Thirsty Suitors has all of the makings of the following massive recreation.
One minute you’re busting out skateboarding strains that’d make Tony Hawk weep in envy. Subsequent, you’re waging turn-based fight towards your third-grade ex. Within the interim, it’s possible you’ll cook dinner a meal together with your mother (whereas desperately angling for her approval) or, who is aware of, discover the love of your life (for the seventh time).
You do that all as a younger lady named Jala, who left city three years prior—torching bridges with family and friends and lovers alongside the way in which—to be the mayor’s spouse.
Issues didn’t work out.
First introduced through the 2021 Recreation Awards, Thirsty Suitors instantly caught consideration for its vivid artwork model and its Scott Pilgrim vibes. It’s the newest from Outerloop, whom it’s possible you’ll know because the crew behind the heady journey recreation Falcon Age. Thirsty Suitors is at the moment set to be revealed subsequent yr by Annapurna Interactive—an offbeat outfit that simply launched speedrunning shooter Neon White and cat recreation Stray, each to acclaim—on Xbox, PlayStation, Swap, and PC.
You’re in a position to give it a spin your self now. Final week, throughout Annapurna Interactive’s second annual showcase, the writer launched a demo for Thirsty Suitors on Steam. It provides a sampling of what you get in : somewhat little bit of skateboarding, a peek into Jala’s previous, and a battle towards Sergio, Jala’s third-grade ex. The combat performs out as a regular turn-based RPG battle, although you’re in a position to inflict standing results reminiscent of “thirst,” which weaken him. It’s a extremely fantastical battle, at one level even going right into a realm he’s conjured in his thoughts.
“It’s extra like a dance and a date and a verbal back-and-forth that we’re visualizing by means of RPG fight,” artistic director Chandana Ekanayake informed Kotaku in an interview performed shortly after the sport’s debut at this summer time’s Tribeca Competition.
Sergio, you’ll notice, is sort of an ass (see the video above). He’s pushy. He’s smug. He’s an apparent paragon of insecurity, hiding behind advantageous vogue and showy but in the end ineffective muscle groups. You in all probability know this man, or a model of him. He was manner worse, although.
“We initially made him actual imply and much more ahead, however folks have been like, ‘He’s actual charming!’ and so we’re leaning into that,” Ekanayake stated.
All through Thirsty Suitors, you’ll find yourself battling half a dozen of Jala’s exes, all of whom have an ax to grind. (The demo teases these exes as a league of kinds however doesn’t go into particulars about any of them.) Loads of video games grapple with dour, traumatic storylines, Ekanayake stated, however Outerloop wished to do one thing completely different, a bit extra positive-leaning. Every combat culminates with “a form of reconciliation,” he stated, although the door is left open to pursue both platonic or romantic relationships with every character.
Ekanayake acknowledged the apparent Scott Pilgrim comparability, in that Thirsty Suitors can be about romance, and options an on a regular basis setting that spontaneously morphs right into a fantastical one. (“Scott Pilgrim is sort of a online game,” he famous.) However Bryan Lee O’Malley’s comics aren’t the deepest artistic wellspring right here. In 2013, O’Malley lamented and apologized for the overwhelming whiteness of Scott Pilgrim’s forged, and stated in 2016 that he wouldn’t write a white protagonist once more, telling NBC Information: “Truthfully, once I noticed the ‘Scott Pilgrim’ film it was sort of appalling to see simply how white it was—to not even actually see myself represented on the display screen … I suppose I whitewashed myself out of my very own story.”
Reasonably, Thirsty Suitors is extra impressed by a wave of current media that’s featured South Asian folks in starring roles; Ekanayake, who grew up in Sri Lanka, cited Hasan Minaj’s 2017 particular Homecoming and Netflix’s coming-of-age comedy By no means Have I Ever. “We’re [seeing] extra of those sorts of tales and form of exploration of South Asian characters and simply Asian characters on the whole,” he added. “I wished to do the identical factor for video games.”
The identify for Thirsty Suitors got here first, earlier than a tough thought or perhaps a idea. Ekanayake knew he wished to discover parts of what life is like as a South Asian immigrant in America, at one level even discussing with author Meghna Jayanth (who additionally wrote for Falcon Age) the concept of together with an organized marriage part. However they scrapped it.
“Neither of us had gone by means of organized marriage,” Ekanayake stated. “We had family and friends and all that, however we simply didn’t really feel snug basing it on one thing that we weren’t personally concerned in.”
As an alternative of making an attempt to be all the pieces to everybody, the crew centered on their very own private experiences. Take the cooking segments, for example. (The cooking mini-game wasn’t a part of the Tribeca Fest demo; an excessive amount of stuff to cram into half-hour.) Ekanayake famous that cooking segments are inclined to default to starring mothers over dads. However he’s a mum or dad himself, and cooks at residence on a regular basis. So in Thirsty Suitors’ kitchen segments, which demand you whip up recipes by means of quick-time occasions, you’ll need to vie for the approval of Jala’s mom and father.
“That’s one thing we discuss weekly, truly, as we discuss concerning the story and attempt to be true to ourselves,” Ekanayake stated. “There’s a particular story and a particular narrative, and when you attempt to sort of symbolize all of it, it’s simply going to be watered down.”
Earlier this summer time, Thirsty Suitors made waves on the Tribeca Competition with a demo of its first chapter. It gained the award for the competition’s video games section, beating out opponents like American Arcadia, Oxenfree II: Misplaced Alerts, and a meaty, hotly anticipated enlargement for Cuphead.
“It feels good, man,” Ekanayake stated. “We’ve been engaged on it for a few years, so that is the primary time folks might play it. We have been positively uncertain how folks have been going to reply.”
