I HATE YOU, PLEASE SUFFER (2023) - “I want you to live a normal life and die a normal death.”

By Dari

Follow the developer elsewhere: (Itch.io, Writing)

Many people go into games wanting to feel accomplished. Not accomplished in the sense that they’re winning something, but gamers want to feel powerful on top of that. I did not want gamers to feel empowered in I Hate You, Please Suffer.

Let me clarify a bit. I didn’t want a straight up power fantasy. I want a happy ending in sight, but I want players to struggle for it. I don’t want players to find the same kind of joy in winning big fights as they would in any other game, because these victories are just par for the course. In this game, the main character Ramona is forced to become an adventurer to make money to pay rent. There’s overarching continuity between the jobs and work she does and friends to make, but there’s no true linear story thread that you’d want out of a standard RPG - at least in the main game. It’s all just work, after all. The world will never significantly change, there’s no grand evil on the horizon - unless you count the mundane goal of paying rent and moving out.

Part of maintaining these vibes lies in tying setbacks to good things in gameplay or putting a cost to them. The player will eventually need to sleep or eat, which heals and changes stats. However, stats will not always change for the better. A heartful meal will give everyone extra health but lower speed, hanging out at home may result in a cringy incident that makes everyone’s magic defense decrease from the sheer psychic damage. Traveling between maps also presents its own issues. Buses are cheap to ride, but there’s a chance to lose something on the bus. You can take a rideshare as a sort of insurance from that and you don’t need to walk all the way to a bus stop to travel, but the cost of calling a ride increases with every party member.

Progressing through the game and doing quests is good for Ramona’s finances, but she’ll build up enemies in the process. After fighting the early slime boss, different versions of that slime boss becomes a recurring enemy that chases you on the map, an eternal punishment for daring to progress the game. Upon beating the quest involving the raccoon loving Stanley, Stanley also has a chance of appearing on the map to chase you down and force you into a rematch. Of course, Stanley will become a chaser eventually in that his quest will be cleared offscreen if you put off doing his quest, but that in itself carries an additional punishment in that you lose out on the reward you would have gotten if you had done the quest yourself. There are only a few quests that don’t have some kind of negative consequence, but you’re gonna work hard for that.

But speaking of the Stanley quest being cleared offscreen, the world is full of allies - even to your detriment. Ramona and her crew are hardly the only adventurers, because after all, adventuring is a cottage industry. The other adventurers have their own mini arcs that eventually cross into the game’s main quests, and that includes sniping those bounty side quests, because they are also working the same hustles. In the latter part of the game, Ramona works alongside these other adventurers, who will pitch in with attacks in battle. Lose a pivotal boss battle, though? The quest will end early, with the other adventurers clearing things offscreen. After all, Ramona and her friends are main characters to the player, but not in the world. She’ll still be paid for participating, but all the extra rewards that could be gained from seeing things all the way through will forever be out of reach.

And extra emphasis on “forever.” One of the main mechanics of I Hate You, Please Suffer is that there’s only one file that autosaves. Took a nap and got a stat change that wasn’t favorable? Sorry, that’s locked in, now. Lose a weapon on the bus because you couldn’t afford the pricier rideshare that prevents that? That’s also getting saved. Every notable victory, every notable setback will be saved - because that’s just what it means to live an honest life.

But what if you wanted to feel like the main character? A true, proper RPG hero instead of somebody just doing jobs to make money? Somebody not looking to live a humble living? That’s where the game’s alternate route comes in.

The main idea of the alternative route is “what if Ramona was a more proper main character?” I approached that idea down the route of saying, “okay, what if this sucks, actually?”

Ramona gets a power-up in this route with new skills, meant to feel like a character that discovered a new power. But this blessing comes with a cost. This power-up is facilitated by a character that wishes to live vicariously through her and is meant to be a negative caricature of players that come into a game wishing to live a power fantasy through the main character. Ramona now views the last set of quests as a stepping stone to greater power and respect, now strung together in a linear order. This even comes at the expense of her friends, with her relationship to them being compromised as she worries about destroying their boundaries while her sponsor urges her to treat them like she’s a harem protagonist. In this route, she gets a “main villain” of sorts in reaction to her more open and flagrant do-gooding, but that villain is out of reach to the player - because even with the heavy cost of making such an enemy, I don’t want the player to get the satisfaction of beating that enemy. This is a route where Ramona is selfish and power hungry, and her truly “winning” goes against my ideal of living a humble life.

But that “main villain” can be confronted on the normal route as the last big optional boss. Ramona and her friends accomplished their humble goals, but at this moment, they can aim higher and do a big incidental act of goodness before settling down with the simple goal Ramona earned. In fighting this boss, they’re helped by all the adventurers that they’ve worked with in getting to that point. Winning is a big victory, but it’s not a big victory for the player’s party, but a shared victory for everyone you’ve met and worked with. It’s undeniably a huge win and you’re basically guaranteed to have enough money to finish the game, but by having other characters help and win alongside you, there’s a humbling edge put on the act.

I Hate You, Please Suffer is not a game about attaining huge cathartic victories, but a game about trying to successfully live modestly, and I hoped to have achieved that with my narrative choices and gameplay mechanics. It’s honestly not gonna be a game for everyone, especially those that want a little more out of life. But it’s a game for me, and I’m proud of that.

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