What is the P For Pistol game?
P For Pistol is a lewd indie shooter I've been building solo since late 2023. It's an adult indie game coming to Steam. Think top-down shooter meets, well, me. Pistol Taeja. That's the whole pitch.
I started this thing on a budget of absolutely nothing, which is kind of the whole point of this site. If you've read my piece on whether indie developers should bother with SEO, you'll know I'd rather spend my time making the game than farming content. So think of this page as the honest, unfiltered origin story.
P For Pistol is a fun, 2D, top down, single player, shooter that pits the player as a magical dick pistol wielding heroin against a cast of perverse super powered foes.
The game is a wave based shooter that accumulates in a duel against the final four bosses of the game, the most powerful foes in the region.
In a world full of average folks, The Pistol, as he is eponymous known, is one of the rare individuals who have gained seemingly super powered abilities using their creativity as fuel.
This feat is not limited to men of good intentions, evildoers have gained abilities of their own and are running amok in town, The Pistol must defeat them and bring them to face justice.
How the gameplay works
I wanted something that felt immediate. You pick it up, you understand it in thirty seconds, and then the game does what it needs to do. I'll let you figure out the rest for yourself. The shooter mechanics are intentionally simple. The rest is not.
The development of P For Pistol has been a case study in scope control. Every time I've been tempted to bolt on something new, I've asked myself whether it makes the core loop better. Most of the time the answer is no, and I cut it. This approach is what I wrote about in my post on how I keep creative projects from spiralling. Same principle applies to games.
The Pistol can summon additional guns and ligaments at will, ranging from a babies leg to dodge or flame throwers to light up the stage.
Choose a variety of traits to transform your Pistol, but be aware, every transformation is a contract and it has its price.
We have planned roughly waves of enemies to be defeated and 1-4 boss fights, to be revealed as we develop.
The final boss is, The Piston, he can do everything you can but better.
Building it solo on a shoestring
Solo development for an adult indie game on Steam is a specific kind of pain. Steam's content policies, the adult content flag, the age-gate. You're dealing with all of that on top of actually making the thing.
I've been using Absolutely Skint as my development diary of sorts. The site runs on the same custom SDK I built myself, which should tell you everything about my willingness to take the hard route.
P For Pistol Legacy is intended to be a free version of the game while it is development.
We are a team of one programmer, one illustrator and one 3d artist. We regularly post updates on social media and welcome new ideas for mechanics or designs to make the game even more fun.
The intended full release date in 2024/2025, on a desktop platform.
The Pistol
The character and the name
The game is named after me. That's either extremely confident or extremely stupid, and I'm not sure which. The main character carries a pistol. I am Pistol Taeja, indie game developer and the person responsible for Absolutely Skint. It tracks.
The decision to make P For Pistol lewd wasn't an afterthought. Adult indie games on Steam are a real market with a real audience, and I figured if I'm going to make a game with personality, I should commit to it. Half measures don't sell.
The hip thrusting vigilant and playable character, able to transform his limbs into various weaponry.
Lunch
Design decisions I regret slightly
There's a section of this game I internally called "Lunch" during development. I won't explain why. What I will say is that some design decisions that feel hilarious at 2am look slightly different in the morning. I kept them anyway. That's the job.
(Details are subject to change)
The second playable character, Lunch, what she lacks in clothing she makes up for with a cardboard box able to summon utility items which can be used for combat.
The Piston
Where P For Pistol is headed
The plan is Steam. That's it. No early access bait-and-switch, no crowdfunding campaign where I promise features I can't deliver. Just finish the thing, get it through Steam's content review, and put it in front of the people who want it.
I'm also building out the world that P For Pistol sits in. Absolutely Skint is home to a few projects. Pan Airways is the other big one, and they both share the same chaotic, underfunded energy. P For Pistol is the rawest of the lot. Make of that what you will.
The local crime lord has a bone to pick with you and the gang. He is one of the featured bosses to be defeated.
