Post by Andy Noelker in The Creation of Tôtem comments

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Thank you so much for posting this! I love knowing the inspiration behind creative efforts and this was really interesting. I am astounded that you built this in such a short time frame! It crossed my mind that it might be cool to actually have to construct sentences word for word (and not choose from a list of options) but I think the possibilities would have been too endless and perhaps the game might be unplayable.

I am curious - was the film Arrival any inspiration? I can't help but notice the similarity between the two and the same comparison was made on Waypoint Radio.

Shakles3 years ago(+1)

Thank you so much, man! Yeah making it so that you write every single sentence out would have been absolutely insane to build. And actually, no, I didn't have any inspiration at all from Arrival. Actually, funny thing is that up until the Arrival comparison, I always had the worst time trying to describe the game. But then, about 3/4 through making the game, I was trying to describe the game to a friend and I was struggling, but after a while, they said "Oh, so it's like Arrival". I was speechless as to how I never thought of that lol. Btw, what's Waypoint Radio?

Andy Noelker3 years ago(+2)

Oh that's so interesting! I definitely would have guessed it had an influence. It does indeed make an easy way to explain the game to people.

Waypoint Radio is a podcast by Vice Games and I personally think it has some of the best commentary in the industry. It's focused on cultural criticism of games and often veers into other territories like politics. The host recently played Totem and talked about it, which is how I discovered it. You can check out that episode here https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3azqwj/the-value-of-making-art-in-a-crisis-waypoint-radio

Shakles3 years ago(+1)

Ooh so that's where that uptick came from. There really isn't any way for me to know if someone talked about or shoutout the game somewhere, so I'm super stoked you brought it up! This podcast looks really interesting, i'll be sure to check it out

itch.io

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