of a different approach to what I’m used to.

I’m enjoying it though! It’s been fun trying to tease out where Jeff was aiming and to hopefully help them get there.

Oh, and I did allow myself a small indulgence (thanks Jeff for letting me as well, natch) in the form of the bezel. Jeff handed me a fairly rudimentary grid that slotted in either side of the screen and in a fit of misbehaviour, I went for a pixel arcade robot and spaceman thing instead.

Not A Lot

So, Jeff’s nearly done and it plays fantastic. I got my dreamy Berzerk variant that I always wanted so I’m absolutely chuffed as all get out. I had a great time getting to contribute a small doodle here and there to the game, managed to wrap my small part up without anything falling apart (wahey!) and like I say, I’m really grateful for the chance to try my hand at something videogames again.

I genuinely couldn’t have managed even this small contribution without the encouragement and support of quite a few folk, it’s been a hellish time recently and lots of people have made sure it hasn’t been completely cataclysmic with a silly amount of kindness and consideration. I won’t reel off a list of names because hopefully they all know who they are but rest assured, I remain super grateful and having a small slice of normality inbetween all the life silliness has meant so much.

I’d like to promise more to come but, well, things continue to be very strained in Chez Bob so who knows. Just, you know, I’ve had so so much fun fiddling with Jeff’s already great work and not making it worse. I continue to have so much fun playing the thing because it’s a dreamy (and suitably noisy) take on Berzerk that feels properly 8 bit home computer version in all the best ways.

Jeff’s done such a good job. As far as I know, it’ll be out on PC and providing Microsoft don’t drop the ball, Xbox. I’d be made up that it exists at all but it’s so very to my taste in videogames that I’m chuffed with what Jeff’s conjured into existence and looking forward to being able to play a fully complete version on the big tele as soon as possible.

Keep an eye on Jeff’s Masto feed for news.