#liquid state

Ripley has a multitude of ways to morph and change her liquid body as she attacks enemies, mostly police robots from the big oil company that killed her and turned her into an oil mutant. She can change her arms and legs into spikes to power up her punching power, she can melt into a puddle to avoid enemies punching back, and she can throw out and manipulate puddles of oil on the stage itself, forming them into deadly spike traps for the robots to get caught up in. In addition, she is able to pick up items and/or cover them with oil, so the player can make cool traps to perform combos on enemies. But there is a downside- her oil attacks are her own body. And so, her attacks drain her own life meter.

The Seagull Oil Company police robots are no laughing matter. ...Or, well, some of them are. Cheaply made drones, made to follow arbitrary routines and keep appearances. But beat them up, and tougher enemies are sure to follow. In Liquid State the goal of each level is to make it to the end with a good score, which can be achieved by effectively handling the police robot problem in the city. You don’t need to be an expert to play well, but getting to know the attack system is heavily encouraged to gain a better score, and of course- to stay alive. You might even get some rewards for performing well enough.

Ripley's attacks aren’t quite the usual beat-em-up affair. Liquid State sacrifices the slow, deliberate action of a standard beat-em-up game for something more akin to a platform fighter moveset, faster and more improvisational. More directional input attacks at a faster pace, is the general idea. Like moving a Rivals of Aether character into a Splatterhouse game!

But nonstop action all the time would be kinda exhausting, no? That’s where the apartment sequences come in. The apartment sequences are how you interact with the story of the game, and learn more about the world the characters inhabit. Most of the story takes place in the main characters’ apartments, inhabited by characters to interact with. Ask them questions, check your text messages, read the news. Be they friends, enemies or mysterious strangers, its well worth your time to immerse yourself in the story of Liquid State.

Speaking of story, what’s Liquid State about? Well...

"St. Ian used to have all kinds of problems. Pollution, dry oil wells, bird infestations with mean crows and seagulls flying everywhere. Then Seagull Oil stepped in and fixed everything all at once. How? Well, I hear they hired in some Sillicon Valley startup geniuses, but they wont tell us the details. One thing’s for sure though, it seems Seagull has expanded into a lot of new territory here lately. Automatic police robots, drone technology, cars, food, medicine- not to mention that fancy new office building overlooking the town. And everything runs on that fancy new non-polluting oil they made! Its actually getting kinda expensive to live here now..."

Step into the shoes of Ripley the oil mutant. She lives with her girlfriend Malika, Eddie the sandwich guy and his partner Mort. Their apartment building is old and falling apart, but the rent is cheap when shared and it’s hard to get a job these days. Suddenly they get a note on the door, the Seagull Corporation has bought the land the building is on, and that the apartments are to be demolished to make room for a new factory. Ripley, who just woke up as a mutant in a landfill after being presumed dead, finds the corporations sudden massive expansion suspicious and decides to dig up some info. From there on, the plot thickens- and she suddenly finds herself in a situation far beyond what anyone of them could have expected. Whatever the corporation did to her was only the beginning of something much bigger.

Alright that’s fine and all, but why is this game so important to us anyway?

Liquid State comes from a personal place. It’s made by two queer game developers who grew up in Norway, a country built on the back of a massive oil industry. We understand the impact that weapon factories and offshore oil platforms can have on a city, even if you ignore other real issues like climate change and pollution. Liquid State is about a city plagued by gentrification, lobbyism, privatization, and income inequality caused by a monopoly strangling the city. And as queer developers, we want the things we make to represent people like us. Our main character Ripley is a trans woman who’s in a lesbian relationship, and they share an apartment complex with two gay dudes. Our games come from personal experiences, and so the game is personal to us.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading our 1000-ish words about Liquid State, hopefully this gives you a better understanding of what our game is all about! We’re hoping to get an updated demo out in April, so stay tuned!