Released last month, High on Life 2 from Squanch Games is the bigger, wilder and funnier comedy shooter sequel to 2022’s High on Life. This time around, Squanch added more of everything and tried to one-up the previous game’s over-the-top moments and action. But in doing so, they produced a script with over 10,000 pages, pushed the boundaries of fair use, and almost created a boss fight that was too wacky to pass console certification.
In an email interview with Squanch Games narrative director Alec Robbins, I asked about a boss fight involving an alien sleazebag (voiced wonderfully by Richard Kind) who uses advanced tech to shrink down so small that he can climb into your battle suit and into High On Life 2‘s menus. You then have to fight this bastard inside the game’s actual pause menu and settings. It’s awesome, but it also seemed really tricky to create, something Robbins confirmed.
“The Muppy Doo fight was tough to put together – it was a classic case of making our own bed and having to lie in it,” Robbins told Kotaku via email. “Very early on in development, we had the idea for a fight where the boss shrinks down and goes inside your suit and menus, but actually figuring out exactly how to make that work gameplay-wise was a huge challenge.”
During the fight, the boss enemy actually starts tinkering with High on Life 2‘s real in-game settings, doing things like changing the game’s language, which made some nervous at the studio.
“At certain points, we weren’t actually sure we were allowed to do these things and still get certified for console releases, because you can’t really freely adjust the game’s settings while we’re making those same settings menus part of the gameplay. I’m really proud of what we did there. It was a big swing, and I feel we really pulled it off. Big shoutout to Richard Kind’s performance as Senator Muppy Doo – he tied it all together.”
The story behind High on Life 2‘s awesome intro
Another challenging technical hurdle involved High on Life 2’s incredible intro, which quickly cuts between various moments and scenes rapidly. This intro acts as a tutorial, explains what happened in the first game, and fills players in on what’s happened in the world since that original game. “There’s a lot going on all at once,” admitted Robbins. The narrative director says he and High on Life 2 design director Erich Meyr are both “huge fans” of Blendo Games’ 2012 narrative tour de force Thirty Flights of Loving and wanted to emulate that game’s use of French New Wave-style jump cuts. This was not easy.
“There’s a reason games don’t do jump cuts often,” said Robbins. “It requires instantly loading a completely new environment. But we wanted to give it a shot, and it felt like an exciting way to do a montage of everything the player and their family has been up to that sets the stage for our new story. Getting the pacing right was the biggest challenge – at one point it was actually twice as long! I pulled a recording of it into Adobe Premiere and edited it down to the bare essentials to try to get it feeling as punchy and efficient as possible.”
That intro also contains a lot of optional dialogue that players can just skip if they so desire. The entirety of High on Life 2 is filled with what feels like hours of optional dialogue and jokes. It made me wonder how many voice lines are in the game.
According to Robbins, who didn’t have an exact number, the script for the sequel is over 10,000 pages long. A big reason for this is that nearly every conversation in the game has to feature seven different responses from your talking guns. The wildest part of all this is that, according to Robbins, Squanch only has “about 5” total writers.
Squanch Games could one day make a mystery game
A large chunk of this writing is featured in one of High on Life 2‘s best moments: A murder mystery party that makes the player the detective who must solve the case. Robbins told me that games like Obra Dinn, Golden Idol, The Outer Wilds, and Disco Elysium heavily inspired this segment of the shooter.
“We went out of our comfort zone there, for sure,” said Robbins. “It’s a big ask for the player to take a break in the middle of a Doom-esque FPS to suddenly stop in their tracks and solve a whodunnit, but we just got really excited about it. We also let you skip it entirely if you’re not in the mood, which helps.” And when I asked if the team would be down to make a full-on mystery game, Robbins said “in a heartbeat” and that he hopes that can happen one day. “We got good practice here.”
Something else he and the team have ample practice and experience with after making High on Life and its sequel: Parody law. When I asked how High on Life 2 gets away with a Frasier-themed claw machine or a space variant of Rainforest Cafe, Robbins says it all comes down to his “strong understanding” of fair use.
“I have a strong enough understanding of Fair Use and parody law to know what we can get away with, and I’m grateful our executive team is willing to take these risks for the joke,” said Robbins.
“In the first game, we included a lovingly recreated 3D Applebee’s without asking anyone. Sometimes someone gets wind of what we’re doing and asks us to stop or change something, but usually we just go for it. Frasier is one of [those parodies] we included in both the first game and its DLC, so he’s become kind of our good luck charm like John Ratzenberger is for Pixar. We always have comedian Jon Daly come in and do his Frasier impression. The Crane Machine came from one of our designers, Jerry Belich. It’s one of my favorite jokes in the game.”
High on Life 2 is out now on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. You can read our full review here or check out tips for the game here.
