Even though Knee Deep’s a swamp noir adventure in a tacky little Florida town instead of a galaxy far, far away, it owes a lot to the Star Wars movies.
I first watched Star Wars in the cinema at Orlando Fashion Square in 1977. Nearly 40 years later, you’ll hear a little Han Solo snark in the grim quips of private investigator K.C. Gaddis. Monroe? He’s just a four-legged Chewbacca. Gary Buckingham and Eula Dean are the redneck replacements for C-3P0 and R2-D2. And, sure, maybe Remy Dixon’s a faux-Cajun mix of Jar-Jar Binks and Darth Maul.
I’ve loved the (original) movies since long before #MayTheFourthBeWithYou became a thing. So, it shouldn’t come as much surprise that I peppered Knee Deep’s narrative with references – some subtle and some as subtle as a wampa at a tauntaun rodeo. The end of Act 2, for example, puts Jefferson Dean Gallant and Robert Woodstep in the roles of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda. Gallant laments that Romana Teague was the town’s only hope.
Woodstep responds: “No, Jefferson Dean Gallant. There is another.”
We’ve got moments similar Darth Vader’s first emergence in Revenge of the Sith (without the whining for Padme) and the destruction of Alderaan from A New Hope. Hey, there’s even a chute for our heroes to enter during an action sequence!
But you won’t find any Ewoks in the swamps of Cypress Knee. Just gators and, if you look really closely, maybe a swamp ape.
How about your favorite games? Any Star Wars Easter eggs hiding there?
Wes Platt is the lead writer/designer for Prologue Games. Their first game, an episodic narrative adventure called Knee Deep, launched its final act on Steam in March. Before that, he was a professional journalist for the St. Petersburg Times and Durham’s Herald-Sun. He designed collaborative real-time adventures at OtherSpace, Chiaroscuro, and Necromundus for players at jointhesaga.com. He also worked as a design lead on Fallen Earth, a post-apocalyptic MMORPG, from 2006-2010.