Looking back at Uggy Barfoo (part 1 of many)

It's been a while since I've done one of these, but here goes -- another series of posts looking back at one of my ancient attempts at making a game.  This time, it's the most complete RPG Maker 2003 game I ever started on, titled Uggy Barfoo.  As the title would imply, the Uggy Barfoo itself was indeed planned to be a plot point.  Well, sort of -- when I first started working on the game, "Uggy Barfoo" was just a couple of nonsense words along the lines of "Fnrrf Ygm Schnish."  If I'm remembering right, my little sister (who actually was little at the time! XD) was calling me random jokey almost-insults and "uggy barfoo" happened to be one of them.  I couldn't come up with a title for the game I had recently started working on, so... I called it Uggy Barfoo.  It wasn't until much later, when I started working on the second half of the game, that I decided that the title would actually be relevant to the game rather than being nonsense words.

Anyway... I'm pretty sure this project started during the summer after I graduated high school, or perhaps the fall after that.  I know it was definitely sometime in 2004, and definitely before the Crappy World comics that I (briefly) wrote sometime in the same time range (they may have been written/drawn in either very late 2004 or maybe sometime in 2005), but probably not that long before since several major characters from Uggy Barfoo showed up in those, too.  It ended up being the first appearance of several recurring things, from major characters like Ma-Du Nebozu and Bunprego to little details like hobos having a "hobo code," Robert belonging to a group of trained "Booger Fighters" who follow the ways of Mr. Bugar, and Joguo Goueng-Zu having blue hair.

 The game starts off with a scene from 20 years ago.  It seems that either the Earth of Uggy Barfoo has a very different history from ours or the game is somehow set in an earlier time period rather than being set around the same time that I made it (none of the characters seem to be in school or anything, so presumably I was going for "summer after high school year"... though in Uggy Barfoo's setting that might not be 2004 after all.)

Why do I say that the game might have a different timeline from "real-world" Earth? Well...

 ...because the game starts out with the moon landing!

Well, a moon landing, anyway.  It's possible that they landed on another part of the moon the first time around (the landing everyone saw on TV) and it was only the lone astronaut from this mission (which never was broadcast) that found the ruins and the mysterious box that Ma-Du Nebozu was sealed inside.  And then he punched the crystal holding the seal intact, causing him to be set free.  Whoops.

 Shown here: Ma-Du Nebozu, Lord of Moronism, shortly after murdering the random astronaut with blasts of concentrated stupidity.  Not sure what he spent the next 20 years doing after this, but...

 ...20 years later he descends from the moon, wipes out the entire US Army, and then kills the president (vaguely Bush-reminiscent, but it's hard to tell if I was going for Bush Sr. or Bush Jr. since the sprite is more generic-old-guy-in-a-suit) and the five random people standing behind him.  He's bored with killing regular ol' wimpy humans, so he comes up with a "genius" plan to lure out stronger opponents by screwing things up all across the planet.

Shown here: stronger opponents.  Well, one of them.

 And the game goes directly from there to main character Enduo's house with no real transition besides a "fade to black, then fade back in."  This house is, of course, vaguely modeled after the one my dad actually lives in, over in Clifton Forge, though without any technological things (computers, etc.) included.  This was probably more due to the tileset not having them than anything else, though, considering that the toilet is represented by something that definitely isn't a toilet.

 Oh, and the kitchen sink is represented by a random little pool of water penned in by rocks.  The disadvantages of using a tileset you didn't make (in a style you're not good enough at working with to make new tiles for it), right there.

 After stocking up on random food (bagels, donuts, and a lone Powerbar hiding in Julia's room upstairs), I head out into the town of Nifclont, where I immediately find a blue-haired girl screaming about how shiny her blue hair is.

 This bunny is actually important later on.  Well, not to the main plot, but to a minor sidequest that leads to an (optional) playable character.

 I mentioned the Hobo Code before, but you get the first clue toward figuring out what it is all the way back in the very first town.  There's several other hobos throughout the game that give you more clues and eventually you should be able to piece it together.

 It's not in the title this time, but the phrase "Fnrrf Ygm Schnish!" still found its way into the game.

 Random FBI guy blocks your way until you find the second playable character in town.

 And here's the first random encounter battle.  Enduo actually has special moves, which is unusual for characters in this game -- none of the next three party members have any (...at least to start with.)  Rats and Yellowjackets are both pretty weak, but the bees can poison you if you're unlucky.  Fortunately Pen Throw kills them in one hit (so does a regular attack, but that's less likely to hit.  And Pen Stab isn't really any better than a regular attack so it's kinda useless.)

 Rats have money.  And, oddly enough, Earth uses the Nummorrian form of money rather than each country having its own, or even everyone randomly using dollars or something.  Yeah, there'd have to be a different history for that to make any sense (how would humans even make konju coins, anyway? you can't melt down and forge kirbium without Kihlah... XD)

 I don't think this ever becomes plot-relevant, or even sidequest-relevant.  Maybe I had planned on adding something to it in the later parts of the game that never got done?

 Oh, and here's Joguo.  Ever since 2007-2008 he's been known as Joguo Goueng-Zu, heir to the Goueng-Zu ninja clan... but back then he was just Joguo Goueng-Zu, guy who randomly has blue hair.  This was his first blue-haired appearance; in Spuduf Splorchers his hair was black (and it randomly reverted to black for the 2006 Fnrrf Ygm Schnish, too... but not long after that it turned blue again.)

Oh, and right before this text box, there was a flash and an explosion sound.  Apparently something's happened on the other end of town.

Before heading out of town, more random battles.  Enduo and Joguo both reach level 2 around this time.

 South of town is a dark, spooky forest with stronger enemies than the rats and yellowjackets in town.  Well, there's Morons in town too, but the frogs are new (and there's a couple other enemies in there that are much more of a threat than either of them.)  This fight was entirely harder than it should've been, mainly because of my lack of equipment.  So...

 ...I head back into town and unequip Joguo's "Expensive Shoes," which do absolutely nothing but can be sold for a small chunk of money.  That money, plus money gained from beating up rats and morons along the way, pays for some weapons at the weapon shop -- err, I mean, "hunting gear" shop.  Every single weapon/armor shop in the early game has something like that where the shopkeeper slips and starts to say weapon/armor, then corrects themselves to a more modern-day sounding term (hunting gear, clothes, that sort of thing.)

 And right when you're about to leave... big stompy footsteps and a roar!  That can only mean...

 ...a boss is coming! A somewhat embarrassing boss, looking back.  It's called the "Homo Hydra," and I'm pretty sure this is entirely because of how I had recently learned that the color purple is sometimes associated with gay people.

There's nothing explicitly "gay" about the random purple hydra.  It's just a generic boss monster with a stupid name, pretty much.  It uses lots of poison attacks (both a physical attack that can poison and Poison Gas, which just poisons) and can also drain your life, double-attack, and heal itself.  It's actually not all that difficult, though, considering that it will often try to poison already-poisoned opponents... and Enduo has recently reached level 3 and learned "Raging Stab," a pen attack that does much more damage than Pen Throw or his regular attacks.

 Joguo still doesn't make it through the fight, but that's okay since he wasn't the one doing most of the damage anyway.

 And now that that's dealt with...

 ...you can leave the woods surrounding Nifclont and reach the world map!  Nifclont is pretty much the middle of nowhere, nothing but a big forest on one side and mountains on the other (with a river and plains beyond those.)  To the southeast there's an abandoned town, which is not too important now but has a sidequest for much later.

 Yep, looks like it got hit by some chunks of rock.

 The houses here have ghosts, which have a "........." textbox and then make a weird noise and vanish when you talk to them.  There is a way to actually communicate with them, but it requires coming back with a certain ability much later.

And this cave, north of Wafterville, is the next plot-relevant location.  I'm skipping it for now, though, because there's a town just out of view beyond those other mountains.

There's a lot of really odd random NPC textboxes in this game.  Right here is an example.

This town I'm in now is called Vinctogon, by the way.  It's an anagram of Covington, just like how Nifclont was an (almost) anagram of Clifton... as in Clifton Forge.

 This one says something else, pauses, turns to face you, and then knocks you back a step or two.  Basically just like the rival guy at the beginning of Pokémon Gold/Silver, except with dialogue more inspired by my old Dopeymon ROM hack (where he accused you of looking at his butt first before knocking you away.)

 And this one was inspired by my mom awkwardly commenting on how cute she thought a certain waitress at a restaurant we used to go to was.  While said waitress was within hearing range, of course.  Yeah, that was a little embarrassing (but also somewhat funny looking back.) XD

 Does this apply to the "don't look at my butt!" girl, I wonder?

 Both of these guys have heard some rumors about some of the girls living in this town, it seems.

 I heard that you don't put enough words in your textboxes.

 Well, she does have an obvious Burijeoo name.  Doesn't take a genius to figure that one out. XD

North of town is an area with different music, home to the police station as well as a small cave system and Mejuai's house at the top of the mountain.

 There is no such date as February 30th.  I bet you can figure out what this implies about this particular police department's track record. XD

 And here's the police chief, who apparently thinks the police motto is "to protect our stash of donuts, and to serve each other donuts."

Not much else to do in Vinctogon at this point in the game, so I'll head out and back down toward that cave I pointed out earlier.

...or maybe I'll get ambushed by two Bomber Pigeons on the way out of the police department and see the Game Over screen for the first time instead.  Fortunately I have been saving the game constantly, so no progress was lost.  Either way, that's it for this post; "part 2" will be coming soon!