Interview: High On Life Isn't Hiding From Its Rick & Morty Roots
At Gamescom, we had the chance to try out one of the areas in comedic first-person shooter High on Life. While it was a whole lot of fun, its humour has come under fire on social media since footage came out, with many already dismissing the game as “cringe”. Of course, comedy is subjective and very hard to get right, especially with how fast tastes change in the social media age. High on Live would have thrived a few years ago, but now it has to prove itself to a tired audience.
Wanting to dive into the game a bit more, I chatted with executive producer at developer Squanch Games, Matty Studivan. Pleased with the fact that I’d taken time in the demo to find all the hidden gags throughout the level (an area called “Little Shitaly”, a dude pissing in an alley, and much more toilet humour), Matty shared some more insight into how development is going over at Squanch, and what we can expect from High on Life.
Related: High On Life Could Be Summer Game Fest's Best Or Worst Game
TheGamer: The Rick & Morty comparisons were inevitable with High on Life, but was it a conscious decision to draw so much from the show’s comedy?
Matty Studivan: “We're fans of the show, and Justin Roiland is the co-creator of Rick and Morty. It’s also his voice [in the game] and this is his new IP. So this is part of his mind.
“We're all huge fans of his work, and huge fans of comedy. And we think that the comedy game genre can actually be expanded. Why aren’t there more comedies? I think it's because they’re very hard to do. What does comedy take a lot of? Iteration. What's really expensive in game development? Iteration. So it's something that we've really been trying to work on. And we admire studios that do.”
TG: A lot of comedy doesn’t land at
Read more on thegamer.com
