Squanch Games CEO Justin Roiland dared to ask the question, “What if a gun could talk?” His drive to make games he always wanted to play led him and the studio High in life, their latest project. The upcoming first-person shooter, which is both comedy and combat, has a lot on its shoulders, and the studio hopes it will be a huge success.
Roiland strives to create a solid, story-driven, upgraded single-player tree species, and he often thought of BioShock like a kind of ‘north star’. Clear, High in life will probably focus more on humor than Jack’s adventures via Rapture, given Roiland’s history with shows like Rick and Morty and Solar Contradictions.
TechRaptor had the pleasure of interviewing Roiland and Squanch Games Executive Producer Matty Studivan at PAX West where we learned a lot about High in life. It might be the funniest game of 2022, but this colorful adventure is more than just a chuckle.
Warning: This article contains foul language.
High in life Takes his humor seriously
The story in High in life is quite simple – Roiland said so himself. Humanity is sold as drugs, and the bounty hunter who had to save the day is a washed up loser. So it’s up to you, the unlikely hero, to save humanity with the help of hilarious talking guns.
“This is a damn gift to have such a simple, clean and uniquely bigger goal for the player,” said Roiland. “And then it’s just making sure the smaller moments, the beat-to-beat moments, those goals are clear and all the critical padding.”
Thanks to the more straightforward story, there is plenty of opportunity to make players laugh. The latest gameplay demo showed an interactive segment where you decide which guard in the slum is hotter, and everyone has seen the viral clip of the player’s weapon scolding them for killing a (very annoying) child. Roiland even claimed that there are some really crazy, hilarious scenes that maybe only 10% of players will see, and people won’t find out until after they share these scenes online.
“I don’t mind dying to a boss a few times, as long as it has that Nintendo-esque quality, like, ‘Oh, I’m learning, okay, I get it.'” -Justin Roiland, Squanch Games Director
Comedy’s rock-solid foundation comes from a strong script, spearheaded by Narrative Director Alec Robbins. Roiland claims he “just knocked it out of the park from a scripted, on-the-page standpoint.” Of course, no project of his is complete without some improvisation. For example, parts of the child’s annoying diatribe come from Joel Haver improvising on the microphone, and an in-universe version of “Interdimensional Cable” has no script.
“JB Smoove, doing one of the guns, his best stuff is definitely his improv,” Roiland said. “It’s really damn good.”
A lifelong gamer himself, however, Roiland is well aware that dialogue isn’t welcome for too long, and he wanted to make sure players felt as much freedom of choice as possible. Players who like dialogue and comedy are free to enjoy the small vignettes as they unfold. For those who want to jump right into the action, much of the side dialogue can be skipped by simply walking past NPCs or starting a fight in mid-speech.
“I get nervous, so I’m a good barometer for that,” Roiland said. “Every time the player is locked into some critical path, ‘A story’ narrative stuff, we’ve earned it. It’s all really good. It’s damn funny, and we’ve earned it too from all the cool shit that happened to, or what is going to happen next.”
High in life Strives to be fair to all players
If you’re not watching a scene, you’re probably running around, exploring, and shooting bad guys. All the gunfight feels fantastic, and you can read more about it in our High in life preview. Don’t let the comedy focus fool you – traversal and combat are just as important here. Squanch Games technical director Nick Weihs previously worked on the Resistance franchise, and that experience carries over to the upcoming shooter.
“It’s really important for him to give A, the right feeling, and B, this is punishment, but fair, right? This is my fault as a player, this is not that the game is cheap or anything,” said study. “So if you go hard, you’ll get a run for your money.”
For Roiland it is important that High in life remains widely accessible and offers a fair challenge. If there is a hard mode, there must be an easy mode. Both hardcore players and newcomers to the genre should be able to pick up on the humor and enjoy it, and the last thing he wants is something hard to pull out your hair.
“Obviously it’s way too early to talk about a sequel, but gosh. We’ve got a lot of things we want to do, and we really believe that this IP is really something that can hold a lot of great content.” –Justin Roiland, CEO of Squanch Games
He talked about his time playing games like: FIST: Forged in Shadow Torch and Metroid Dread, saying those games felt ridiculously heavy. He didn’t want the core experience of High in life to be like that.
“I don’t mind dying to a boss a few times, as long as it has that Nintendo-esque quality, like, ‘Oh, I’m learning, okay, I get it.’ We have boss fights like these that are really damn cool,” Roiland said. “That’s a damn high bar I think I can hit.”
Players don’t have to “get good” to beat High in life, and many of the studio’s design decisions contribute to that idea. As with the story, it’s all about giving players the ability to (try to) master the battlefield in the way that suits them.
For example, you don’t have to worry about retrieving ammunition. You just reload and that’s it. There are health pickups for aggressive players, but cautious players (like Roiland) can hide behind cover to restore health as well.
“There was a direct turn from resource-based to more chaotic and strategic,” Studivan said, with Roiland echoing the sentiment.
“We also didn’t want to stop the player from just shooting like crazy,” said Roiland. “That was more fun for me. So I was like, let’s go that way, it feels really good.”
Squanch Games wants to do High in life DLC
Though you may be the nameless, voiceless protagonist of High in life, the real stars of the show are your weapons. These weapons are full-fledged characters, each with their own personality, and they are more than just a gimmick. Each has something different to say about what’s happening for you.
“There are choices that otherwise wouldn’t be there if you had one weapon over the other,” Roiland said. “But also just having a gun in a level versus another gun – we wrote full sets of dialogues for each gun that tapped into their voice, their sensitivity, their personality, and of course, tapping into the strengths of the actors we played with. was cast for those weapons.
“We consider these weapons to be your companions, not just your weapons,” Roiland said. “We treat them pretty much the same as a… dragon era companion can be treated.”
And he’s not kidding about the dragon era comparison. In the early development days for High in life, each weapon had its own storyline and side mission content for players to do. However, as it stands, the game does not contain any companion mission content.
“Ultimately, with the size of the team we have, we’re indie, you know, we had to prioritize, and it got lower and lower, and it was like, ‘I don’t think we’re going to be able to get there. .’ And that’s kind of the lamest thing to say, you know? But it’s just the honest truth,” Roiland said.
“We keep thinking that if things go well, we want to do DLC. There are so many ideas that we have, and that kind of thing is so perfect for that.” –Justin Roiland, CEO of Squanch Games
Another idea that was scrapped early on was the dual use of these weapons, especially since it would be so difficult to account for all possible conversations. Each gun reacts to your actions and the environment, but if you have different pairs of different weapons that give different reactions at different times, it gets a little daunting to justify everything.
“The game has already gotten so damn out of hand from the writing side,” Roiland said. “It’s definitely something I think it would be nice to do in sections in controlled ways, but it’s something we were put off on this first outing.”
If there’s one thing that defines the development process at Squanch Games, it’s that there are too many great ideas in development waiting to be brought to life. Roiland and the rest of the studio are committed to providing strong support for High in life. There was even talk of possible DLC.
“We keep thinking that if things go well, we want to do DLC. There are so many ideas that we have, and things like that are so perfect for that,” Roiland said. “Is it okay to be so honest? I never know with this stuff.”
It wouldn’t be the first time the studio has offered post-launch support either. His latest project, Trover saves the universe, had support for a few months, including free DLC just four months after release. Based on our conversation with Roiland, the studio is brimming with ready-made, inventive ideas and the creative drive is fueled.
“Obviously it’s way too early to talk about a sequel, but gosh. We’ve got a lot of things we want to do, and we really believe that this IP is really something that can hold a lot of great content,” said Roeland. “There are so many things, tons of damn cool shit we want to do. It’s that way Rick and Mortyit’s so far solar [Opposites]just as many ideas.”
The launch for High in life is just around the corner, with the release on December 13 in just three months. But if it goes well, it might not be the last time you hear about it High in life. You can pick it up on Xbox platforms and PC, and it’s also coming on Xbox Game Pass on day one.
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