Brief History of Otyugra Games
Learning the Ropes (2011 - 2013)
Early 2011: Matthew Kordon began making Super Orange Land, a platformer-maze hybrid game. It was the first of several games to be made under "Otyugh games." It is notable for having minimalistic graphics. Matthew worked alone on it, as he would with many games to follow.
Sometime in 2011: A fan game was started, titled Super Smash Guys. It got a lot of attention online solely because of the name recognition of Super Smash Bros. The game was planned to include original characters from the self-published comics made by Matthew, as well as an inclusion of the main character of Super Orange Land.
Early 2012: A pirate action/ sailing game is started, titled Shiver Me Butts. It get's renamed to The Eighth Ocean and then is cancelled all within the same couple weeks. Some of the fantasy world-building would later be reused for Paper-Soul Theater.
Late 2012: Super Orange Land is completed, becoming the first game made by Otyugra games to be in a finished state. Despite being finished, Matthew decided to not make the game publically available. Around this time, Super Smash Guys was cancelled. The cancellation was due to intense ridicule by players, who found the broken physics to be comical. This negative reputation lead to Otyugh Games being rebranded as Otyugra Games.
Spring 2013: River Wars, a videogame made for the TI84 calculator, by Matthew and his friend Matt Gordan, was created over the course of that high school semester. It was the first and currently-only videogame made by Otyugra that is played on something other than computers. It is not publically available.
Surrealism Era (2014 - 2015)
January 2014: Matthew became friends with Exkakx, online. Exkakx had made a game that demonstrated to Matthew how a videogame can be a life-changing work of art, and Matthew subsequently was heavily influenced by Exkakx's games, starting an era in which games made by Matthew all had a similar vibe.
April 2014: Everlasting Night was started. It was to be a point-and-click adventure game and began during a 72-hour game jam. Only two minutes of content were made in that time, and for that reason, it was ranked one of the worst games in the competition. Matthew learned a valuable lesson about time management and having realistic ambitions from the failure. Matthew decided to continue work on the game.
October 2014: Hippy business Balloon was made for another game jam. It had inventive, but controversial, loose control physics. The player plays as a balloon rather than a person. It was woefully incomplete at the end of the 72 hours, but had a cult following at the time from people at Matthew's school and online.
2014 or 2015: Matthew, their friend Orane, and Exkakx work together to make an android-phone game about a sliding penguin. It was later cancelled, and Exkakx was the lead director instead of Matthew, who was the team artist. Exkakx later returned the favor by composing a song for Meat Quest and Everlasting Night.
Early 2015: Development on Everlasting Night ends and the game is left unfinished. Because it was Matthew's favorite game at the time, it later influenced nearly ever game that followed it in some way or another: Meat Quest was the same game genre, Phantomatics has the somber atmosphere, and Paper-Soul Theater barrowed the dialogue mechanics invented in that game.
Transitional Era (2015 - 2016)
2015: River Wars was quietly ported to Windows computers. It is the superior version of the game, and legend says Matthew still plays it with his friends to this day. It is one of the best games in our back log despite its simplicity. Meat Quest resumes development despite technically being a finished game. What started as a goal to touch up the graphics turned into a full expansion of the game that still is being worked on, as of December 2017. Exkakx quits game development, and that leaves an impact on Matthew; he is sad but also began being influenced by other people.
Mid 2015: Matthew comes up with an idea for a game that plays like Paper Mario TTYD but is about a young girl who fight with both words and nonviolent actions in a fantasy setting (Paper-Soul Theater). This idea turned out to be uncanny similar to UNDERTALE, which at the time was not yet well known, but had just gotten Kickstarted, unbeknownst to Matthew. Matthew was,for a few months, extremely bitter that UNDERTALE beat him to the punch. UNDERTALE was both an inspiration yet something Matthew wanted PST to not be associate with, shaping the game in its early days. Around this time, the idea was kicked around that the game could instead be a Paper Mario/ Wario Land: Shake It fan game, titled "Paper Wario: Partners in Crime." This was rejected after talking to forum friends about which idea they liked better. It's worth noting that Matthew choose to model the game after TTYD because it was the only RPG other than Pokémon he ever played. He retroactively believes TTYD has the best JRPG gameplay of any JRPG ever, having experienced several other JRPGs, and was very disappointed with their unambitious or flawed ideas. A guy name Nick joins the Paper-Soul Theater team.
Late 2015: Matthew makes a demo of a game for a fellow game developer. That game is The Road Goes 601, and it lead to Tyler joining the Paper-Soul Theater team.
Early 2016: Many people join the Paper-Soul Theater team, including Trevor, who would become the co-creator. The team has a stupid idea to immediately make a huge prototype of the game, not yet understanding the insane size and quality it was expected to be. This fails and the team gains a more practical scope for the game.
Afterwards: Paper-Soul Theater continues to be developed, and is still being made, as of December 2017. Meat Quest, and Phantomatics are also still being worked on. Focusing on these games lead out of this era.
Early 2011: Matthew Kordon began making Super Orange Land, a platformer-maze hybrid game. It was the first of several games to be made under "Otyugh games." It is notable for having minimalistic graphics. Matthew worked alone on it, as he would with many games to follow.
Sometime in 2011: A fan game was started, titled Super Smash Guys. It got a lot of attention online solely because of the name recognition of Super Smash Bros. The game was planned to include original characters from the self-published comics made by Matthew, as well as an inclusion of the main character of Super Orange Land.
Early 2012: A pirate action/ sailing game is started, titled Shiver Me Butts. It get's renamed to The Eighth Ocean and then is cancelled all within the same couple weeks. Some of the fantasy world-building would later be reused for Paper-Soul Theater.
Late 2012: Super Orange Land is completed, becoming the first game made by Otyugra games to be in a finished state. Despite being finished, Matthew decided to not make the game publically available. Around this time, Super Smash Guys was cancelled. The cancellation was due to intense ridicule by players, who found the broken physics to be comical. This negative reputation lead to Otyugh Games being rebranded as Otyugra Games.
Spring 2013: River Wars, a videogame made for the TI84 calculator, by Matthew and his friend Matt Gordan, was created over the course of that high school semester. It was the first and currently-only videogame made by Otyugra that is played on something other than computers. It is not publically available.
Surrealism Era (2014 - 2015)
January 2014: Matthew became friends with Exkakx, online. Exkakx had made a game that demonstrated to Matthew how a videogame can be a life-changing work of art, and Matthew subsequently was heavily influenced by Exkakx's games, starting an era in which games made by Matthew all had a similar vibe.
April 2014: Everlasting Night was started. It was to be a point-and-click adventure game and began during a 72-hour game jam. Only two minutes of content were made in that time, and for that reason, it was ranked one of the worst games in the competition. Matthew learned a valuable lesson about time management and having realistic ambitions from the failure. Matthew decided to continue work on the game.
October 2014: Hippy business Balloon was made for another game jam. It had inventive, but controversial, loose control physics. The player plays as a balloon rather than a person. It was woefully incomplete at the end of the 72 hours, but had a cult following at the time from people at Matthew's school and online.
2014 or 2015: Matthew, their friend Orane, and Exkakx work together to make an android-phone game about a sliding penguin. It was later cancelled, and Exkakx was the lead director instead of Matthew, who was the team artist. Exkakx later returned the favor by composing a song for Meat Quest and Everlasting Night.
Early 2015: Development on Everlasting Night ends and the game is left unfinished. Because it was Matthew's favorite game at the time, it later influenced nearly ever game that followed it in some way or another: Meat Quest was the same game genre, Phantomatics has the somber atmosphere, and Paper-Soul Theater barrowed the dialogue mechanics invented in that game.
Transitional Era (2015 - 2016)
2015: River Wars was quietly ported to Windows computers. It is the superior version of the game, and legend says Matthew still plays it with his friends to this day. It is one of the best games in our back log despite its simplicity. Meat Quest resumes development despite technically being a finished game. What started as a goal to touch up the graphics turned into a full expansion of the game that still is being worked on, as of December 2017. Exkakx quits game development, and that leaves an impact on Matthew; he is sad but also began being influenced by other people.
Mid 2015: Matthew comes up with an idea for a game that plays like Paper Mario TTYD but is about a young girl who fight with both words and nonviolent actions in a fantasy setting (Paper-Soul Theater). This idea turned out to be uncanny similar to UNDERTALE, which at the time was not yet well known, but had just gotten Kickstarted, unbeknownst to Matthew. Matthew was,for a few months, extremely bitter that UNDERTALE beat him to the punch. UNDERTALE was both an inspiration yet something Matthew wanted PST to not be associate with, shaping the game in its early days. Around this time, the idea was kicked around that the game could instead be a Paper Mario/ Wario Land: Shake It fan game, titled "Paper Wario: Partners in Crime." This was rejected after talking to forum friends about which idea they liked better. It's worth noting that Matthew choose to model the game after TTYD because it was the only RPG other than Pokémon he ever played. He retroactively believes TTYD has the best JRPG gameplay of any JRPG ever, having experienced several other JRPGs, and was very disappointed with their unambitious or flawed ideas. A guy name Nick joins the Paper-Soul Theater team.
Late 2015: Matthew makes a demo of a game for a fellow game developer. That game is The Road Goes 601, and it lead to Tyler joining the Paper-Soul Theater team.
Early 2016: Many people join the Paper-Soul Theater team, including Trevor, who would become the co-creator. The team has a stupid idea to immediately make a huge prototype of the game, not yet understanding the insane size and quality it was expected to be. This fails and the team gains a more practical scope for the game.
Afterwards: Paper-Soul Theater continues to be developed, and is still being made, as of December 2017. Meat Quest, and Phantomatics are also still being worked on. Focusing on these games lead out of this era.