Welcome to the first installment of Miscellaneous Character Showcase! In these types of posts, I’ll showcase art for and describe a couple of random characters that’ll be in this game. Some characters I’ll introduce in these showcases will be important, and some are not so important. Anyway, let’s start off.
Introducing: Townsfolks
Townsfolks aren’t just one character, they’re an entire group. Most of them are nameless. They’re pretty much the Toads of this game. They were featured in a couple of the mockups from the previous post. As their name suggests, they populate the town that Randy and other characters live in. The town’s population mostly consists of these guys. There’ll also be child Townsfolks as well.
Townsfolks’ design isn’t much, but that’s intentional. Although, there are two distinct-looking Townsfolks present in the game that are actual characters. One of the distinct ones is particularly despicable (and loud, and germophobic). I’ll introduce him in another post. The other distinct Townsfolk has serious problems too, but most of them are because of the particularly despicable Townsfolk I just mentioned.
By the way, I had slightly altered their Atari sprites to make them look closer to their cartoon appearance. An original Townsfolk sprite can be seen in one of the mockups I made for the previous post. So, can you spot the difference?
Townsfolk Quotes (from more than one Townsfolk):
“Why would anyone expect someone like me to achieve something like that, lad? Us Townsfolks aren’t too special. We’re simple folk, and completely normal people with completely normal jobs. We’re the epitome of the common man. Most of us don’t even have our own distinct physical characteristics for crying out loud! Well, I shouldn’t completely dunk on us though. I’m not like, well, a certain other Townsfolk, and his cohorts! Glad ya didn’t fall prey to them, Randall.”
“I don’t have any business to attend to here at town hall. Just here to admire the place. I’m merely a Townsfolk. We’re just simple Average Joes. None of us have any extremely important jobs. It’s just our human mayor doing the crucial stuff ’round here. Well, him and his pet. Say Randall, why don’t ya try becoming the co-mayor or whatever? That’ll make your family appreciate you! Well, that, or they might condemn you for doing something ambitious like that, sadly… They might tell you to go do something insultingly infantile instead, like play tag! Talk about INSULTING! I on the other hand would NEVER say such an insulting thing about you, Randall! Everyone in the room heard what I said? Yeah! “
“The only special thing us Townsfolks have ever done is spelunking. We used to love exploring that one huge cave. It was a Townsfolk tradition! No matter how much we explored those caverns, we would just keep finding new and deeper parts. We even brought tons of Townsfolk children with us every time.”
“What is with that hairy twerp, Randall? Why is he so different from you? I guess I’m so used to most of us Townsfolks being so alike to each other, it makes the wild difference between you and- Hey, he’s right here! I didn’t like what he said to me last time I saw him! He called me a little white fuzzball! Go beat the stuffin’ out of him, Randy! Like you always do!”
Question: What would you do if your friends tragically died on camera?
Introducing: Sucker Shrubley
This is Sucker Shrubley. He’s a walking talking plant that grows suckers, all of the flavors that The Buscal Candy Company offers. And no, that drawing of him reaching for a sucker on his head isn’t an animation error or anything, he can control the growth of his limbs at will. Sucker Shrubley is loosely based off of the tree character on the E.T. Go Come cover illustration. Click here to see the image of it for reference.
Sucker is not too important of a character. Although, he does play a decent roll in the game. While he just stands there in the first level of the in-universe Atari 2600 game, after the real story begins, he hosts different minigames in every level. These are one of the many things added to the stages to spice them up and make them better after playing through them the first time, where they’re intentionally bad.
Most of his minigames involve impressive contraptions. In the first level, he makes Randy play the first minigame just because he wants him to, not fully realizing that Randy needs to do something very important. However, in the other stages, there’s always something that comes up blocking your progress which can always conveniently be cleared by playing one of Sucker’s minigames.
The first minigame of his you play isn’t very special. It’s just a simple game of chance. What really makes it (or breaks it to the characters) are the reactions a certain other character who will remain nameless, while watching the minigame unfold, has when you fail a round, especially when it gets consistent. While his reactions are pretty annoying, at least it’s not as bad as his… well, I’ll talk about that in another post.
Brownie Points
Whenever you play one of his minigames, you have to win it in order to progress. However, depending on how well you do, your point counter (displayed on the top-right of the screen, as seen in the mockups) increases by a certain number. So what do points do? Do they actually have a function? You’ll find out in the demo. Actually, you don’t need to win the first one to progress. If you failed it, you still get to move on.
Even if you failed the first minigame, Sucker will still give you some points, and an award for just simply being THE Randy. The crowd watching him play will cheer on in affirmation upon hearing Sucker Shrubley say that about the award, considering the unfortunate way Randy’s own family is to him (which is sadly based on my own life). Well, there’ll be cheering for the most part, unfortunately…
Also, after each time you play one of his games, Sucker Shrubley fully restores Randy’s health by giving him suckers that were attached to him. The first time he does this, he tells Randy that he knows about the issue he constantly faces regarding his own health bar, and then gives him at least one cherry sucker. See, enemies are programmed to attack Randy, and this gives them an instinct to do so even when the game isn’t being played. Just one of the (many) things Randy has to unfortunately put up with that the rest of his family will never know what is like. Most of the other stuff is the pushing around and ego-bruising he gets from his family members. After Sucker tells Randy he knows about his serious health meter problem, the crowd around him will cheer just like when Sucker gave him that award.
Sucker Shrubley Quotes:
(Picks off a sucker from himself) “Want one? My suckers instantly grow back, so you can have as many as you like!”
”If you need instructions on how to play this minigame, check out my instruction book! Actually, you absolutely SHOULD give it a read! Without it, this game would be really confusing and would seem a lot worse than it actually is. So, here you go! It was handmade by me! Wait… Is that true? I don’ really have hands, if you think about it. Well, at least I actually use ’em, unlike a certain sloth I know! And also, at least I use ’em on doorbells, unlike him! And his parents too! My doorbell is RIGHT THERE!… Man I really hate having to get my door put back up!
”Uh, maybe this giant sign shoulda been made better. It’s a pain to manually light up each word with this remote. Hmmm… perhaps I could make a game based around this!”
“Hey! Listen here, old man! Randy failing my game of chance over and over means absolutely nothing! It’s just simply chance playing out! Nothing more, nothing less. So don’t get your red tie in a twist and don’t very loudly feed those thoughts into this kid’s mind! Don’t do it at all, no matter how big your soundwaves get! Posterior! Just leave and do something else! Go satisfy your pyromaniac urges or something!… Maybe I shouldn’t have said that last bit…”