Hello everyone!

I hope you’ve all liked the disemvoweled version of Duck Date. Now there is also a reemvoweled version in case you want them sweet a’s, o’s, e’s and u’s.

The version with no vowels is the intended experience. Do give it a try before downloading the reemvoweled one. Reemvoweled was created by flipping a variable and no text was edited to accommodate the return of the vowels. 

I wanted to take some time and talk about why I’ve removed the vowels in the first place and why there’s a build with vowels. Spoilers ahead.

Disemvowel

There were two original sources for this decision. 

First is Eugenio Ionesco and his play The Bald Soprano. In the spirit of absurd he created a play where the concept of exposition is constantly assaulted. It’s impossible to know what is true and what is not, except for whatever the maid is saying. This idea of obliterating exposition (which all dialogue in a sense is) has stuck with me and I wanted to take it a bit further.

Second is my turbulent relationship with English. As a Soviet-born writer who works in English, it’s a bit frustrating that the perception of my work tends to boil down to my skills with grammar rather than story-telling. Removing vowels is my way of saying that it’s all pointless. I see English as an open-source product which everybody wants to control despite how impossible it is. Somebody has leaked the language all over the world and there is no way to get it back under someone’s control. Ever.

Once I started working on the story it became apparent to me that there is something more here. 

The difference of engagement and perception of the story depending on the linguistic background is fascinating. Jokes are hidden, don’t scan on the first or even second go. Important bits of lore are tough to get. The lore is there and the connections are there, they’re just obscure, jambled, broken. It’s my personal pleasure to obscure and hide my work.

Time travel also fits into the concept as the player has a chance to read the same line several times and decipher it.

There was also a goal of creating the sense of alienation from Paul as a viewpoint character and mapping you closer to Harrison, an objectively bad character you have to play as.

Reemvowel

The simplest and most direct reason is just accessibility. If you can’t read the text fast or switch to no vowel mode, then the game becomes a frustrating clicker. I don’t mind making something frustrating but that’s not the point here. 

On Save Koch we made a lot of dialogue and introduced timer. This made the game harder or easier based only on your language skills. This is an arbitrary punishment and I don’t like it. 

Unfortunately, I’m not yet good enough to figure out how to do pacing of the dialogue with an adjustable text speed, so the best thing I could come up with was two separate builds.

No vowels became Paul’s accent and so removing it felt weird. This is how she talks. The reemvoweled version felt like dubbing a character which loses specifics of the accent. Like how Brits and Americans are dubbed the same in Russian.

That said however, my feelings don’t matter. How you decide to play the game is your choice. Why you want to play the game is also your choice.