TBA Pt. 7: Comedy- Travelers, Bandits, and Adepts

Rather than literally breaking down the comedy behind my entries, especially one as stream-of-consciousness as H&TCoT, I save Comedy for diving into the cast. I deliberately limited the size of the cast in Harold & The Curse of Teebeyae since I was singlehandedly doing all the graphics and didn’t want to put too much time into too many NPCs. This came with the benefit of a small cast fitting a short game while having plenty of personality in their own right.

Harold 

Harold is, well, Harold. Same Harold I’ve written since Stuck in the Past. I gotta say, I missed Harold! Show-Stopping Hero did not feature Harold, merely an actor wearing a Harold costume and doing a pale impression. He got his cameo in Stuck in the Liminal, but only at the very end. This time, however, I felt like I got to know Harold for the first time since 2021. I blazed through most of the overworld dialogue in a single morning, and it was pure bliss writing his awful puns, overall dumbassery, and heroic yelling once again. Again, big props to Human and Loriesquare for inspiring how I write Harold.

I also tried to pay attention to how Harold would interact with the far more intelligent Fred and Eliza. Simply put, he wouldn’t be able to get his head around their relationship with Teebeyae and just want to blow up the thieves trying to steal his head. What a dumbass. I love him.

Marsha 

Marsha is also very dumb, but in more of a ditzy dorky witch girl way. Makes sense because no human being with a functioning brain would ever date Harold. I always wanted to give Marsha a lot of screen time in a Harold Jam game and portray her in this way. As I wrote the dialogue, however, she ended up serving as the slightly more intelligent foil that grounds Harold when needed. I figured early on Marsha would be Harold’s voice of reason, relatively speaking. They're a match made in Heaven. With that said, I should make her dumber next time. That would be awesome. Also I gave her a little blush and made her look like a Pikachu because I thought it was cute.

Fred 

I really wanted to feature Fred as the main villain of my HJ24 entry, regardless of what I would end up making or who the required character was. We all hyped him up as a perfect rival to Harold; grumpy, edgy, and stoic to counter Harold’s endless energy. I already talked about how he was a very played-straight thief before I realized I was making him just as simple as Harold. He needed to be cold, calculating, intelligent, and always thinking one step ahead instead of rushing in. I also wanted to give him a more complex, gray-area reasoning for stealing Teebeyae, leading to Teebeyae's cult killing everyone close to him and Eliza and leaving them homeless. Unfortunately this spur-of-the-moment decision ended up being pretty cliché which sucks epic turbo balls 9000. Serviceable for a jam I guess, but I really would love to do more with Fred in the future and really give him more of a character. Make his motives less cliche, make him more of an anti-hero than a villain, and- wait for it- make him dorkier. Can y'all tell I have a type?

Eliza 

I wasn't planning on including Eliza at first, and I even feel like this game could have been exactly the same without her. I just wanted Fred to have a sister and form a cool 2v2 dynamic with Harold and Marsha, which I couldn't fully realize due to the way battles worked.  I ended up making Eliza the more annoying of the two, a lot wordier and more willing to dance around the point to stall for time. She also keeps a smug façade for the most part but can spiral into a blind rage when things don’t go her way. Pretty much Zuko and Azula; unintentional but most likely subconscious. I also like to think Fred and Eliza work like the Voros Twins and tag in for each other to confuse enemies. This happens when Eliza tricks Harold and Marsha into thinking she’s Fred while having Fred blow up the cave while she staves them off.

David 

You give me David as a required character and “Kept you waiting, huh?” as a required quote and you expect me to not take it all the way? Solid Goddamn Snake lives on Teebeyae’s island! He’s already Old Snake at this point, freshly retired after the events of Guns of the Patriots.

I was hell bent on straight-up putting Snake in the game because I didn’t care anymore, but there was one problem; I’ve never played a single MGS game! My closest relationship with Snake is one of the best Smash players in my state playing him. Thankfully, upon asking RBT to review some Snake dialogue, the incredible Frown stepped up to bat and rewrote almost every word he speaks up to the first battle! I bounced off how they wrote for the rest of the game and included the obvious codec calls, C4 traps, and the dummy thicc meme because I couldn’t not. I also added all the “kept you waiting, huh” puns half because I thought they were funny and half to make the real line’s payoff that much sweeter. Also Snake's old so he can get away with some dad jokes.

As I wrote this, I just realized I forgot the obvious gag of having Snake hide in a cardboard box. That’ll be for Definitive.

Tomorrow, we'll take a look at what didn't make the cut in Time-Butchered Assets!