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Assassin's Creed Shadows
Assassin's Creed Shadows (2024)
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One of the game's dual protagonists Yasuke, an African samurai, is the first main character in the Assassin's Creed series to be based on a real historical figure, but his real-life identity and status serving under Japanese daimyo Oda Nobunaga has been the subject of a contentious debate among historians. There are few scholarly/historical resources available describing him and his life, as well as no known resources from the time he was alive that refer to him as a samurai, with the most common conclusion being his title was a retainer to Nobunaga.

His reveal as a main character in the game on May 15, 2024 caused polarizing reactions worldwide on social media. Fans critical of the decision claimed Ubisoft were going against the series' penchant for accurate historical backgrounds and misrepresented Japan, which had never been covered in-depth in the globally-spanning game series, by inflating Yasuke's role in history and not having both protagonists be Japanese (the other protagonist, Naoe, is Japanese), claiming that Yasuke was not actually a samurai. Fans in support of Yasuke's role claiming that he was actually a samurai called these objections racist and based on narrow-minded arguments and inferences, with some going so far as to claim that Asian samurai protagonists in media were oversaturated and that critics would give the same complaints if it were a game set in Africa starring an African protagonist. This intense fighting led to an edit war on Yasuke's English Wikipedia article, with administrators publicly calling the article's Talk page "a complete dumpster fire". As of May 30, the consensus that was reached on the Talk page appears to be that the available resources are inconclusive, and there is still no historical evidence confirming that Yasuke was or was not a samurai. Reflecting this, the article does not call him a samurai when covering his documented life.

The lack of clarity on his life allowed popular culture and media to take creative liberties in speculating who he was, often depicting him in adaptations as a high-ranking samurai, and Ubisoft seemed to be going in a similar direction. The advertising for the game at its announcement described Yasuke as a "samurai of historical legend", and a press release stated:

"Ubisoft Quebec wanted to include a Samurai, and Yasuke's story was open-ended enough to allow for creativity; there are still plenty of questions and speculation surrounding him. The fascinating facts, though, were undisputable: of African origin, he arrived in Japan enslaved by the Portuguese; he impressed with size, strength, and wits; he served under the Japanese daimyo Oda Nobunaga. There must have been something exceptional about Yasuke to succeed in the service of a personality like Nobunaga's, [...] and the goal has been to expound on this in Assassin's Creed Shadows through his curiosity, openness, respect for values and tradition, valor, warmth, and charisma."

While the header for this section of the press release is called "Yasuke: A Real-Life Samurai", this description seems to be carefully worded to stop short of directly calling him a samurai, with the use of "historical legend" elsewhere suggesting that they were aware of the unconfirmed status and were fictionalizing Yasuke for the game.

In a set of developer interviews with Famitsu published on May 15, creative director Jonathan Dumont elaborated that they also chose Yasuke to fit with the game's story of a foreigner who fights off oppressing forces, like the Portuguese slave trade's effects on Japan, while exploring a country unknown to him alongside the player, stating that they were "first looking for "our samurai," someone who could be our non-Japanese eyes". The following day, the Famitsu article was edited to change developer quotes in the interviews that either directly or contextually referred to Yasuke as an "outsider" to being a "foreign-born samurai", and also removed the aforementioned Jonathan Dumont quote, for unknown reasons.
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Adaptation, Advertisement/Commercial, Complaint, Corporate Affairs, Development, Early Idea, First, General, Inspiration, Misconception, Press Release, Race, Real Life, Reviews, Social Media, Suggested, Theory, Website
person MehDeletingLater calendar_month May 19, 2024
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Game website with "samurai of historical legend" quote:
https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/assassins-creed/shadows

Ubisoft press release:
https://news.ubisoft.com/en-us/article/2LH4Ael4X1TlNJY3B3aYg5/assassins-creed-shadows-launches-november-15-features-dual-protagonists-in-feudal-japan

Ubisoft article with several videos explaining historical backgrounds behind previous Assassin's Creed games:
https://news.ubisoft.com/en-us/article/6d4zQXyH0VF6z75Ab7jfss/discover-the-real-history-behind-every-assassins-creed

IGN articles:
https://www.ign.com/articles/when-and-where-is-assassins-creed-shadows-set
https://www.ign.com/articles/assassins-creed-shadows-yasuke-asian-protagonist

TheGamer article:
https://www.thegamer.com/african-assassins-creed-shadows-controversy/

Time article:
https://time.com/6978997/assassins-creed-shadow-yasuke-controversy/

Forbes article mentioning Wikipedia edit war and international reactions:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2024/05/15/japanese-fans-are-puzzled-that-yasuke-is-in-assassins-creed-shadows/

Yasuke English Wikipedia article (Note: while much of this controversy occurred on English language Wikipedia, bear in mind that Wikipedia articles by themselves are not reliable sources for historical research, and the English article is not a uniform representation of the information on Yasuke across the different language versions of Wikipedia that have this article. There are varying primary, secondary, historical and pop culture sources suggested for and used in all of these articles either backing up verified information about him, or making different claims that may not be accurate.):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasuke
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Yasuke

Wikipedia administrator discussion:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240518220622/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Talk:Yasuke_is_a_complete_dumpster_fire

Earliest archive of original Famitsu interview (in Japanese; English machine translations for all archives of this article compared between Google Translate and DeepL prior to publishing this submission. Deleted quote in Japanese is "まず“私たちの侍”、つまり日本人ではない私たちの目になれる人物を探していましたが、これは") (May 15):
https://web.archive.org/web/20240515185159/https://www.famitsu.com/article/202405/5194

Archived edited interview (May 16):
https://web.archive.org/web/20240516194746/https://www.famitsu.com/article/202405/5194

Latest archived edit (May 18):
https://web.archive.org/web/20240518034336/https://www.famitsu.com/article/202405/5194
Franchise: Sonic The Hedgehog
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During the reboot of Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comics, several characters and aspects adapted into the comic from the 1993 Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon (commonly referred to as "Sonic SatAM") were noticeably altered for a variety of factors:

• Ixis Naugus (referred to simply as Naugus in the show) was changed to "Walter Naugus". His species (which was never actually stated in the show, though the pre-reboot comics depicted him as a rhino-bat-lobster hybrid) was changed to that of a troll, with a tail being added to his design to help make him look as such, alongside his attire being updated to more resemble a warlock. Additionally, despite what was initially believed, the term "Ixis" was originally applied to Naugus' cartoon production materials, and was not invented by former writer Ken Penders. This meant it was still usable in the comics, and was later given to the deity worshipped by the troll species.
• Muttski was changed to "Ben "Mutt" Muttski", and was changed from a non-anthropomorphic dog to an anthropomorphic one. Notably, his new name was given in honor of Ben Hurst, the main writer of "Sonic SatAM" who sadly passed away in 2010.
• Snively Robotnik (referred to simply as Snively in the show) was changed to "Doctor Julian Snively", with his first name being a nod to "Sonic SatAM", as Dr. Robotnik's original name in the show was Julian. According to Ian Flynn, he is no longer related to Dr. Eggman in the reboot due to Sega's mandates not allowing other media to invent family members for the main "SegaSonic" cast. Ironically, while his half-sister Hope Kintobor was removed from the reboot, Snively inherited her position as G.U.N.'s R&D Specialist.
• Maximillian Acorn (referred to simply as "The King" in the show) was changed to "King Nigel Acorn". His name was most likely changed due to being coined by former writer Ken Penders. Notably, his new name, speech pattern and mannerisms are shared with Nigel Thornberry from the animated series "The Wild Thornberrys": Nigel was voiced by British actor Tim Curry, who also voiced the King in "Sonic SatAM".
• Nicole the Holo-Lynx's new backstory in the reboot has her being created by Dr. Ellidy in an attempt to digitize the consciousness of his dying daughter Nikki. This may have been loosely inspired by Ben Hurst's plans for the cancelled third season of "Sonic SatAM", where it would have been revealed that Nicole was originally a normal girl until she was tricked by Dr. Robotnik into having her entire personality transferred into a computer satellite.
• Although the Wolf Pack originated from "Sonic SatAM", the only member of the group who was not created by Ken Penders was their leader Lupe the Wolf, who also originated from the show. As such, when the comic was rebooted, she was the only member of the group to be carried over.
• Aside from King Acorn, the only parent of a "Sonic SatAM" character to make it into the reboot was Sabina, the mother of Dulcy the Dragon and herself a character from the show. However, while Ian Flynn did confirm that she was still Dulcy's mother in the reboot, she never actually appeared in the comic prior to its cancellation. Additionally, given that Dulcy refers to her with present tense, it's likely that Sabina is still alive in the reboot, whereas she had died in the original continuity.
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Backstory/Lore, Character Design, Development, General, Inspiration, Multimedia Adaptation, Name Change, Passed Away, Real Life, Reference, Retcon, Similarities, Theory, Tribute
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month January 7, 2024
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The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (1993)
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In an Iwata Asks interview conducted to promote the release of The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, Takashi Tezuka revealed that the world of Link's Awakening was strongly inspired by the 1990 TV series Twin Peaks. According to Tezuka, he was fascinated by how the show was able to mine drama out of a small cast of "suspicious types" confined to a single town and sought to replicate that approach with Link's Awakening, stating that "while it would be small enough in scope to easily understand, it would have deep and distinctive characteristics."
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Development, Inspiration
person VinchVolt calendar_month June 1, 2024
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Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros.
Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros. (2020)
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Attachment One of the Sleep Mode screens, which depicts Mario and Luigi having a picnic in World 4-3, is based on a piece of concept art originally drawn for The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and was included in this Game & Watch over two years before the film's 2023 release. The original image is showcased in one of the bonus features on the film's home media release, "Meet the Cast: Charlie Day as Luigi". Among other differences, the concept art features Mario & Luigi sitting on mushrooms instead of blocks and wearing their modern outfits instead of ones matching their in-game sprites.
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Artwork/Illustration, Development, Easter Egg, Inspiration, Multimedia Adaptation, Reference
person VinchVolt calendar_month June 1, 2024
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Deltarune
Deltarune (TBA)
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In the Undertale sixth anniversary livestream, Toby Fox stated that the scene in Chapter 1 where Susie holds off from attacking Kris due to her respect for Toriel was inspired by a real encounter with a bully that he had. According to Fox, the bully knew his mother and stated that they would've beaten him up if she wasn't nice to them.
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Development, Inspiration, Real Life
person VinchVolt calendar_month May 23, 2024
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Indigo Park
Indigo Park (2024)
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The Poodle Plush collectible item is based on Percy Poodle, the titular antagonist of the Five Nights at Freddy's fangame Playtime with Percy. Rambley alludes to this when presenting the plush to him at the Information Kiosk, noting how it's a "non-Indigo-brand toy", and claiming that it would "make playtime special for a child with poor taste".
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Cameo, Easter Egg, Fan Works, General, Inspiration, Reference
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month May 21, 2024
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Indigo Park - collectible descriptions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6w3-7zYPJk?t=172

Playtime with Percy trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laxkoLgecVs
Everything
Everything (2017)
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The game's creator David O'Reilly was friends with Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, also known as the "Daniels", the two writers and directors of the 2022 film "Everything Everywhere All at Once". During the climax of the film, protagonist Evelyn Wang and antagonist Jobu Tupaki appear in an alternate universe where they are both rocks overlooking a vista. In an interview with the Daniels, they revealed that this scene had two major influences. One being the children's book "Sylvester and the Magic Pebble" (about a donkey who turns into a rock and is isolated from his family), while the other inspiration was the core concept of O'Reilly's video game Everything, where the player can play as "literally anything". They described it as follows:

Kwan: "Literally, you can be a toenail clipping, you can be a fire hydrant, you can be an antelope, you can be a rock. And there’s maybe a dozen different kind of rocks you can be. Just rolling around —"

Scheinert: "— just feels good."

Kwan: "It feels good and that is really beautiful. The whole purpose of the game is you have to look at it and not press anything. It's a game where the longer you don't press anything —"

Scheinert: "— the more you progress."

Kwan: "He called it a relax-'em-up instead of a shoot-'em-up."
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Development, General, Inspiration, Reference, Similarities
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month May 19, 2024
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Deltarune
Deltarune (TBA)
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Attachment In an interview that Toby Fox conducted with the Chapter 2 development team, Taxiderby, one of the game's programmers, stated that the Spamton cherub that appears when pressing F1 during the Spamton and Spoiler:Spamton NEO fights was a spur-of-the-moment suggestion. According to them, Spamton's line "[Press F1 For] HELP" was already written, but it was originally a meaningless non-sequitur. After Fox suggested the idea of giving F1 an actual function in the fight, Taxiderby came up with the Final Fantasy-inspired Easter egg, putting it in singlehandedly after Fox gave his approval for the idea. In the same interview, they stated that they were surprised by its popularity, having made it purely as a throwaway gag.
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Development, Easter Egg, Inspiration, Reference, Secret
person VinchVolt calendar_month May 17, 2024
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Citizens of Earth
Citizens of Earth (2015)
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In regards to the game's visuals, director Ryan Vandendyck opted to avoid using a style that was considered common among indie games, stating:

"Basically we felt that the retro pixilated look and the anime-look in RPGs were way over-done, especially in the realm of indie RPGs. Plus, we felt neither of those two really fit a modern setting that well. So we went with a more cartoony style that we think fits the modern, Westernized setting, as well as being something quite unique. As you may guess by the fact that I made Waveform, I like making things not seen in other games! And as soon as we saw Robin’s character designs and the characters brought to life through animation, everyone on the team was sold."
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Artwork/Illustration, Character Design, Development, General, Inspiration, Real Life
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month May 13, 2024
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Deltarune
Deltarune (TBA)
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Attachment In 2012, Toby Fox posted several Yume Nikki fan songs to his Tumblr account. One of these, "waltz of seccom masada" (named after a fan nickname for the piano-playing NPC in the spaceship area), bears strong similarities to the Deltarune track "Man" (heard in the hidden rooms where Kris can obtain an egg from an invisible NPC behind a tree), indicating that Fox repurposed and rearranged the song for his own project years later.
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Development, Early Idea, Fan Works, Inspiration, Music, Similarities
person VinchVolt calendar_month May 12, 2024
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Deltarune
Deltarune (TBA)
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In Volume 5 of his Famitsu column "Toby's Secret Base", creator and director Toby Fox revealed that Ralsei's name came from a period in elementary school where he and his brothers constantly experimented with RPG Maker, having long had a shared interest in game development. Fox's oldest brother spent years working on a game called New Genesis, which featured a protagonist named Ralse; Fox simply appended an "i" to the name when incorporating it into Deltarune years later.

In the same column, Fox stated that the prolonged development of New Genesis discouraged him from making games for a long time. When he finally returned to the field in his teenage years, he sought to temper his expectations from the outset by making smaller-scale titles and preemptively planning out his approach to development to avoid biting off more than he could chew.
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Cancelled Release, Development, Early Idea, Inspiration, Magazine, Real Life
person VinchVolt calendar_month May 12, 2024
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Super Monkey Ball Adventure
Super Monkey Ball Adventure (2006)
subdirectory_arrow_right Super Monkey Ball Adventure (Game)
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In an attempt to make the game more accessible and add more depth to the series, Sega opted to focus more on the game's plot compared to previous titles, which primarily focused on the gameplay, to try and take the series' characters "into the next sort of iconic level".
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Development, General, Inspiration
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month May 3, 2024
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Cassette Beasts
Cassette Beasts (2023)
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Cassette Beasts' plot is inspired by isekai, a subgenre of fantasy that revolves around a person being transported to and surviving in another world. However, the game changes normal conventions of the genre by having everyone the player meets in the game also be transported to the island of New Wirral in a similar manner. According to writer Jay Baylis, this was done to allow the team to put focus on the people who are present in the game.
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Backstory/Lore, Development, General, Inspiration, Real Life
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month April 26, 2024
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The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2006)
subdirectory_arrow_right The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Game)
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The character design of Purlo, who runs the STAR game in the thoroughfare of Castletown, was directly based on Tingle. According to Eiji Aonuma, he is what Tingle would look like if he was made with a realistic design.
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Character Design, General, Inspiration, Reference, Similarities
person CuriousUserX90 calendar_month April 23, 2024
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Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights
Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights (2011)
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Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights features many similarities to the Professor Layton franchise by Level-5, namely in regards to the aesthetics and story. Noriaki Okamura, the game's designer, admitted that he was inspired by the series when making the game.
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Artwork/Illustration, Development, General, Inspiration, Real Life, Similarities
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month April 22, 2024
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Skullgirls
Skullgirls (2012)
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Attachment Finishing the match with any Blockbuster attack will cause the background to change and display a portrait of the defeated character with a pained expression on their face. This is a reference to the Capcom fighting game JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, which features similar portraits for when a match is finished with a Super. The shaders that Skullgirls uses for its portraits in-game are also internally labeled as "JojosDeathPortrait" in the game's files.
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Artwork/Illustration, Filename, General, Inspiration, Reference
person ZpaceJ0ck0 calendar_month April 21, 2024
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Finishing a match normally in JJBA (no portrait):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1IfMOtufRo?t=342

Finishing a match in JJBA using a Super:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1IfMOtufRo?t=207

Finishing a match normally in Skullgirls (no portrait):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92sem4JFgt0?t=125

Finishing a match in Skullgirls with a Blockbuster move:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92sem4JFgt0?t=426

The name found in the game's files:
https://tcrf.net/Skullgirls#Internal_Names
Freddy in Space 3: Chica in Space
Freddy in Space 3: Chica in Space (2023)
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Character Design, Fan Works, General, Inspiration, Level Design, Meme, Parody, Reference
person Violett calendar_month April 21, 2024
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Final Fantasy XVI
Final Fantasy XVI (2023)
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In an April 15th, 2024 interview with the director of the game's DLC "The Rising Tide" Takeo Kujiraoka published on Push Square's website, he revealed the development team believed that they achieved one of their initial goals to successfully attract players of all ages to play Final Fantasy XVI and become fans of the series. He claimed that Final Fantasy games in recent years had "tended to skew towards a higher age range", and they believed they were able to break that trend to a certain extent as evidenced by "survey results" showing that more people in their teens and twenties played the game. Kujiraoka clarified that this did not mean all future Final Fantasy titles would follow in the direction of this game, but that with a younger fanbase on-board it would allow future development teams to explore new possibilities when working on subsequent installments.
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Development, General, Inspiration, Real Life
person ProtoSnake calendar_month April 21, 2024
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MyPopgoes
MyPopgoes (TBA)
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The expanded version of myPOPGOES has a challenge named "Mini-P," which makes pizzas cook faster, but restore less hunger. This is a reference to one of Scott Cawthon's characters from the 2015 troll game FNaF World: Halloween Edition, also named Mini-P, which has the appearance of William Afton's "Purple Guy" sprite, just smaller and with red glowing eyes.
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Bonus Content, Character Design, General, Inspiration, Reference, Version Difference
person Violett calendar_month April 19, 2024
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HuniePop
HuniePop (2015)
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In an interview with TechRaptor, lead developer Ryan Koons stated that the decision to make HuniePop a gameplay-centric title instead of a story-centric one like other dating sims didn't happen until months into development. The original intention was to make a traditional dating sim, only for Koons – who already had little interest in storytelling in video games – to overhaul the concept due to his growing ennui.

In the same interview, Koons stated that he deliberately sought to avoid many of the cliches associated with dating sims, particularly "the usual innocent waifu style character types." Consequently, the game's cast are based on people from his own life, and the writing is much more irreverent than other dating sims. In particular, Koons described deuteragonist Kyu Sugardust as a raunchy fictionalization of her voice actress, Jaclyn Aimee.
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Development, Early Idea, Inspiration, Voice Acting
person VinchVolt calendar_month April 16, 2024
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