Pro Philosopher 2 News

• Fixed a bug where trying to call a certain chart fan a fascist during his first arguments would break reality and stop all the argument buttons from working. You are now properly able to nuke your credibility, if you please.
  
• Added a few more valid options in Finale 2 and Finale 3.
  
• Replaced the clarification for the final statement in Finale 3 with a slightly more flavorful one (which had been written initially for a cut statement but still works there.)
  

Keep the thoughts coming! Here and on Discord, we be gobbling them thoughts up.

Hey all,
Games out. People seem to be liking it. WOO! Feels good. But!
There are a few hiccups people pointed out that were quick and easy to fix, so we did so.

• In Chapter 4, the wording of a few lines made it sound like Lenin came up with the phrase "Dictatorship of the Proletariat." Enough people read them as attribution, so we changed them.
  
• In Chapter 5, the description of "Tribalism" was worded in an unnecessarily complex way. So the wording has been streamlined to be more clear, as you can't "Press for clarification" your own idea slate.
  

We are also investigating a bug where, when loading a save on certain lines, "New Text" will appear at the start of the line. This is a systematic edge case that we missed, so the best fix for this might take a little bit longer!
Thank you everyone who has played the game so far. Keep the notes and feedback coming— we're keeping an eye both here and on the discord!

THE DAY IS HERE!! After 5 years of working nights and weekends, Pro Philosopher 2 is finally live. Anime Locke, Machiavelli, Confucius and Marx have been eager to challenge each and every one of you, as have all the other characters we have yet to reveal. I trust you'll give them a good (verbal) fight.

To celebrate the big day, we've made a new trailer! And it's easily our most unique yet. When you publish your own indie game, no one can stop you from making a music video:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We had a blast putting this together! And if you got the words "Pro Philosopher 2" stuck in your head, well, that's kinda the point. Thanks to our composer Matt Klingensmith, our sound designer Chris Burgess, and singer DNCrystal for helping us produce something special.

[h2]A Wild Soundtrack Approaches![/h2]


Speaking of music, this trailer track will serve as the final cherry on top of the official Pro Philosopher 2 Soundtrack. While it's not available just yet, the soundtrack will contain high-quality renders of every musical track in the game. And there is QUITE A BIT of music in Pro Philosopher 2; at least twice as much as the original game. Everything from character themes to tonal pieces; just what you need for a hard day of philosophizing. Keep an eye out for its release in the coming weeks!

Check out the page here.

[h2]So... go play![/h2]


I really cannot overemphasize just how excited and grateful we are that you all took an interest in this game. "Philosophy Debating Sim" isn't the most marketable of concepts, but if the original Socrates Jones showed us anything, it's that there are a bunch of wierdos, just like us, who are hungry to engage empathetically with fascinating ideas and with one another.

We'll be paying close attention to feedback over the next few weeks, and we have a few more events planned where you'll be able to interact with the devs. So join the discussion on Discord or here on the Steam forums to stay in the loop!

Happy Philosophizing,
Connor

Wow! Can you believe Pro Philosopher 2 launches next week? We've been working on it for years and we still have to pinch ourselves sometimes.

We've made a lot of significant changes to the game in the past months and weeks, finalizing everything so you can have the best experience possible when you enter the Intelligible Realm next Tuesday.

But why wait?!

We're launching a new demo that contains the ENTIRE FIRST CHAPTER of the game with all the bells and whistles that you can expect in the full game, including improved animations and sound effects!

And yes, your progress will carry over when you play the full game! We're cool like that. ;)

I have to warn you, it's going to be difficult. This is quite possibly the most difficult philosophical quandary ever faced by humankind.

The question is posed by your roommate, Jennifer.

It is...

[h3]Should[/h3]
[h2]You[/h2]


It's up to you to survive Jenn-Ageddon and the intricacies of roommate relationships, but we trust in your reasoning capabilities.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2120070/Pro_Philosopher_2_Governments__Grievances/

We hope you'll enjoy sharing the world of Pro Philosopher 2: Governments and Grievances with us, and we can't wait to hear what you think!

If you have any feedback or bug reports, feel free to post them on the Steam Forums or hop into our Discord to make new Philosophy friends!

And most importantly, get ready to party!!! Or not. That's up to you.

Philosophy Quote of the Day:
"YOLO" - Unknown

- Moderator Morgan

A game is many things. Words. Pictures. Sounds. Code…

Mostly those four things.

We are hard at work getting Pro Philosopher 2: Governments and Grievances ready to launch and we are psyched to bring you along for the ride!

This week we’ll give you a look into the stuff that makes Pro Philosopher so fun to look at. Our art team knocked it out of the park and recently finished ALL the character sprites in the game! That was a tall order considering the number of characters in the game (no I won’t tell you how many), and the many animation frames necessary to make famous philosophers speak.

Here’s Marx’s sprite components. You can see his beard, eyes, and body are all on three different layers. When we want him to speak, we switch out the eyes and beard super fast and voila! The communist, manifested!



Going back in time a little, there were many steps before we got here. It all started with Marx’s character sketches

After the sketches we refined the linework:



Added color:



And finally layered in the animations!



And there you have it, a single sprite for Pro Philosopher 2! Now imagine doing that fourteen times and you have an idea of how hard our artists’ are working to bring you shouting philosophers.

…Ah, dang it. I said I wasn’t going to reveal how many characters there are in Pro Philosopher 2! Ah well, now that the cats out of the bag; there are fourteen characters in Pro Philosopher 2! That’s almost DOUBLE the amount of characters in Socrates Jones: Pro Philosopher. (Which you should still go play.)

In addition to the character art, we’re doing a final pass on our environment and settings. The Intelligible Realm will look a bit different than what we had in the demo — an adjusted style that we think works better with our other art! Now those floating pillars practically leap out of your computer screen.

Out with the old.


In with the new!


The Intelligible Realm is one of a few different locations you’ll explore in the final game! But that’s actually all I’m saying on THAT matter.

The last major component of our art is the cutscene stills — which some of you might have seen caught making an appearance here and there. Like everything else in 2, we’re super happy with how they are turning out, and looking forward to sharing more!

Another incredibly important aspect of the Pro Philosopher franchise is yelling nonsense super loud. Since it's so important, we decided to make Ariadne’s NONSENSE shine with a custom animation. Check out this work in progress of her animation compared to her father’s. Maybe the two of them are more similar than Ari thinks?





We hope you’ve enjoyed this look into our art process! Expect more Dev Logs soon with insights into the writing process, code adjustments, and audio design we are finishing before launch. We recently hired an audio designer, Chris Burgess, who worked with Val and Connor on Guild Wars 2 making Charr Metal Concerts, so expect the sounds of Pro Philosopher to get a refresh too. I wonder what other kinds of audio delights they will cook up…

Which of these topics would you like us to hit next? Let us know in our comments, or on our Twitter, Discord, or even Tumblr!

It’s incredible what our artists have been able to accomplish, especially in the midst of some pretty rough stuff. As you may or may not know, we are a nights and weekends studio; all of us are also working for other big games companies. This month one of our artists was affected by the recent wave of game developer layoffs in addition to facing some difficult life circumstances. For that reason, we hope you’ll be flexible with us on our October 8th release date. While there are no plans to delay the game at present we will continue to keep you updated!

So until next time, this is your community manager Morgan signing off. Be sure to show the artists in your life some love this week!

Quote of the Dev Log:
“Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake” -Kurt Vonnegut

OH YEAH: If you still want more info and also happen to be heading to PAX west, you can catch our lead narrative designer Connor Fallon on the Micro-Indies panel Monday, September 2nd at 2:30 in the Firebird theater! We hope to see you there!