SIGNUM MALUM bonus disc

Hello!

Thank you so much for playing SIGNUM MALUM. The reaction was overwhelming and I loved reading all your comments about how the story and characters resonated with you. I honestly thought I was making an indulgent porn game, so it was a big surprise to discover it was actually a story about gender, sexual dynamics and OCD lol.

I thought I'd share some of the development files I made for it, if you'd find that interesting.

The brief for Trans Joy Jam was to create 'a vision for a better future'. The only criteria for entry was that your work contained one trans/genderqueer character, and to "have at least one positive ending - stories focusing on the harsh realities of the world are accepted, but we want at least one outcome where the characters can live happily or have an optimistic future ahead of them".

I was conscious of avoiding the obvious interpretation of "trans characters experiencing joy" and started with looking at what 'trans joy' means for me. This what I wrote:

• Being able to build my identity from scratch. Nothing is set in stone.
• Freedom. Not being bound down by what society expects of you.
• Finding people who love me as I am now, not this fake version of me that never existed. Deadnaming feels like they're talking about another person, because they are. T4T frees you of that and general societal expectations
• Killing the cop in your mind
• Being comfortable with every part of yourself, and changing the parts you're not

These would be the themes that guided the tone of my game. I also decided to be as self-indulgent as possible and so 'trans joy' also included "things Izzie P specifically would love", such as a council flat in the Barbican.

In terms of a concept, this is what first came to me:

• "Being dirty -> getting clean. Kind of bdsm of a clean freak maid and her mucky puppyboy gf. It's about queering a trad home life and creating a new home to feel safe in"

SIGNUM MALUM's working title up until the last moment was "Maidboy and Puppygirl get Mucky", and bar a few changes of pronouns that concept basically stuck.

A lot of people commented on how they liked the textures/visual stylings which I found very sweet. The inspiration for this came from a few places: the use of video in the Super Videotome Modded demo,  janky FMV point n click games, and the beautifully crunchy dithering by the members of DOMINO CLUB (a style I found was called ditherpunk). Of course, the main reason is I want to turn my refusal to learn how to draw backgrounds into a stylistic multimedia flair LOL.

The credits video is probably my favourite part of the whole game, and the final thing I made for it. I struggled a lot through this Jam with conflicting thoughts on who I was as an artist, and how the world perceived me: would releasing such an indulgent, clearly pornographic game ruin my chances of ever having a 'normal' career? I've entertained ideas of being a children's book illustrator in the past, and this would surely put an end to that path.

By using my body as a tool (like i had for the entire development process) to destroy and remake my characters, I wanted to get across this idea that I am the reason this exists. Pervert shit doesn't exist without perverts, and we are real people. As the UK enacts legislation to wipe indie pornographers and erotic artists from the internet (our final bastion after society has abandoned us) I don't want people to ignore those who make erotic art they jerk it to. There is a trans body behind the anime foot gifs.

Anyway yeah! That's it I think. Thank you for playing, and for reading til the end. I've got lots of projects in the works, and Madoka willing I can upload them without the UK government sending me to jail. I should be uploading my Wallace & Gromit toxic T4T comic here next week, once I work out how itch payments work.

Thank you bye bye!!!

Izzie P. xx

~~~

(P.S. While you wait, why not check out the transfem standup special Wokeflake that I did the backgrounds, concept art and animation for? "How can a standup special have such things?" I hear you plead? Well, watch it and find out! It's free on youtube, so no excuses.)