It’s been a good while since I’ve done one of these types of blog posts, and I haven’t really thought of any other good ideas for my next one lately. So, here’s the fourth Miscellaneous Character Showcase! This one’s about Randy’s two closest friends and the two characters who you’ll probably see the most in the demo other than Randy himself.
Introducing: Gertrude
This is Gertrude the Freakishly Large Moth (or Gertrude the Moth for short, or Gertrude for really short). The world of Randy’s Crazy Mission! is known for having freakishly large insects, like Unithorns (flying insect enemies with horns on their heads, they can be seen in this mockup image).
I created her because, since Randy… well, um, isn’t prone to speaking, I needed a different character I can use to express what Randy feels in words. She’s also good for saying things that Randy feels, but wouldn’t say even if he did speak. Which is important, as there’s some things regarding Randy’s family that, if he said anything about it himself, he’d be in big trouble.
Because of this, she (along with another character who I’ll talk about in a second) tags along with Randy on his mission distinct from the one programmed for the in-universe game he lives in. His real “crazy mission” for the glitch Relics that can alter the world in his cartridge and be used to make the game better so the people who buy it won’t return it yet again. See this post I made a while back for more details on the plot if you haven’t read it already.
How will these two characters tagging along work in gameplay? Well, you usually won’t see both of the characters who tag along with Randy while you actually play the game. They mostly appear in cutscenes when they’re needed to either say something, react, or make a joke.
Pictured: Gertrude eating a bow tie.
Gertrude the Moth likes to eat clothes and stuff like that, sometimes to the point of being kleptomaniacal to get it. In the GIF above, she’s eating a bow tie she found inside a house Randy goes through in the first level. Though, the house is empty, and it doesn’t actually have an owner at the time she took it, so… is it really stealing? It’s disrespectful, at least.
I created a musical theme for Gertrude all the way back when I was first developing the idea for this game by messing around in my music software and later deciding to make it her theme. It’s not finalized, so I can’t show it off here like I did with the characters Corny and Quackers in a previous post. That’s because, well, this game went through a lot of changes since I first came up with it, and due to the direction I’m currently going with for it, I’m not sure if she’ll have a musical theme at this point. But she might, I still don’t know.
Gertrude Quotes:
(By the way, don’t mind the redactions in one of the quotes. It’s about a pretty important aspect of the game’s story.)
“All this talk about clothes is making me hungry!”
“Okay, I have a plan. Quackers is a pretty eagle-eyed… uh, duck-eyed… bird-eyed kid. Maybe we can get him to look for the key on his own, while we look for it ourselves. That way, the key might be found a lot quacker… I mean quicker.”
“(Nom, nom, nom!) Oh, hi Randy! Uh, w-where did I get this bow tie I’m eating? U-uh… Okay, I’ll admit it. I got it from this house. Very disrespectful, I know. I might as well finish this bow tie, since I’ve already started eating it.”
“Why do you listen to this guy? All this is doing is making the situation out to be way worse than it actually is.”
“The [PLOT ELEMENT] will get better again, and this game WON’T be [PLOT ELEMENT]. The years will go by, the [PLOT ELEMENT] may face some rough spots, and he and the people who believe him may say the same things about every game ‘soon’ being [PLOT ELEMENT], over and over and over and over again, but what they say will never, ever happen.”
“(Man, [Corny’s] ‘racing’ us at a snail’s pace… which, I guess makes sense, considering he hangs out with snails.)”
“Look, I’m just saying that you all are overreacting! A LOT! Like, a lot a lot! …(Wait, why am I even wasting my energy trying to argue with these kinds of people?)”
“Yeah, [Randy’s] family members are real ‘space invaders,’ heh!”
“We got a lot on our [Randy’s/Gertrude’s/third character’s] hands. That’s, like, eight hands, if you count Red’s front feet.”
And speaking of this “Red” she mentioned in that last quote…
Introducing: Red
This is Red the Dog, Randy’s dog companion. Is he Randy’s pet? Well… I never really considered whether he’s a pet or not, I just thought of him as a friend of Randy’s… I mean he doesn’t wear a collar, so… Also, what dog breed is he? I… don’t know that either…
Pictured: ………What is this? Cerberus?
You know, I originally named him Rover, and that name stuck for a long time, until someone pointed out that his name is too similar to another one of this game’s characters, Roger (only being one letter different). Not too creative of a replacement name, is it? But so was the old name I guess.
Honestly, Red the Dog is there for comedic value more than anything else. Well… that’s not actually true… He gets more important after the point in the story where the demo will end. I’m not going to spoil what I mean by that. However, there’ll be a part of the demo where the character Corny (I discuss him along with another character in this old post) traps him in a cage, and Randy will have to backtrack in the level and look for a hidden key to get him out. So, there’s that.
Like with Gertrude, one of the first pieces of music I made for this game I decided to make Red’s theme, but because of the direction I’m going for the game right now, I’m not sure if there’ll be room for a unique theme for him, and it’s not finalized.
Red Quotes:
“Bark!”
….Okay, that’s all he really says. There are a couple lines that the dialogue will translate into readable speech, but I don’t really want to spoil them because I find them really funny. He’s not the only character in this game who’ll speak only with animal noises. Quackers does as well, as I’ve said in a previous post discussing him.