The pitch for Sunshine Shuffle, a brand new indie sport out this week, is an actual good one. You play as one in all a number of cute animals, collectively on a ship, enjoying poker. As you play, you study that, like in Reservoir Canines, mentioned cute animals have simply carried out a theft collectively. Poker, animals, and crime — a compelling combine for a promising indie sport that was supposed to return out this week. The issue is, some folks gained’t be capable of play it for a couple of days, as a result of a fairly humorous joke from the sport’s developer obtained a little bit out of hand.
Xalavier Nelson, Jr., who runs the event label Unusual Scaffold video games, is understood professionally for each his quirky narrative video games (An Airport for Aliens At the moment Run by Canines, Area Warlord Organ Buying and selling Simulator) and his sometimes tongue-in-cheek on-line presence the place he goes to nice lengths within the service of extraordinarily corny jokes. (Contemplate this 93-tweet thread, a shaggy canine story within the service of an terrible, terrible pun.)
Certainly one of Nelson’s newest jokes was about Sunshine Shuffle. As he explains in a video, he settled on a recurring gag that the sport “teaches kids to gamble” due to the mixture of cute animals and poker — which, to be clear, the sport doesn’t do. Sadly this meant that on the eleventh hour, folks began taking him severely — the end result being that, whereas Sunshine Shuffle is out now on Steam and itch.io, it isn’t presently out there on the Nintendo eShop in North America, and, in keeping with Nelson, banned totally from the Republic of Korea.
SUNSHINE SHUFFLE IS SUPPOSED TO COME OUT TOMORROW ON SWITCH AND PC
KEYWORD BEING “SUPPOSED TO”
APPARENTLY, MY SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN ABOUT THE GAME NOT TEACHING CHILDREN TO GAMBLE HAS UH
CONVINCED NINTENDO THAT THE GAME IS ABOUT CHILD GAMBLING pic.twitter.com/B8YY2zo0x0
— Xalavier Nelson Jr. (@WritNelson) May 23, 2023
Studying that his sport was banned from its largest potential market on the eve of its launch was “not that humorous,” Nelson tells Polygon on a telephone name after 24 hours of frantic communication and likewise plenty of Future 2. “After which a couple of hours later, it was the funniest fucking factor within the universe.”
In keeping with Nelson, the impetus for his gag was getting forward of potential bad-faith critiques of Sunshine Shuffle, the place folks would see the sport out of context and say that it was unsavory to have a sport with cute animals playing, as a result of it might educate kids to gamble. Nelson even says that Unusual Scaffold even tried to invent a brand new card sport that didn’t use common enjoying playing cards, however “it didn’t work for the gameplay and narrative dynamics we wished.” So poker stayed in, as a result of it labored greatest and since it serves as an homage to Poker Evening on the Stock, Telltale Video games’ now-delisted 2010 narrative poker sport.
By way of all of it, Nelson has remained good-natured, having religion within the publishing course of and nonetheless making the joke that obtained him on this mess. He’s additionally making lemonade, utilizing it as a chance to have interaction with folks, together with those that have the fallacious concept about his sport.
“Somebody on TikTok mentioned, ‘I gained’t even have a look at a sport with microtransactions and loot containers, glad to see Nintendo shutting it down,’” Nelson says. “And I mentioned, ‘We’ve no microtransactions or loot containers, checkmate, it’s important to purchase our sport.’” This interplay (one other joke!) which Nelson says led to a sale, may clarify why he can’t fairly cease goofing about his video games, whilst he stays honest about genuinely not making an attempt to mislead anybody.
“I feel lots of people wish to be handled with dignity, and there’s numerous incentive buildings in our world to take away that human dignity and scale back folks to utilitarian ideas, as a substitute of human beings with souls and experiences and beliefs,” Nelson says. “And, yeah, as a result of [Sunshine Shuffle’s banning] is uncommon, as a result of it’s eye catching. And since it’s, frankly, probably the most traumatic issues I’ve encountered in my profession, this provides me a improbable alternative to talk to folks as folks. And in uncommon situations the place individuals are reacting negatively or abrasively, generally flip that totally round.”
There’s a cheerful ending too: After our dialog, an e-mail from the PR agency representing Sunshine Shuffle introduced that the sport will likely be launched on the North American eShop on Wednesday, Could 31. It stays banned within the Republic of Korea.