The trailer for Rain-Slick Episode 3 is live. As you can see it’s a bit of a departure from the previous games. We’ve partnered with Zeboyd games this time and the result is a classic 16-bit styled RPG. On the first two games I took on the role of concept artist but this time I’ve left that up to the professionals. The first two games were massive undertakings for us. They were years in development and really pushed us in directions we’d never gone before. Tycho discovered that he loves writing games and I discovered I hate drawing them.

I produced a ton of artwork for the first two episodes. I filled sketchbooks with designs for everything from the main characters to lamp posts. I storyboarded all the cutscenes and drew every weapon and item. All that stuff was then turned over to some extremely talented artists who turned it all into the 3D models and animated movies in the game. The result was beautiful but very little of my actual art appeared in the game. Jerry’s contribution was much more direct. You read every word he wrote just as he wrote it but my stuff was more inspiration and direction for other artists.

What I like is drawing comics and then showing them to people. If you like it that’s great and if you don’t, well maybe you’ll like the one I draw tomorrow. Working for years on a project and then feeling like I had nothing to show for it was a real downer for me. I respect the hell out of the artists who make games but I just can’t do it. I don’t like doing it and I think because of that I’m not especially good at it. What I’m good at is drawing cartoons and so that’s what I want to focus on.

However when the opportunity to make a third game came up Tycho was all for it. Not only was he hungry to finish the story he started but he actually loves the process. More importantly though, he’s good at it. Really good at it. Tycho can write anything. Songs, poems, blogs, long and short stories, comics, games, all of it. I sometimes feel like I dragged him into this comic thing and it’s kept him from writing all this other incredible stuff. Then I remember how rich I’ve made him and I think maybe he should just suck it up and make some more dick jokes before he gets in his BMW and drives home. But it’s true. Tycho is capable of much more and so it wouldn’t be right for me to keep him from doing a third game just because I didn’t want to do it.

So Episode three is really his baby and I know he’s incredibly proud of it. I’ve watched him working on it and I’ve never seen him this excited about a project. If you played the first two games I know you’ll want to see where the story goes. If you haven’t played them, now is a great time to jump in with this shift in direction. The game will kick off with an opening that will give new players all the background info they need. The game drops in a little less than a week on June 25th. You can hit the official site for all the details. I hope you’ll check it out. I know Tycho is proud of it and well, I’m proud of him.

-Gabe out