Interstellar Flower Power
Yes, that is the name of the game, and that is a real screenshot.
Given the content of the website, it may come as no surprise to some of you that I have dabbled in game making. Most of the time, this took the form of tabletop RPG campaigns and my own homegrown RPG system, NERPS, the Natural Easy Roleplaying System, back in 2008. Though this predated Savage Worlds, and had a lot in common with d20 systems, through the miracle of dice pools and the hard fact of convergent evolutionary processes, around 2013-2014, NERPS started to look a lot like the Savage Worlds ruleset. So much so that, when I discovered Savage Worlds, I stopped using NERPS.
One of my comrades made a real-live video game while I was mucking about with dice. It is called Interstellar Flower Power, and it's a fun twin-stick shooter where you control a glowing interstellar flower that shoots light at dark blob badguys known as "the nihilists." They hate everything, especially light, and you come from the outer solar system to save the sun from their dark design.
The flowers are four colors: Blue, Magenta, Green, and Yellow. The backstory was pretty much just as I've stated, and in the game, it never comes up. The music is amazing, and the game is fun, and it's sitting around between the "been greenlit by the steam community" and the "steam has yet to put it on sale" points of the indie game lifecycle.
At one point there was going to be a more detailed, in-game story, based around the distinct idea that you'd journey from planet to planet fighting nihilists, and the flowers would quip with one another and you'd make inconsequential Bioware style RPG choices.
I wrote this story. It did not make it into the final version of the game, and when it became clear that the "story mode" wasn't going to make it into the final cut, I stopped working on it, which is why the story never makes it past Jupiter. BUT, for those of you interested in the game, which is a damn fine game, with an amazing soundtrack - well, here you go...
INTERSTELLAR FLOWER POWER: THE SCRIPT!
INTERSTELLAR FLOWER POWER: THE EPIC
INTRO:
Magenta: Shooting wildly. “Yaaaaaaah die die die you nihilist scum!”
(Nihilists explode.)
Blu: “What are you doing, Mag?”
Mag: “I’m arguing with the nihilists.”
Gre: “What’s your point?”
Mag: “18mm slugs accelerating at 2,000,000 meters per second per second.”
Blu: “Mag, how’s your power?”
Mag: “I’m red, not Magenta. But hey, power is low.”
Yel: “So it goes.”
Blu: “You too?”
Gre: “Me too.”
Mag: “Solar power is low. That can’t be right.”
Yel: “We’re out in the Oort Cloud. The nearest star is a tiny dot.”
Gre: “It’s always been good enough.”
Yel: “So it goes.”
Blu: “If this keeps up we’ll be deactivated.”
Mag: “What could cause that insignificant little star to stop being so bright?”
Blu: “Nihilists.”
Y: “So it goes.”
B: “Not on my watch.”
AFTER INTRO LEVEL - ON TO PLUTO
G: “There’s nothing worse than Nihilists.”
M: “What about Zealots?”
G: “Say what you will about the desire to replace all sentient matter with the dark dreams of the sleeping old gods, but at least it’s an ethos, Mag. At least they want to do something.”
B: “Alright, so first step, we get rid of the nihilists.”
Y: “Is there a second step? How do you get rid of something that doesn’t want to exist?”
M: “A stamen-tube full of 18mm hyperkinetic death from the pistil-rifle usually does the trick.”
G: “A capital argument! Where do we head now?”
B: “Nearest planet. They gather around stuff.”
M: “Don’t they hate stuff?”
G: “Yeah, well, they hate stuff so hard that it quickly ceases to be stuff.”
M: “I know exactly how they feel.”
G: “Yeah, but when you hate stuff hard enough, it keeps being stuff, it just starts being stuff that is spread out over a much larger area.”
Y: “So it goes.”
WELCOME TO PLUTO LEVEL
G: “Wait, you call that a planet?”
B: “Shut up, Gre. It’s time to get our power back.”
PLUTO BOSS FIGHT QUIP MODE:
(Boss is a giant zealot)
Boss: “I rule this planet from my great and terrible throne!”
Y: “This is a planet?”
M: “I’d consider it more of an outer kuiper belt object.”
G: “I dunno. It has a highly elliptical orbit, and does not intersect the orbital plane of the rest of the planets.”
BOSS: “THIS WORLD IS MY ICE-CLAD THRONE! ENTROPY RULES HERE!”
G: “Isn’t entropy hotter than this? The crystalline methane ice is actually quite ordered...”
BOSS: SHUT UP!
M: “Let’s increase his entropy by several orders of magnitude.”
BOSS FIGHT!
BOSS FIGHT LINES:
BOSS: Arrgh, not in the glowing spot!
“Wait, what?”
“I will crush you with the... the... oh just die already!”
BOSS FIGHT OVER:
Y: “But by blowing him up, haven’t we increased the entropy of the system?”
G: “Grab the light! He was storing it up!”
B: “Hey, wait, the methane ice is exploding! This place is gonna blow!”
M: “This place already blows. Let’s get out of here.”
G: “Yeah, suck it planetoid!”
Y: “So it goes.”
*Pluto begins exploding, and the flowers fly off. It blows up behind them.*
M: “Let’s find a real planet.”
TRIP TO NEPTUNE:
Y: It’s so dark out here.
G: And lonely.
Y: I was talking to a guy and his dog earlier. His name was Winston.
M: Are you malfunctioning, Yel?
Y: I’m an interstellar flower, not a robot, Mag. There was a guy and his dog out here. proper English chap and his terrier.
G: Where is he now?
Y: He vanished.
M: You’re malfunctioning.
B: What did the invisible Englishman and his proper english mutt want, Yel?
Y: He wanted me to know that Nihilists have mothers.
G: They do?
NEPTUNE BATTLE:
G: So nihilists have mothers!
M: Easy to hit and full of sunshine.
G: Sunshine and guts, Mag.
M: I’m red, not magenta!
B: They’re gathered around this planet, let’s get down there and wipe them out.
M: What’s this planet called?
Y: By Tramalfadorians, or by the humans?
M: I know the Tramalfadorian name, Yel, what do the pink hairless apes call it?
Y: Neptune. It’s slightly bigger than Uranus.
M: Where’s Uranus?
B: Cut the chatter, gold leader. Red, form up in attack formation. We’re going in.
NEPTUNE BOSS PREBATTLE BANTER
“BOSS”: I’m the boss-man on this planet! Beware my wraaaaaaath!
Upon defeat: “Mommy!”
“Boss” is easily defeated. Now a much larger version appears.
BOSS: My son! You killed my son! Face the wrath of MY MOTHER!
(Another even larger “mother” variety shows up. The middle-mother flies off)
GRANDMOTHER: “I’ll show you whose mother to make fun of!
G: “Wait, you have a mother? She must be older than that last planet we burned to a cinder.”
M: “That wasn’t a planet! Die, old woman!”
AFTER THE BOSS BATTLE WITH THE GIANT MOTHER:
M: Gre, how can you tell that they’re really women?
G: We’re women. We know.that sort of thing.
Y: I kind of feel sorry for her.
B: Think how tragic it would have been if the mother had outlived her son.
Y: Well didn’t one of them ?
B: We’ll fix that soon enough.
ON THE WAY TO URANUS
B: Alright, our next target is Uranus.
Y: “...”
G: “...”
M: “So, wait, we’re women?”
Y: “...”
G: “We’re flowers, Mag. Your name is Mag.”
M: I’m red!
B: Magenta is a type of red, Mag. Now we’ve got to make it to Uranus, and I don’t think they’re going to make it easy.
G: “You have no idea how right you are.”
URANUS BATTLE:
B: Alright team, we’re about to enter Uranus.
Y: “...”
G: I think you’re pronouncing it wrong.
M: I’m about to enter Uranus at several thousand kilometers per second.
B: Keep an eye out for the mother.
G: Your mother, Mag. I hear she likes it here.
URANUS BOSS BANTER:
Mother: My beautiful destructive children! My horrible beast of a mother! How dare you!
The giant mother from Neptune is here. She cries a few mothers, the flowers fight them.
Mother: Meet their father!
Father arrives. He is a giant Zealot. Mother flees.
Father: You killed my brother and my favorite son!
Y: That was your brother?! This is getting tragic!
M: It’s about to get more tragic!
Father: Though, I do have to thank you for killing my mother-in-law. I guess you’re not all THAT bad.
THEY FIGHT FOR A WHILE
Father: Argh! Okay, okay, I yield!
M: Wait, what?
B: Hold your fire.
M: I hate that.
G: If I hold it, I’ll damage my pistil-rifle.
Y: That’s just an interstellar legend.
F: If you let me live, I’ll give you a gift.
B: What gift?
M: I hope it’s the gift of standing still and letting us shoot him.
F: I’ll give you these special bullets. Put a few into a zealot, and he’ll turn against the others and join you until he dies.
M: I say we just put a few of our “special bullets” into this guy and TAKE his stuff.
G: I’m all for looting.
(They have the option of unloading on him and killing him or not, either way they get the special bullets)
JOURNEY TO SATURN
Y: I was just thinking about that Englishman.
G: And his dog?
Y: Not so much the dog.
M: See, if we were women, we’d be worried about the dog.
G: Dude, you’re not a dude.
Y: I think he’s become a quantum form. I think that at some point he began moving so slowly that his wavelength became expressible on a macroscopic scale.
M: Your mother moves so slowly that her wavelengths are visible on a macroscopic scale.
G: Booya!
B: We are NOT bringing back “booya.”
END OF THE LEVEL:
Y: Hey guys, these special bullets we’ve been using?
B: Yeah they certainly offer advantages.
Y: Check the stamen-clip they came in. It’s a part for a machine.
G: Huh. It says “for delivery to Titan.”
Y: Should we deliver it?
M: Are there nihilists down there?
B: Negative. Just a tricky matter of going through the rings of Saturn.
(At this point they can go one direction to deliver the package, or another direction to continue on to Saturn)
IF THEY TAKE THE TRIP TO TITAN:
B: Stay sharp!
(A game of dodging objects that can be blasted?)
(maybe some can’t be blasted?)
(Or just another level or just a cutscene?)
TITAN:
Man: Oh good you’ve arrived with my parts.
B: Your parts? How did that Zealot get *your* parts?
Man: He made them.
M: And we killed him.
Y: Then we brought them... here....
Man: Good, all according to whatever plan there was, then.
M: You mean you had all these guys attack us just so we could bring you your replacement part?
Man: Well, not exactly - things were... manipulated a bit, maybe a few ideas put in a few heads here and there over the past half a million years or so, had to get the humans banging the rocks together, had to get the nihilists to discover this solar system, had to give the zealots the mind-control bullet plan - but *cause* this?
G: You’ve been doing this for half a million years?
Man: Quicker than waiting for a part from Tramalfadore, I’d say.
B: WE’RE from Tramalfadore.
Man: And you just got here with my part.
Y: So it goes.
M: We should totally blast you.
Man: Well you could do that. I’ve been awfully bored for the past half a million years, with only that guy and his dog to keep me company every decade or so. But if you give me my ship part, I’ll help you out down the road, once I get her fixed.
G: And how long is that going to take, ten thousand years?
Man: No, like a day or so.
(At this point you have the option to shoot him or give him the part)
LEVEL COMPLETE
SATURN
B: Alright team, we’re approaching Saturn. Shields up.
Y: I keep my shields up.
G: You know that’s not good for them, right?
Y: Better than keeping them down and getting shot.
G: Are you sure it’s not just because you have emotional issues? Do you feel vulnerable.?
M: Gah, I guess we ARE women.
Y: I DO feel vulnerable.
G: It’s only natural. We get shot at all day long.
SATURN BOSS FIGHT:
B: I hate to say it guys, but look at the size of that thing!
Y: That’s what SHE said.
M: If by SHE you mean YOUR MOTHER.
Y: I meant Blu.
G: That’s what I said about your mother, Mag.
B: Cut the chatter! Petals in attack formation!
THE MOTHER ARRIVES AGAIN
MOTHER: This time, I deal with you myself!
M: Good.
Y: I bet she runs away anyway.
B: Not this time!
G: I mean you’re gonna keep her from running away THIS time and you didn’t all the OTHER times?
B: That’s not what I mean!
MOTHER: JUST DIE ALREADY!
(Mother splits into two mothers - the old “which one is the real boss?” trick)
MID-BATTLE:
(If the flowers killed FATHER on Neptune, MOTHER freaks out. If the flowers spared him, he arrives and deals the finishing blow, saying “Consider it a divorce.”)
POST-BATTLE:
MOTHER: NOoooooo! *Blows up*
B: I told you she wasn’t going anywhere.
M: Looks like she’s kinda going *everywhere*
Y: So it goes. Everywhere.
ON THE WAY TO JUPITER:
G: Ship just went by singing something about a Daisy, daisy.
Y: My sister is named Daisy.
M: That’s your sister? I thought Daisy was a “he”
B: Look, I’ve got male AND female parts.
G: “...”
Y: “...”
M: “...”
ARRIVAL ON JUPITER:
B: Alright guys they plan on dropping a neutron star out of hyperspace into the heart of Jupiter, starting nuclear fusion, creating a second sun in the solar system and causing untold destruction!
M: Oh man I like that plan. Extra sun!
G: Yeah, but what about the “untold destruction?”
Y: I wasn’t told about any destruction. If it was bad, surely we would have been told about it?
M: I like destruction. Let me tell you about destruction…
G: She’s going to tell you about it with her guns.
JUPITER BOSS FIGHT:
*Haven’t really thought this one through - maybe a huge black-hole type thing that sucks everything towards it and spawns waves of reinforcements - if the reinforcements reach it, it gets healed?*
FPJEROME - I think "Haven't really thought this one through" is going to be my epitaph.