Trivia / Pedestal (2021)

• Creator's Oddball: Uri has stated that Pedestal is very different from her other games, which players confirmed when it was released; it's not an Explorer Horror but more of a mystery/exploration game, and it heavily involves conversing with other characters to uncover information as opposed to the environmental puzzles common in her other games. It's also the one game Uri has made that doesn't have a clear-cut happy ending (all of Uri's previous games have at least one ending with a largely positive outcome), as the Big Bad goes unpunished in every ending while the protagonist is brought to the Despair Event Horizon in the third ending.
• Development Hell: Pedestal was either stuck here or an Extremely Lengthy Creation; the game was announced in 2014 (The Sandman included a preview) and Uri's website listed it as being in development for several years, with it finally being released seven years later in 2021 (only in Japan, with it taking an entire year for it to be translated and released in other countries in December of 2022). Uri released two more games in the Strange Men Series after 2014 and then released updated remakes of her completed games between 2018 and 2020, so it may be she prioritized these games over Pedestal. Pedestal also features questioning around 100 NPCs as a major game mechanic, so writing out and implementing all the dialogue was likely time-consuming as well.
• Late Export for You: Pedestal was completed in 2021, but hadn't been released outside of Japan until 2022. Uri allowed her translator vgperson to play through the game and potentially translate it, but said they weren't under obligation to do so. vgperson stated that while they were interested in translating the game into English, they didn't plan on doing it any time soon (if at all) because it's an extremely dialogue-heavy game and so it would be highly time-consuming (Uri also stated that the game's plot is heavily steeped in Japanese culture, to the point it might be confusing to explain things to non-Japanese players). Eventually, an English translation was completed and released in late 2022.

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