In November 2023 I was sitting in the offices of a community radio station scrolling through my emails when a request came in to cover a small independent game. At first glance it seemed to be an interesting concept – you are at the end of an RPG but find yourself stuck in a time loop; sounds fun, right?
That game was In Stars and Time – a title that would soon become a runaway success, garnering praise from critics and players alike for both its interesting gameplay and approach to player autonomy (as well as making quite a few people cry). Now the game’s developer is back, working on Truth Scrapper – a title about memory loss, mysteries and (to quote the Steam page) ‘Toxic Lesbians’.
I had the absolute pleasure of asking developer Adrienne Bazir, better known as insertdisc5, some questions about their work and what we can expect to see in Truth Scrapper.
To start, I’d love to know what inspired you to start making video games.
I’ve always loved video games! As a kid this was the job I chose to do, my “when I grow up I want to be an astronaut” moment. As I grew up, I went towards what I saw were more attainable jobs, but around 2017 I saw itch.io was having regular game jams, where you create a game following a specific theme, and thought this would be a good way to get started without too much pressure. I made my first game, Serre, and later made START AGAIN: a prologue, and the rest is history!
You’ve used both the Ren’Py and RPG Maker engines for your games, but which do you feel more at home using?
Currently, Ren’Py, since that’s the one I’m working with right now! But my experience with RPG Maker and its plug-and-play approach definitely made me more comfortable with programming in general, so I’m very thankful for the experience of working with it. Both of those software programs are great for beginners and/or people who don’t want to learn programming, though, so I recommend them both!
At what point did you know you wanted to share your art with the world?
I don’t think there was a specific moment… Oh wait, there’s one: when I was in grade school, I drew an anime character for a presentation, and everyone praised my drawing and said it was so cool. I think that was the moment.
In Stars and Time became something of a runaway success. Did you ever expect it to reach such a huge audience?
NOT AT ALL… I thought it had a very small chance to blow up for sure, because you can’t help but hope, but yes, the success of In Stars and Time was absolutely unexpected and something I’m very thankful for!!!
Between START AGAIN and In Stars and Time, you deal heavily with player and character agency. What prompted you to centre the story around this?
The relationship between the player and the player character is probably one of my favorite parts of video games. I’m always fascinated by the ways this relationship works, can be stretched, and can be used to shock the player… Since we control the player character, we should be them, but sometimes there can be this dissonance – would I really do this if I were the player character? Am I this character, or am I controlling them?
And if I’m controlling them, am I satisfied with what I’m able to make them do, or do I wish I could do something else? One of my favorite tropes is to push this discomfort to the limit – what if you, the player, don’t want the character to do what they’re doing? What if you’re screaming at them to do something else, but you have no option to do so – stuck doing only specific actions, just like the player character? What if, just like the player character, you’re also in a tragedy of your own? I DON’T KNOW; IT’S JUST YUMMY STUFF!
With every issue of your newsletter you also share an adorable doodle, but what has been your favourite thing to doodle so far?
(Looks through my newsletter doodles.) this one is quite lovely:
As for Truth Scrapper doodles, this one of Amour looking at the Mona Lisa isn’t as deliciously drawn as my other doodles, but it makes me quite emotional. Maybe once the game comes out, it’ll make you emotional too:
With your upcoming game Truth Scrapper dealing with memory loss between each day, can we expect the same level of existentialism that Siffrin gave us in In Stars and Time?
Trying to not say spoilers here, but even from the demo, I tried to show Sosotte as someone who is very aware she’s going to forget everything by the end of the day and has taken the steps to mitigate this so she can live a somewhat normal life.
She tells herself, “Yes, you’ll forget everything soon, so make your peace with it soon and enjoy your one day on this earth.” She’s aware her amnesia makes her especially vulnerable and likely to be manipulated, so she hides herself behind a silly persona so she can manipulate people first. She knows to write important things so any future Sosottes can be ready.
But she can also be somewhat selfish towards herself – she might not write some happy events so she can keep them for herself, for this version of Sosotte that only exists on this day. In a sense, she manipulates people, as well as herself.
So yeah, I’d say the themes of existentialism are nonexistent in Truth Scrapper!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How does Truth Scrapper handle the player as a factor? Though the information Sosette carries forward is only what gets recorded in the scrapbook, is there any accounting for players memorising information themselves?
It is definitely accounted for, and I also would like to say that, as answered above, I love exploring player agency and lack thereof. Scream at the screen! Plead for her to remember! My girl can’t hear you!!!
If you were stuck in a time loop and had to endlessly redevelop and re-release every game from Serre to Truth Scrapper, what would you do differently to escape the cycle?
Uuuuuh, ok, reaching out more to people… Which means I would ask more people to playtest them, I guess???? Jokes aside, for my previous games, I pretty much didn’t show them to anyone until they were 100% done, which meant that if playtesters had feedback, it’d be hard for me to implement… But it’s my game! My baby!!! I can’t just–show it like it’s nothing!!! Scary!!!
For Truth Scrapper, I’ve asked quite a few people to play it as I’m making it and getting some very valuable feedback, and the game is better for it. So I’m very glad I managed to reach out and ask for help…!
Where did the idea for ‘this game will end in 205 clicks’ come from?
205 clicks is an idea I’d had for a while; I think I first drafted it around 2016. I think I was reading a lot of posts and essays about queer-coded villains, and this got my brain thinking: what if your job was to be one? A queer-coded villain, like Jafar from Aladdin, like Him from The Powerpuff Girls, like James from Pokémon. A villain who has to read as queer, because being queer means being scary and unsettling, and as a villain that’s exactly what we want you to be – but the queer CODING is the point; you can’t actually be queer! That’s weird! We can’t show that on screen! In fact, we can’t even say “queer”. You’re “flamboyant”. A word that describes your exterior perfectly, but not the true you. We’ll censor everything you are until you are just a fun, slightly scary, but still harmless silhouette. This idea is what inspired 205 clicks.
As well as subverting people’s expectations, you have also used strong subtext in your work to raise discussions around losing cultures and erasing queerness, but what would you say is your main motivating force for sharing these ideas?
(Looks at the state of the world.) I dunno.
Which is your favourite Kingdom Hearts game?
Kingdom Hearts II is the only possible answer!!!!
(Editor’s Note: We double-checked; this is objectively true.)
You’ve always encouraged others to create and even have some useful information for aspiring developers on your website, but if you could give only one piece of advice, what would it be?
Please Start Making Your Damn Game Please, please, please, please.
If you would like the full In Stars and Time experience after reading this article, feel free to refresh this page and start reading again; either that or you can buy it by heading to the website. You can also find out more on the insertdisc5 website and follow updates on Truth Scrapper (along with getting some cool doodles) by joining the newsletter.
