If you’re into inexplicable games, then you’ll love PINEAPPLE: A Bittersweet Revenge. This adventure is about defeating a witch using a pineapple, and no, the pineapple is not actually a sword or a bomb, it’s just a pineapple. Of course, there’s a twist the witch is a bully from your school. You can’t defeat her with punches because she’s three heads taller than you, so you come up with a convoluted plan. You’re going to drive her crazy by putting a pineapple everywhere she goes.
So when she has a date, a pineapple will show up instead of the guy. When she opens her locker, there will be a pineapple… PINEAPPLE: A Bittersweet Revenge is very original in this aspect. The game takes you through a lot of crazy situations where you enjoy watching the bully suffer as she goes crazy because of you.
PINEAPPLE: A Bittersweet Revenge is a title with vibrant and bold art, loads of humor, and a story to tell. The narrative of the game isn’t all based on jokes, as it wants us to wonder: do bullies dream of becoming bullies?
As you can see, it’s a very original video game, maybe too much. In fact, its creators have acknowledged that it’s very difficult to explain because, how do you sell a game that is so hard to categorize? The fact that PINEAPPLE: A Bittersweet Revenge is extremely rare is part of its charm, but do these kinds of proposals have a place in a world based on algorithms, labels, closed genres, and trends?
The pineapple is your best weapon
“We have difficulty explaining the game,” Dani tells me, the project director at Patrones y Escondites, “in the end, someone came and told us: hey, this could be a pranking simulator because the story is about you arriving at a new school where a bully makes your life miserable. Until one day you decide to end it, and you buy a pineapple. With that pineapple, you’ll play pranks on her until she goes crazy.”
The resolution of each prank is solved with a set of unique mechanics and dynamics, leading the player to situations filled with humor
Dani chuckles as he explains further: “you place a pineapple in the library, at her house, on her desk. And you escalate until she goes crazy.” This is the hilarious part of Patrones y Escondites’ game, which is a series of outrageous pranks that you participate in creating. The player has a notebook where all the movements of the bully, her passwords, what she likes and dislikes are noted, as the victim has been following her for weeks. With a clear agenda in mind, we use this information to sneak into places without her noticing and we put a pineapple in the most unexpected places. Borja Abadía, responsible for the game’s marketing and communication, calls it “Wario Ware with a story” because the resolution of each prank is solved with a set of mechanics and dynamics of its own, leading the player to situations with a lot of humor, very dark and biting.
A prank simulator? A Wario Ware with a story?
“We have used social media organically, talked to people, attended fairs, participated in contests to seek awards, but it’s very hard to explain the game,” Beatriz, the producer at Patrones y Escondites tells me. “Steam is a great platform, but it’s the dictatorship of wishlists. If you don’t reach the number of wishlists you should, you don’t exist,” adds Borja.
“Steam is a great platform, but it’s the dictatorship of wishlists”
And here lies the big problem. It’s easy to communicate and explain a video game like the recent Altered Alma. It’s an action metroidvania with powerful pixel art, okay, understood, it already has 200,000 backers on Kickstarter. However, it’s not as simple when you have something as new as a prank simulator in your hands. To start gaining visibility on Steam’s algorithm, “you need around 7000 wishlists,” but PINEAPPLE: A Bittersweet Revenge only managed to reach 2000; not because it’s good or bad, but because it’s not easy to explain with an image or a video, and that makes it difficult to become someone’s desire. You have to play it to understand it. That’s the wishlist dictatorship that Borja refers to.
This problem was compounded by the fact that “60 other games were released on Steam on the same day,” further overshadowing the pineapple and witch title. Unfortunately, this is not a problem that only PINEAPPLE: A Bittersweet Revenge has faced. It’s a situation that many independent studios encounter. After years of development, one bad launch day and not following the trends of popular genres can send you into oblivion.
The plan to make the pineapple and witch game a success
But Patrones y Escondites have not stood still. They have started to release videos explaining how fun the pranks in the game are, reinforcing that interesting concept of a prank simulator. They have also begun developing their new video game to build a community.
Like PINEAPPLE: A Bittersweet Revenge, their new adventure is a crazy video game that places importance on the story they want to tell. By doing so, they will gradually build a community that understands them. In other words, they rely on what is known as the long tail, on the gradual sales that occur after the launch over several months. Nowadays, long tail strategies are gaining more strength as it’s becoming increasingly challenging to stand out in a world dominated by wishlists on the day you hit the market.
And what can we do as players? If you, like us, enjoy crazy and strange games, it’s always best to add the titles that need support to your wishlists. You see that you’re not doing it just to get notified by Steam of their release, but to give them more visibility. That will help them sell more and ensure that only games of familiar genres are released. With all that explained, are you ready to defeat the witch with your pineapple?
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