Trivia / Goodbye Volcano High

• Acting for Two:
  • Abe Bueno-Jallad voices Naser, Saeed, and Trent.
  • Mark Whitten voices Reed, Mango, newscaster Terry, and the principal.
  • Allegra Clark voices Naomi and Nick.
  • Sarah Elmaleh voices Stella and LJ.
  • Dahlia Salem voices Sabah and Ms. Roberts.
• Actor-Shared Background: Both Rosa and her voice actress, Dee Revilla, are latina women.
• Ascended Fanon: In the game's official Discord, one user's headcanon that Nick and cut character Leo were cousins was eventually decreed canon by a member of the staff.
• Author's Saving Throw: The game's reveal was tainted by the revelation that Kate Gray, one of the game's writers, wrote a controversial article on Kotaku regarding video games and pornography. Kate was let go from KO_OP, and a new writing team was brought on to rewrite the game's story without her input, assuaging concerns.
• The Cast Showoff: For two songs ("Won't Forget" and "12 o'clock"), Fang's speaking voice artist, Lachlan Watson, performs the song instead of Brigitte Naggar, to show off Watson's singing skill.
• Content Leak: Datamining the game's second demo revealed subtitle files for an earlier draft of the game's story. While it gave a general outline for the story beats, it didn't include names to go with the subtitle text, which prevented some scenes' context from being spoiled, and many scenes differ from the final version.
• Creator's Favorite: Kyle McKernan, the game's designer and co-director, has stated that Reed is his favorite character.
• Creator's Oddball: KO_OP is better known for making small, short puzzle games with simple narratives. By contrast, Goodbye Volcano High is much larger in scope than previous projects and has multiple, heavier narratives.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Nick (a guy) is voiced by Allegra Clark (a woman).
• Defictionalization: Fang's "They/Them" patch was created and sold as official merchandise on TheYetee.
• Delayed Release Tie-In: Much of the game's merchandise was released a year before the game itself, but came back in stock in time for the official release.
• Development Gag:
  • In Chapter 2, after the auditorium scene, Stella asks Fang if Naser and Naomi are dating, which Fang denies. This calls back to the game's story before the narrative reboot, where the two were dating.
  • Flashbacks show that in junior year, Fang wore pants with skeleton leg prints on them. This calls back to an early design Fang had during development, who wore black skeleton leggings.
  • The reveal trailer showcased Fang playing a bass guitar for Worm Drama, which bizarrely also had Trish on bass, giving the band two bassists and no guitarist. This was changed to them both being guitarists, but multiple scenes call back to this by showing Fang's four string bass guitar in the background of their bedroom.
• Inspiration for the Work:
  • In interviews, the developers have cited Life Is Strange and Night in the Woods as inspiration for the gameplay.
  • In the May 2023 interview, for the game's story, they cite inspiration from early seasons of Riverdale (for teenagers forced to mature in dangerous times), DEVILMAN crybaby (for its bleak tone), and Free! (for its character interactions).
• Invisible Advertising: Following the anti-LGBT backlash to the game's reveal, Sony hardly promoted the game since; the number of times they've done so can be counted on one hand. Because of this, many assumed the game had quietly been cancelled and were surprised when it finally came out.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The game's two demos were both pulled from Steam, leaving them only available through third-party downloads.
• Line to God: The developers have a Twitter and an official Discord server, where fans can ask the developers questions regarding the game's lore.
• Mid-Development Genre Shift: The game was originally envisioned as a darkly humorous and ironic Dating Sim, but as development progressed, the team realized they wanted to tell a more serious and meaningful story, leading the game to be retooled into a cinematic narrative game.
• Missing Trailer Scene: Almost everything from the 2020 Reveal Trailer is absent from the final game due to it being made before the game's narrative reboot and from before the game's visual style was finalized.
• No Dub for You: The game only has an English dub, with subtitles available in six other languages.
• No Port For You: The game's console release is exclusive to PlayStation 4 and 5, with no ports for Xbox or Nintendo Switch announced.
• Non-Singing Voice: A zig-zagged example. Fang's singing voice is usually provided by Brigitte Naggar, also known as Common Holly. However, Fang's talking voice artist, Lachlan Watson, also sings as Fang, and the voices are remarkably similar. In-game, Watson's recordings are used for the "Won't Forget", "12 o'clock", and "Pretty Heroes" performances, while Naggar's recordings are used for the rest, and "Going Away" features them performing a duet.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends:
  • According to online rumors, the game was delayed due to 4chan accurately predicting the game's ending and triggering a Creator Breakdown, except no evidence backing this claim has ever surfaced. The game was already being rewritten as far back as August 2020, and the developers have said in interviews that the game's delays were due to the rewrite, COVID, avoiding crunch, and dealing with mental health problems stemming from anti-LGBT harassment.
  • In September 2023 a "leaked script" supposedly containing the game's original story before Kate Grey was let go began to circulate online. This is attributed to a group called the "IFV Team" who allegedly worked on the game's Spanish translation. However, the document has no sources to prove any of its claims, the team is not credited in the game (with its Spanish translation attributed to a different company), and heavily features Leo, a character that had been removed during the game's Mid-Development Genre Shift.
• Queer Character, Queer Actor:
  • Both Fang and their voice talent, Lachlan Watson, are non-binary and go by they/them pronouns.
  • Both transgender characters, Sage and Rosa, are voiced by transgender voice artists (Jensen Trani and Dee Revilla respectively).
  • Both Naomi and her voice actress, Allegra Clark, are queer, as she has a crush on Fang.
• Queer Show Ghetto: It was speculated to fall into this when it was first revealed due to its largely queer cast, including nonbinary lead character. Upon release, Sony barely promoted it and few mainstream gaming press outlets covered it.
• Release Date Change: Originally meant to release in 2021, the game's Troubled Production lead to it being delayed to 2022, then to June 16, 2023, and then finally to August 29, 2023.
• Saved from Development Hell: The game was announced at Sony's June 2020 "Future of Gaming" online event with a slated release of 2021. However, the COVID-19 Pandemic and a major rewrite of the story delayed the game indefinitely, with the date moving to a fuzzy 2022. That November, the game was delayed again to summer 2023, though the announcement came paired with a new trailer depicting gameplay and a new song. And finally, the trailer from the February 2023 "State of Play" gave a release date of June 15th. Following the release of the game's first demo at LudoNarraCon, the game was delayed to August 29th, with the developers putting out a statement that they would not have met their June 15th release date without crunch. The game went gold on August 21st and was released on the 29th as planned.
• Shrug of God: LJ's real name is always responded to this way when the developers are asked.
• Troubled Production: The game's lead writer was fired shortly after the game was publicly revealed in June 2020, and a new writing team was brought on to redo the story, leading to a narrative reboot. This was coupled by production being disrupted by the COVID-19 Pandemic forcing developers to work remotely. Worse, the game had been facing anti-LGBT trolling since its reveal, which only intensified after the 2021 release of the parody game Snoot Game. The harassment got so bad that, according to the developers, mental health and morale declined so severely among the team that the game was almost cancelled.
• What Could Have Been: Has its own page.
• Word of God: The developers sometimes reveal information on their social media and in their Discord community, including:
  • Ms. Roberts' first name is "Misty".
  • All of the Swamp Babies are cisgender men (clearing up the Viewer Gender Confusion surrounding Nick).
• Working Title: "Project Fang" and "Jurassic High", before the game's final name was chosen.
• Write What You Know: Narrative director Jenna Yow wrote the scene between Fang and Sage in episode 4 based on their own experiences as a nonbinary person.

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