THE RETURN OF SCOTT AND MINDY
In 2019, I made a VR game. This was one of the capstone projects I developed for my undergrad senior year- essentially they groomed me to be the next VR kid because they had these systems in place they wanted to try out. I narrowly escaped the perilous fate of the last VR kid, which was developing simulations for the murderous American military industrial complex (contrary to most peoples assumptions, I actually do have standards!)
But back to the point. Scott and Mindy are a pair of immortal musicians I invented when I was 17- a sort of Gorillaz meets Marceline the Vampire Queen. I started by doing comics and eventually revived them for a video game script writing assignment, which led to me developing Happy Fun Time with Scott and Mindy. I took responsibility for all aspects of production, from environment and look dev to writing to voice direction- the one thing I couldn’t do was program, which is why I couldn’t release it to the public due to the bugs that I couldn’t resolve on export. But it was a playable game!
Happy Fun Time debuted in 2020 at DIVCON at Manchester Community College, where I tabled with my friend Ashley and did a hastily prepared presentation on my foray into game development. I was then assigned my next game objective, which was registering to table at another small convention, and planning to attend a zine exchange.
The pandemic hit immediately after DIVCON, forcing me to vacate Connecticut for the last time. We graduated that year with no ceremony.
Fast forward a couple of years and I am now in grad school. Scott and Mindy have a way of coming back to me when bad things happen, or when good things happen. They might seem like your run of the mill Gorillaz rip-off- which is a quick judgement to make within the virtual band genre. Gorillaz is performance art, DR&R is a developing virtual band indie game project. Gorillaz is trip-hop and beats, DR&R is post-punk and psychedelia. Gorillaz is run by men, DR&R is 100% woman owned and run- this a more important distinction than you might imagine.
Also, Destroy Rock & Roll is story driven. No abandoned plotlines or inconsistent characterization here folks! Yes sir, my Gorillaz rip-off has substance.
Stay tuned. Stay liquid.