Lauded as a “surrealist adventure in a store of secrets” and a “ bovril-fueled brand of anarchy”, we caught up with Rabbit Hole Games for a discussion about the release of Supermarket Times.

We’re all wondering, how do you come to make a game based in a UK shopping centre?

I was actually forced at gunpoint. A man broke into my flat, sat there with a gun for a year and a half, and told me to get programming or I was going to die. You will have to ask him, but he's gone now. Pray you never meet him. He was a horrible man—he wouldn't even let me have toilet breaks. Yes, the development of this game was very difficult indeed.

I once dared to ask him, between the beatings, "What is the meaning of all this?" "Why are you doing this to me?" "And why, for the love of God, must there be so many farts in this game?" - but he answered only with a mute stare and a gesture with his Colt 44 that I should return my attention to the keyboard. He kept a notebook, and once, a drawing fell out. He snatched it up and hid it from my view. But I caught a glimpse of it. I’ve tried to recreate it based on what I saw, and have attached it below:

Make of that what you will. I was left with as many questions as you.

But honestly, I'm glad the hostage situation happened—it was a good learning experience and it really made me grind like never before. After all, nothing worth doing ever came easy (or not covered in shit).

Sounds rough. How did you approach game design for SuperMarket Times, you know, when you were a hostage?

I had some ideas that I knew I wanted to be in the game. Like, I knew I wanted you to be able to click on all these different products and there'd be a silly/weird drawing for each one and a voiceover that might make you laugh. I thought that it wasn't enough simply to look at them, so I realised that the player needed some agency in the game and that's where the trolley came from. For each product you now had a decision of whether you wanted to buy it or not, and that decision would follow you around for your shopping trip.

This originally was all that was going to happen in the game, but I realised these choices needed to matter in some greater way - so that's where the checkout comes in.

But still, the game felt quite empty, a sort of hollow experience like this. I thought about giving you a shopping list or that you collect stickers if you buy certain items together but I decided this would be pretty dull. There needed to be some greater thing to do, and so the legendary tasks were put in and the game became more like a classic point-and-click with this addition. The little mini-games for the legendary tasks; hit the seagull with a rock, buy alcohol for the teenagers and exorcise the haunted toilet e.t.c. were a good way to break up the experience of shopping.

I like the fact that you have two ways of ending the game; either end your shopping trip and stay in a consumerist hell loop, or work to complete the legendary tasks and unlock the "true" ending.

So yeah, I think the player at first is just supposed to go around having a laugh, and then if they want to, they can focus in on the Legendary Tasks. The tutorial ends with a screen that just says "Have a nice time!!!" and that's what I wanted the player to do!
 

Did Supermarket Times have any production challenges?

Yes, I had to plan an elaborate heist to steal a trolley (from a certain supermarket that will go unnamed here) - the trolley was integral to production for sound recordings. I worked out the security guards' routes and shifts, where were the blind spots on CCTV? Could it fit in my car? This elaborate plan turned out to be totally unnecessary when I found one in a park.

So for six months, I had a shopping trolley in my flat. My cat loved sitting in it and being wheeled around.

When it was done, I released it back onto the street. It was gone within a matter of hours. Where it is now, I don’t know. But I often wonder where it is at this moment... Are you happy? Did you find someone else? Are you full of shopping?

How did you balance the line between humour and surrealism in the game? 

Haha, I don't know - I didn't really think about it too much. I would have an idea and if it made me laugh I would then create it in the game, if it still made me laugh then it stayed in.

Getting the timings on everything, sound effects or animations just right took a lot of finessing, and some days you really don't want to draw a silly looking banana... but some days you do, so I suppose that balances out.

Once we had a drawing for a product/character, Kenneth (who did the voice-overs) improvised the script on the spot. 90% were done on the first take. There’s no real explanation for how that's possible other than he’s a genius.

Why did you use felt tip pens for game art?

Kenneth and I each did about half of the drawings for the game. Kenneth is an artist and had recently at the time decided that nothing was more creatively liberating (and also financially cost-effective) than using felt tip pens. This bold hypothesis is where the art style for the game came from.

I really enjoyed working in GameMaker. I was somebody who got put off making games because of programming, but when I discovered GameMaker it looked like something I would actually be able to do. Now that I've learnt how, I actually find programming quite rewarding - it is basically just puzzle solving.

GameMaker made it easy to quickly test ideas and see what worked. This was very important for the comedy because it let me try out lots of jokes fast.

I used a lot of Photoshop to refine images and perfect compositions, and then my scanner really got put through its paces over the course of production turning thousands of my drawings into 1s and 0s.

What was your reaction to the first feedback for Supermarket Times?

Yeah it was awesome to get Cloud Arse™ (the supermarket's toilet paper brand) in The Guardian. And reading the player and critical reviews for the game made me really happy, I was really pleased people got what I was going for and that I’d managed to achieve what I wanted the game to be.

I honestly had no idea if anybody else would find the game funny or not when I was making it. I think only two other people saw the game in production. As the project continued on over the one-year mark, I was worried I could have wasted all this time making something that nobody would find funny. It came as a massive relief that when it was released other people really did like it!

Also, I found that lots of people didn't realise they had a map, so people were going around being like "Why is this game so confusing?". So, I did an update that puts a little reminder in about the map. The game remains quite confusing, but now it is at the correct level.

As a solo indie game dev, how have you approached marketing and promotion?

I did absolutely no marketing and promotion while making the game. I’m a solo developer, and it took me a year and a half to make so if I had to do the marketing and promotion as well at the same time I think my head would have exploded.

I first sent the game out to people on the day that it was released. (This is literally the worst thing you could possibly do, so don't do that if you are a new developer). I’ve worked hard emailing the game to reviewers and content creators who I think might like the game, but yeah it's difficult when you're only one person. It's hard to compete with publishers who pay for content and who employ people whose sole job is to network with YouTubers so their games get played, instead of yours.

But yeah, I’ve just tried to get the humour across in everything I've done when talking about the game, including in this interview - except for that part at the beginning about the man with the gun, that really did happen and was awful.

I’ve added some new products to the Supermarket since the game's release, such as the "Abibass bonus trainers"! And I'm also working on expanding the OST for the game right now - so people will have more cool supermarket background music playing as they go around the store!

What is your favourite product in Supermarket Times?

My favourites are the squid and the crab. Kenneth's voice recordings for those really got me, you can actually hear me laughing in the background of the recording if you listen closely.

Is there a message or experience you want players to take from the game?

Yes, but I think if I say it might ruin it.

 

Starting a game is one thing, but completing it is another. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you’ll carry forward into future projects? What has been the most rewarding part of creating this game? 

Yes, the project will actually take about 6 times as long as you initially planned.

Promoting the game as it's being made is very important.

The most rewarding thing for me has been seeing people enjoying playing the game and when people leave you nice reviews or send you messages saying they got a kick out of playing it!

Check out Supermarket Times on Steam

Written by Samuel Wain

Sam Wain is a digital marketer at GameMaker. He runs the YouTube channel, writes blogs, and leads influencer marketing. In his own time he's often found crafting stories, composing music, and implementing his sound effects into a new game or project.