POP THE LOCK 2

During my time at Simple Machine, I worked on ‘Pop The Lock,’ a casual arcade/rhythm game franchise.

Pop The Lock games have 30-million+ downloads on mobile and arcade cabinets across America in Dave & Busters.

Players must tap in a perfectly timed sequence to crack the code and “pop the lock.”

The job:

Write funny captions (flavor text, copy) for in-game items like the collectible “hats”.
- Captions should read like funny tweets and build on the studio’s humor.
- Fun, hyper, punny.
Help develop and expand on the overall voice and world of the franchise.
Iterate on gameplay mechanics.
Quality assurance and play-testing.

Some of my favorite captions I wrote for this project, as they appear in-game:

Game art/3D models by Nao Shimizu, property of Simple Machine, LLC.

Process:

A spreadsheet was created with columns for captions. New unlockables / collectibles (hats) were added to the sheet as the 3D models were finished, and captions were submitted daily leading up to the launch. This process required me to always be “on” — rapidly coming up with puns, meta-humor, and quirky one-liners in a short space of time.

Re-writes/edits expected back the same day.

This spreadsheet process is also common when writing dialogue, specifically character one-liners and reaction options. Think: the funny banter between fighting game characters before you hear, “Round 1...Fight!”