I was lucky enough to ask a few questions towards the mind behind Sloppy Forgeries, an Upcoming Indie art-chaos game, Here’s what they had to say!

What inspired you to make Sloppy Forgeries?

It was a combination of things. I’ve always loved drawing and painting—as a kid and then as an art major in college. When I became a professor, I thought about games I enjoy and like to study, which resulted in drawing games.

I was also making small games on the side and had just created Word After Word, a competitive local multiplayer word game using multiple keyboards. After getting the multiple keyboards thing to work, I knew I could do the same for mice and started brainstorming games that would use two mice simultaneously.

The research and brainstorming naturally led to thinking about multi-mice drawing games. I had also done some image processing work in grad school, so knew how to compare images. The last question was what to copy? Famous paintings and the name quickly followed.

If time and budget weren’t an issue, what’s the wildest mode or feature you’d add to Sloppy Forgeries?

If budget weren’t an issue, I’d love for Sloppy Forgeries to be twitter for drawing/painting (before it became X and was ruined by a certain someone). What I mean by that, is a thoughtful drawing tool with a time limit where that limitation makes the prospect of art-making less daunting and more fun. All work on the platform would be made in three-minutes or less. Mobile-first.

This idea partially came from a critique of a painting I was doing as a senior in college. I was starting a landscape painting and had just finished the underpainting and a quick glaze of color over it. My professor walked by, looked over my shoulder and said, “You’re done.” My brain kind of exploded. I stopped painting. I’m glad I did. The painting has this wonderful energy that would have been lost if I had kept working.

Do you get more joy out of seeing players compete seriously, or just absolutely butcher the paintings for laughs?

Great question. One of my favorite parts of Sloppy Forgeries is that it can be played in these two completely different ways. Initially, this made development challenging. I felt like I had to choose a path. Then I realized that it can be both: I’ll embrace serious play in single player and for-laughs in multiplayer. And of course the reality is people can play it however they want. That’s the beauty of games.

TBH, I get more joy out of people laughing at what they’ve made afterwards. However, as an experience myself, I play it seriously. I think that might be the pattern for a lot of folks. You start for the laugh and then continue playing seriously after a certain point.

What experience do you have in game development? Is this your first game?

I’m a game design professor, so it’s not my first rodeo. A few I’ve worked on include:

[Ayiti: The Cost of Life](www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWxG…)

[Pangolin](www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDO7…)

[Word After Word] (playfulsystems.com/word-after-w…)

It’ll be the first game I’ve released in a few years, however. The development journey has been quite a ride. I made my first prototype about 7 years ago. It was received well and shown widely, but then came COVID, small children, job obligations, life, etc… I had the opportunity to continue working on it just over a year ago. Since then, it’s been a blast. I’ve learned a lot. And it’s been really nice to see it starting to find a community as well.

And finally… Be honest, how good are you at your own game?

Pretty good. I’ve been playing for 7 years, so there’s that. Surprisingly, I still enjoy it. I always feel like I can squeeze another half a point or two. I bet once I release it, I won’t be able to make the leaderboards, but that’s part of the fun. There might be artists out there who aren’t great at traditional video games who will REALLY excel at this. That’ll be exciting. Now, just to find them… 🙂

Thank you so much for your time, and we here at InsideXO wish you huge luck with the release, We’ll be sure to share your progress as we hear from you, Our community cant wait to jump in and see what horrors we can create!

Want to chat? Come join the XO Discord, and share your thoughts on the game!

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